here. let's start with 13 days in september. where did the idea for this peace process and this summit start? >> it was roseland carter's idea. jimmy carter went and got elected and had in his mind that he wanted to bring peace to the middle east which was a crazy dream. no body in his administration encouraged it but he audited middle east leaders and trying to sound them out and he was disappointed until me met anwar. he fell in love. he said he loved him many times. that is not the normal language of diplomacy. but he was very discouraged about how it was going and finally his wife was at camp david and she said why not bring them here and get them away from the press. they thought they would be three or four days.

gave it a chance. that is how the peace process was born. >> host: what was this view of the monocm bagin? >> guest: he was difficult for carter to work with. but carter had to make the greatest sacrifice. the man's parents were killed in the holocaust and he thought he had the burden of the jewish history on his shoulders and his goal was to expand the goal of safety for jewish people and expanding the size of israel was the goal. so if him to surrender cyanide was to forfeit this stretch of land that separated israel from the egyptioan army.

>> host: did they develop a relationship? >> guest: somewhat. they made history together but didn't personally like each other. it wasn't the kind of relationship carter had with anwar. but they respected each other. and he was assassinated because of the agreement and bagin went to the funeral at a time when not many world leaders did. >> host: what was negotiated during the 13 days? >> guest: there were two parts. one was peace between egypt and israel. egypt is the only arab country that posed a threat to israel's existence. and this was you know as i said very difficult for him to

surrender this conquered territory and trust his enemy. peace between israel and the palestinian palestinians was another part. that was never implemented. it was a road map to what would be envisioned as worthy and just peace. and every since the courts were signed subsiqent attacks were there. >> host: was there thought of bringing the palestinians directly in? >> guest: no. there was only representative, head of pol and declared a terrorist by the united states. it was difficult for carter to actually negotiate with him.

you remember the un ambassador andy young, met with the palestinians and got criticized for saying hello. >> host: in the book you quote israel's founder saying bagin is a hitler-type. >> guest: it was embarrassing and he was a marginal figure and decried by many. but they used him. for instance the attack on the palestinian village by begin's terrorist organization was

authorized and he claimed denyability afterwards. but the official jewish voice provided cover for the attack and begin took the claim. >> host: >> host: previous to 13 days of september was going clear. national book award finalist. what does the phrase going clear mean? >> guest: it is a phrase in scientology. it means we have two minds. one is perfect and like a computer and forgets something and every detail of your experience is available for recall in the rational mind. and there is the reactive mind in which fears and neurosis are

settled. not just in this life but previous ones. so if you can go through your active mind and eliminate the traumatic experiences from your mind then you will be left with this perfect mind and you will iq will be higher. you will not get sick. you will be healthy and smarter than anyone else you meet and you will be clear. >> how did l ron hubbard develop theories? >> guest: he was a science fiction writer so he largely made them up. you can see a lot of what is in his book di -- books -- and he holds the book of records for the number of titles he

published. more than a thousand books. so you can see the precursors of this philosophy is science fiction. and his book dinetics which was a huge new york times best-seller list and a model for the post-world war ii self-help books. there were clubs springing up all over. it was like the hula hoop. it is con temptemporary with that. he wrote it in six weeks and quoted studies that didn't occur. in the scientific community, they look at it with amused awe. it was like psychological folk

art to him. but it was a revelation to a lot of people and it was cheap. you could have therapy. all you need is a friend who could help you get through traumas and get rid of the emotional aspect attached to them and then you are clear. and this took the country by storm. and not just this country. it was an international phenomenal. >> host: how many members are there? >> guest: it depends on if you believe the church's officials figures which are in the range of 10 million. if you look at the abstract of the united states, there are fewer than 25,000. less than half the number call them self rast fairians. but if you a member of the

international association of scientologist world wide there are 50,000. >> host: what is their impact? >> guest: it has been very large. a lot of people pass through so the community of former khattallahscientologist scientologist. and often times people are in the audience who were in the religion and lost family members who disconnected and no longer talk to their mother or son or something like that. it has created a lot of heart ache in families. >> host: do you consider it a

cult? >> guest: i don't use the word cult because i feel like it is a smear word. you can call almost any new religion a cult. and i am not after offending them. i do question the abuses that take place inside the church. all religion is full of exotic beliefs and sometimes bizarre ones. that is fascinating to me. i have been in intrigued by that. but i don't criticize them for believing it. a lot of times people attach themselves to religions not because of the belief but because of the community or personal problems that might be addressed inside that belief organization.

and they do offer those things. but inside the church there is abuse, physical abuse and the incarceration of some of the people in the clergy. so these are the things i think, law enforcement and perhaps the irs should look at the tax exemption which is what keeps the organization alive. >> host: how did they get that tax exemption? >> guest: they sued the irs and hired private investigators to follow agents and went to conventions where you might have irs employees drinking too much or flirting with people they should not be talking to and

they would publish stories in their magazine freedom, about this behavior. so it was maddening to the people in the irs as you can imagine. but on the other hand a deal was struck in 1992. at the time they owed back taxes of a billion dollars and didn't have a billion. and the deal that was struck on whatever the merits of the case were, set those aside, the deal was that they would drop all of the lawsuits and in return their billion dollars would be for given. i think the final fine was $12 million and they were given a tax exemption and the right to

determine whatever portion of the empire deserves a tax exempt exemption. >> host: does the church have a billon today? >> guest: $3 billion is more like it. but most of it is in offshore accounts according to former executives. that is a lot of money. the catholic church would be hard pressed to come up with a billion in cash. but this rather small organization with essentially free labor on the part of the clergy and they have a lot of rich members in the church that are generous. so they have been able to acquire a lot of money and real estate and a battle of lawyers.

>> host: they have a hollywood connection as well. where did that come from? >> guest: when hubbard established the church he chose to set-up in los angeles and create the celebrity center because he knew americans worship one thing and that is celebrities. the church put out a list of potential scientologist and included some of the most famous people in the world. they didn't get many of them but they got a lot of famous people that came into the church. it typically didn't last long. rock hudson briefly in the church. according to legends they lost him because he was in an auditing session and his parking meter overran and they would not

let him go feed the meter and he stormed out and that was the end of the experience for him. they were constantly on the look out for celebrities who could sell the religion the same way a sports star would sell a box of wheaties. the first notable face was john travolta. he was a huge star. the biggest star in the world at one point. then tom cruise. and those are powerful cards putting down when you atrack people. >> what was the reaction from the church when you started the book and it came out with the hbo film? >> when i started the book it

was a magazine profile of a paul haggis. and he dropped out after 34 years. i had been looking for a way to write about this because i am interested in religion and this is the most stigmatized religion and there a lot of famous people in this. and i don't think they get anything out of it. when haggis dropped out i felt like i could write about his experience. i contacted his business manager. it was the only lead i had. and i s wright and i would like to write an article about your client's

decision to leave the church. are you kidding? we would never do that. get off my phone. click. that was the entire conversation except from a the explicits i left out. the next day i got paul's personal e-mail address and i sent him a note and said mr. haggis i had a conversation with your business manager and he said this wasn't the best time to talk. but if there is a time you would like to discuss your spiritual development i get a response very flattered, let's have lunch on tuesday. he was in new york cutting a movie. i flew up and we had lunch and went out on the side walk for him to smoke. and i said we will be talking about your decision to leave the church and his eyes got wide but

he forged ahead. and months later he admitted it never occurred it was going to be about that. he turned out to be a curage source of that. as soon as he agreed, i called the church and talked to ann archer who is a wonderful actress. he said we don't want to see the church depicted through the eyes of a heretic. but he agreed to take me through. that was the phrase. and we needed enough time. we planned for me to come out over the labor day weekend. i came out thursday to los

angeles and spent thursday night, friday, saturday and on sunday afternoon tommy and his wife came to the hotel and said they were not going to take me through this they just wanted to have the opportunity to tell me face to face. thanks a lot! it cost my magazine a considerable amount of money. but he agreed to answer fact checking questions. i am not sure we understood what that meant in new yorker context because we take fact checking seriously and when dealing with on organization such as this. we had a checker -- one checker was on the article for six months full time. by the end we had five,

including the head of the fact checking department. we had the most carefully vetted story in new yorker's proud history of fact checking. but the first questions from the checker to the church was 968 queries. and then that illicited to response of four lawyers coming to new york along with spokespeople. and 47 volumes of white binders of responses to our 968 queries. and it stretched for seven and a half feet. i measured it because i was fascinated. they have given me all of this material. and my editor pulled me aside and said you know what you have here, you have a book. but it was my interview with the

church and it lasted all day. it was very contentious but productive. after that we received a number of legal threats from the church and from individuals who were mentioned in it. and that continued through the publication of the book and documentary. and to this day there is still legal threats and other kinds of harassment. but the things i have been subjected to -- they don't compare to what people who actually cooperated with us have experienced. just continually harassment by private detectives and people that show up with go-pro cameras

and harassing them. one of the sources was noticeing a bird house. there was a cama inside the house. we had a premier at sundance and a couple were followed at the airport. so it continually goes on. >> host: >> host: another magazine article that became a book was the looming tower. where were you on 9/11 and how did that process work were you? >> guest: i was in spanish class. i used to have breakfast every tuesday morning with a group of people who liked to keep their language up. >> host: this was in austin texas? >> guest: yes. we were there having our

conversations. by the time i got home the second tower had just been hit. bear in mind, i lived in egypt. and i spoke -- i used to speak arabic better than after 30-something years. but i had the experience of living in a muslim country in egypt and speaking the language. i had written a movie called the siege with dinsel washington and tony loop it was about what would happen in our country if terror arrived like it had in other european cities and tel aviv. so it predated 9/11 but talked

about the persecution of muslims and the torture and all of that was imagined, in a creepy way in a movie. when 9/11 happened people said it was like a movie and to me it fealt p fealt -- to me it felt like my movie. i decided i would have to write about what happened and what led up to it. and you know you remember the planes were down for several days. so i could not get to new york right away. so i began examining obitraries that were streaming online. looking for a story. a way in. i look normally for an individual that i call a donky that sounds disparaging but a

donkey can carry a lot of information on his back and take the reader to a world he doesn't know about it. there was an obituary on john o'neill who was in the counter division which was the same division i wrote about in the siege. i had spoken to some of those people but never met o'neill. and the op-ed made him sound like a disgrace because he took classified information from the bureau and because of that was fired and became the head of security at the world trade center. i read that and thought well, instead of getting bin laden,

bin laden got him. he is one hell of a donkey because you can take the world inside counterterrorism and show why it failed. he was the first of the characters i enlisted to take this tragedy, humanize it tell it in a series of interwoving biographies. and the prince who was the head of intelligence at the time. >> host: you had three days to write a new yorker piece, correct? >> guest: that was an amazing time. you know because all of these

flights were on the ground there were new yorker writers scattered around with assignments on where they lived. and i had decided i was going to quit journalism. i was going to become a movie director and writing scripts for me to direct. so 9/11 happened and e-mail was working. but a lot of phones were down. i sent an e-mail to the editor for david and said put me to work. we had a conference call at 2:00 and i remember jane mayor and jeff goldberg were on the call in washington and you could hear the sirens in the streets. we had other writers in san francisco and so on. we were all talking about what can we do about this and david's idea was we would just file

reports. and in austin i found there was a young man who had been a reporter for an invesment magazine. he was supposed to have a meeting in windows on the world, the restaurant on top of the world trade center. he was supposed to be there a little after 9:00. he slept through his subway stop. the first time it happened. he was running late. he got on the train coming back and was racing into the world trade center and the elevator bank was actually up an escalator flight so he was

confused. he got to the elevator bank and the elevator operator he remembers him as being a black guy who must have played full back in college and held the door for a well-dressed business woman getting on the elevator and my source was impatient. she steps on the to elevator and he noticed a rose tattoo on her ankle and the airplane hit. no body anyhow what happened. but the elevator doors accord and he walked out of the elevator and it was a surreal experience because pieces of concrete were falling. but it wasn't clear they were

falling. it seemed to manifest. some were small. some were the size of an office desk. we was walking through and couldn't find his way outside because he was disoriented and went into what he was was outside but it was a patio. it looked like there were suit cases. he realized they were torsos. people who had fallen or jumped out of the building. so his story of his trying to get home is almost like a journey of ulysis. it became the spine of what became the famous black issue of the new yorker. >> host: we are live in chicago with lawrence wright. ...

very quickly beginning with his most recent. just came out last year. the book we are talking about on scientology came out in 2013. the looming tower, pulitzer prize one or 2,006. the novel is that he wrote in 2,000. twins came out in 99 a

tragic case of recovered memory was 94. saints and sinners 93. his autobiography of a coming-of-age story in the new world growing up in america 64 to 84 came out and 87. finally, city children country summer a story of ghetto children among the amish was his 1st book. where did the story come from? >> this was the manager that reached out to me writing about this. and i guess it set me off. i find myself in different beliefs. in central pennsylvania wonderful people. really enjoy your time with them. quite fundamentalist. you know, it's interesting. they have some of the same practices scientology. in terms of this particular

valley the white, black, and yellow. if your daughter marries in the white flag in the yellow buggy you never speak to her again. even though you living in the same committee we found that hard to register understand. on the other hand it was a fascinating experience. pressure. poor kids, mainly black kids, mainly black and latin kids out of new york and a farm families, not just in pennsylvania but in the region. so the contrast between the amish and these ghetto kids was really fascinating to write about. >> host: you have alluded to this a couple times.

what is it about religion that attracts you? all of your books have this patina of religious thought. >> guest: i did not intend this as a career statement by any means. it has been my observation that strong religious beliefs are far more influential in people's lives that strong political beliefs. you can hold powerful opinion about politics, and it may not affect your life at all but if you have strong religious feelings it is very likely that they guide your life in some profound way. every ship societies and it is generally -- i don't think we spend enough time examining the true motivators of people's behavior. if you're going to look at that level you have to get down to level of belief. >> host: by the way for

those of you in the audience if you have questions we want to hear from you as well. the microphone is off to the side to the left. if you lineup we will get your questions as well. so -- >> guest: normally when you asked that question is where did you go to high school. i grew i grew up in a lot of different places. born in oklahoma city, lived in abilene, texas. i graduated from high school is. >> host: what was your life like? >> guest: it was kind of isolated for me. my dad was a banker. and i felt a little -- i did not understand why i felt so intellectually stranded. it was very conservative. and there were a lot of paradoxes about dallas at the time. it was -- prided itself on being the most religious

community in america. it had the largest baptist and i think episcopalian or presbyterian churches in america and one of the largest catholic churches. it was a very churchgoing -- it also advised murder and divorce rate. so there were all these you know, trends that were above the surface and below the surface. i was just smart enough to check that there was something going on that wasn't explained. my dad taught sunday school. he was quite -- a very religious man and his way. his faith had been enforced by his experience and seven years of wartime. so i think that he was an early example a believer that made an impression on me. i was religious when i was an adolescent. i was in a group called

young wife there was an sort of the command control group of that organization. and his piety gets you to advance of the ranks. i was pretty pious. so i guess i have seen the force of religious faith in my own life and also had walked away from that. dallas when i was there for that is when kennedy was killed. it was preceded by a number of events that were shocking to us but in some dreadful way characteristic of the nature of the city. you know adlai stevenson was the un ambassador and he had come to dallas on you when they had been spat upon and some group of women who surrounded him, one of them had a sign saying if you

seek peace asked jesus, and she had them over the head with the sign. and then as lyndon johnson was making a speech in dallas. he was greeted by a group of right-wing women who were later dubbed the mink coat mob. and lyndon and lady bird had arrived and were staying at the end office hotel. you had to walk across the street to the baker hotel to talk. the street was just want with these wealthy, well cared for women many of whom were friends. and we watched this on tv. these women appeared to be spitting on the johnsons.

they later said they were spitting or flogging. you know the treatment, one of them took lady bird clausen threw them into the gutter. up until this.politics in america had seemed rather civil. you know a broker taboo. i can remember my mother just a gas seeing people that she knew and admired in bridge close together and so on. she was saying shame. it made a real impression on me. >> host: how over you in 1963? >> guest: i was in 16 and i was in geology class. it was in dallas. it was an odd thing. the morning that have been all this kind of

anticipatory is generally coming into the heart of the enemy stuff. on our doorstep going to have to get the paper. there was a wanted poster for jfk. wanted for treason and all these absurd crimes that never happened. but that was the kind of paranoid spirit. the dallas morning news had this big black add to welcome mr. kennedy to dallas. and so i guess it should not have been so surprising when the three towns came on the pa system. there was a pause you know and then this totally broken voice of our principal saying the president has been shot. and i remember these does he looks of surprise on the faces of my classmates. there was a story in one of

the magazines is in the dallas school children laugh when they are the news. and i think there is truth to that. but i remember these kind of busy smiles. can you believe it's sort of smiles. this awkwardness of adolescence. and later have myself advertise hypnotized to see if i laugh because i wasn't sure. i just the shock being so great. i later determined to my satisfaction that i have not laughed. i remember after that being from dallas was like you were regular mated to a mass murderer somehow. you know we had -- if we were driving out of state and had an instance where you know guy filling the car with gas looked in florida and looked into our car in the three kids in the

back seat and said your kill the president. in college my call to dallas mexico once in a family on a family vacation. a couple sitting next to us over is talking about dallas and just got up and left a meal. so ostracized. and i think you know, it probably changed. i still don't understand. but certainly it shapes the city. my feeling is that the assassination made dallas a better place that it was ennobled by the change. >> host: you write that that he had his own dark thoughts.

>> guest: yeah, he did. my father was -- had -- he had a side of him that was a little righteous. he walked out on doctor zhivago because it was too sexy. and we always kind of get it in. he was capable of these things. but when he was a young man in a rather heroic soldier, great career in world war ii and korea and had a lot agree and had, as you might expect, some political ambition and was the head of chamber of commerce and shortly after he went into the banking career he was asked to host of that time senator kennedy for a speech and make an arrangement. and the senator will need a

woman. my dad was the wrong at ask. just logistically i don't know exactly how you would go about doing such a thing. but it was -- it just -- he was frozen by this. it curled his own political dreams because he could kind of see in the assumption of that request that there was a side of that life that he could not embrace. i think it was disappointing in many ways that he was never able to try the side. >> host: before we get the phone calls you write we were middle-class. already that term sounded like a death sentence. >> guest: i was an existentialist at the time.

>> host: what does that mean? >> guest: i was suffering from the pretense of a budding intellectual from the provinces. you know, i look at it will went to church on sunday. the parking lot was full of cars. some people worry cadillacs. they were the ones who are really blessed, the ones who get the attention. i i could see that there was something wrong with the scenario. i read the bible. i saw that the rich man passing to the needle and all the stuff it seemed very contradictory to what we were supposed to be believing. and i you know, honestly

should be grateful that we were middle-class. my dad grew up in the dust bowl in kansas. his family was shattered by that. many of them did not really do very well after that. those who did not become okies and go to california, those who remain behind had very little to work with and live very hard lives in my father was the only one who really got out made a life for himself, created the kind of situation that allowed me to become an existentialist. >> zero two is the area code. seven 428800 and have a question or comment. (202)748-8201 for those of you out west. ellis began with this young

lady here in chicago with a question. >> i had a question about your book. i no that you had interviewed over 400 current and former members. >> 200. >> 200. okay. i was i was wondering, the church typically says of people leaving the organization that they are better. liars. i was wondering if during any of these interviews you found that to maybe ring a little true for individuals. >> there was certainly a lot of better people who had left the church. and you know i talked to current members. it's not accurate that i i didn't talk only -- that i talked only the former members. but after a while the church cut them off so i didn't have access to some of the people that i would have liked to talk to.

but the bitterness is certainly there. there is also a lot of shame people who feel like they misled their lives. they made a big mistake. there's been there's been a lot of money. they invest themselves giveaway there education especially with so many of these people that go into the sea. is called the clergy. they go in his children. and they forfeit their educations. they are impoverished by the service. and then if in middle-age that aside i have been fooled i made a mistake they have either no family or else they leave the church. all her friends, their entire community, they, they have no job skills that they can accurately report on and they go into a world that they're not very familiar with. so you can understand, it's

not just the bitterness but the anxiety and the heartbreak in the shame that are all attached to having been a part of an organization that may have hurt you or people that you love. >> this is a tweet from mary mary tweet ten, what has been done to counter harassment by scientology by the author or the interviewees? >> well, only a little bit that i can do is a writer and documentarian command that is to shed light on it. you know the fbi, when i was starting my investigation the fbi had an investigation that was ongoing at the same time. part of it had to do with the clergy having a base in southern california. their international headquarters. and on that basis there is a pair of double wide trailers that have been married together.

and i think in 2,006 the leaders of the church began incarcerating members of his executive group up to a hundred. and they took out all the furniture this left on sleeping bags and eight sometimes slop out of the bucket. one of them had to mop the toilet floor this town. there was a lot of physical abuse. people were beaten all the time. people were in there for years, years. and one of the telling experiences that i found truly revelatory about the nature of faith and the power, the group that it has come a one night miscarriage came in with a boombox. he announced that we were going to play musical chairs

and so he had chairs brought in. he said that the last person to be seated will get to stay. everyone else, you're out of here. wash you out or we will send you some far-flung post to give credence to this he had airline tickets printed up in the scientology travel office. he had moving vans brought around. and this went on for hours. fights broke out close were torn, chairs are broken. these people are fighting to stay in the whole as they call this place. this was their chance of liberation. and if you can understand that if you can incorporate into your mind that they would rather stay in those quarters then be free to go out about their lives then you can see the grip that that community has on the.

>> robert is calling in from seattle. robert, your on the air with author lawrence wright. >> i. 1976 i was in geology. the same time my sister had joined scientology previously. she was married and she and her husband were the founders of the church of scientology in honolulu. and so through the years she and i went different paths. as time went on i came to respect the teachings of l ron hubbard regarding antisocial behavior, a lot of the teachings seemed really good. and yet the organization itself seems almost paradoxical to the teaching. and that is kind of what i observed. the people involved were very strong about recruiting nonstop unless you really

became. so it just seemed a little bit ironic. i guess you might compare it to a group of people who have taken the bible beyond what it really was meant to be. i don't know if that is accurate as of the trail but i thought out your perspective on it. >> host: robert, thank you very much. let's hear from lawrence. >> well, he assembled from many different sources is there be in theology. and it's a common criticism inside the church right now that, you know, the founders vision has been lost. but, you know, i want to just, scientology does help people. i talked to many people that feel that they have been helped. you know, in addition to the abuses there are things that

the church office people such as therapy which is an scientology called auditing. if you auditing. if you are i and a session in your younger and i am the person being audited, i hold a pair of aluminum cans. it used to be a campbell soup. and there is electrical wires going to a media that your looking at. and it does register something. it registers your galvanic skin response, essentially a sweaty palm. the legal moves command you ask me a question and i answer. you you can see that it is one 3rd of a lie detector. you can imagine the therapeutic situation is altered by having this machine between the two of us. and people go in with problems. so if you go in and the auditor says, you know what's going on with you

today to welcome i had a fight with my wife. i can see that, and he can. the needle is moving. tell me about it. so you talk about it and then you tell the story again. you diminish the emotional aspect. this is a common feature a lot of kinds of therapy. you rob the power of the experience by repeating it and denaturing it. and the honorable and the honorable say, well, do you remember an instance in your earlier life where something similar. you might say yes, mother scolded me in exactly the same words when i was five years old. i've never forgotten it. certainly you see the needle register. and in and in the honorable say, what about earlier? well, i don't remember anything earlier. well wait a minute. the needle just moved. what was that? i just had an image?

of what? >> of a bar. >> well, go back to that image. open the door of the bar and what you see? well, it looks like 17th century france. so okay. walk out there. what is happening here is you are having a memory of an earlier life. and the needle has just proved to you that is true. so this so this is good news. you have lived before. scientology can help you discover those earlier memories. and a while people understand that that you are at a channel been -- eternal being. a lot of people feel extremely happy to learn that. so you see the adherence that many people give the scientology because they feel that they have acquired something so valuable that they are eternal beings and this comes as a tremendous relief. >> expensive?

>> guest: yes, sir. it can be very expensive. there were many different levels. you progress in go through up to clear. this just like this. after that there are 02 levels. there are eight of them. to get from where you are to the very top can run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. and then they're are parallel courses for ongoing many other communications courses and stuff like that. and then you are constantly asked to contribute to especially the legal defense fund another forms of charity. and that is why scientology has been able to enrich itself on the backs of not that many people. >> next question. from our audience are in chicago.

>> i. i finished reading the looming tower on friday and i've been talking my friends years of about it. to be here talking to you is a surreal moment. but i appreciate your time. i was struck by the dichotomy of fundamentalism and modernism particularly the justifications for she had the wildest one being that if you're in a democracy the fact that you were putting a human before god is essentially blasphemous and the way justify me killing innocent people and democracy. but my question was in your research and people you talk to paul is there anyone who made a job from the fundamentals beliefs to a more modern thought? and what made the difference for that person? is such a dichotomy that it seems like if you are brought up in the fundamentals not that it would be so hard to make. >> and. >> and before we get an

answer, what do you do in chicago? >> i work in afterschool tutoring program. >> why did you pick up the looming tower? >> goodness. i listened to a longform five cast which is fantastic. a further seven heard about it. mr. wright was featured on an old archive. probably a few years ago. so i stumbled upon that and just found that it's very relevant today in particular with isis. so i found just the whole book. it was great. >> thank you so much. you know, i had a conversation with a shake of alice are the oldest university in the world in cairo. and the shake was involved in d radicalization projects in the presence.

and his analysis was that people move in to radicalism they come through it 1st big step is liberalism. everything is literally true and then it becomes, you know, increasingly radical thoughts was that takes place for the.that you are justifying murder and that is when you become a terrorist at the very center of the circle. he said, if you have people inside the circle his experience was you can move them maybe one concentric circle away from the core maybe two but to get them all the way out was in his experience almost impossible and so the d radicalization project has mainly as its goal trying to unlock the violent aspect of it and try

to move people away from violent jihad and the simple literalism without actually taking any kind of actions. i talked to tons of radical islamists and former terrorists, and pretty much they still, you know along that line a very literal minded. they believe in the fundamentalist approach to islam but if the talking to me either they are under the control of a police agency were they have at least moved that one step away from violent jihad. >> in your newest edition of the looming tower that did you have a post death of osama bin laden. did you read seymour hersh's recent piece on this issue? what do you think about what

he had to say? any thoughts on that back. >> site hersh is a great reporter and a good friend. but i don't -- i don't agree with all that he assumes to be true. and i wish if you were going to make such bold statements that they were more broadly sourced. you know, my feeling is that it could well be true that there was a walk in. i'm not saying that there wasn't. the idea that you know, bin laden was dismembered and parts of his body were thrown out out of the helicopter and stuff like that the scenario just seems unlikely to meet. i don't think, you know -- i can't say that the us was in to migrant with the

pakistani intelligence and side is because the reactions you know, had been one of humiliation anger. and you know without having more sources it's really hard to say what actually happened. >> nancy, redondo beach, california. you have been patient. >> thank you so much. in 1992 i was services director at a luxury hotel for lax. and we were going to be handling a meeting for ca and cultural awareness network which i probably should not have called themselves that the 1st place. the leader of the group was patricia ryan. it was in the middle of the rodney king la riots.

i want to pick her up at the airport. i said i'd pick her up and she had this like can make look panic look on her face and said that the scientologists are following her. well, ordinarily i would've thought that was crazy. however, they had been harassing me the weeks prior and this wasn't and this was in the meeting. this was just you and i getting together to handle logistics. in the next couple of weeks ended up taking another job. protesters were around the hotel and i'm wondering if you knew about the awareness network, whatever happened to them and if there is another group that can help families who have family members that are in cults. all hang out for your answer >> the cold awareness network was an organization that i think started in the

70s. it was pretty well-established. and it helps -- remember, we had all these deep programmers and stuff back in the 70s and so on. the cold awareness network you could call them and get somebody that would help you transition out of an organization that maybe you were afraid to leave. so scientology was one of the groups that people complained about an called the cold awareness network. and so scientology along with other organizations but mainly scientology brought suit against the cult awareness network, bankrupted them and then bought the name assumed the name so that if you are calling the cult awareness network you may very well be speaking to a scientologist. >> let's go to another question here in chicago. >> thank you. there are many disturbing

things and going clear. one of them that disturbs me greatly was something you referenced earlier and that was the successful intimidation of the irs back in 1992. specifically my two-part question would be is there any way whatsoever that decision could be reversed? and be what is the status of the irs today in terms of how strong it is connected and other scientology be successful under another name by suing multiple times the irs? thank you. >> well, actually, you know, the director and i have been suggesting that it's appropriate for the irs to take another look at that exemption. i don't know if the organization having been so broken by its assault by the

church can withstand another confrontation. the church has a lot of money and it has a lot of lawyers and it's willing to devote itself in a way that would occupy the irs full attention as long as it goes on and the irs is perfectly aware of that. but on the other hand there are good reasons to think that this kind of abuse that's going on in the church -- as an example i talked to 12 people who told me they were personally beaten up by the church leader. many of them have witnessed other assaults. the leader of the church. to the american taxpayers need to support that? i think it's worthy of examination. >> host: well, roger and

abilene texas emails and perhaps scientology made itself an easy target, but you could have written a similar book about any number of religious organizations which is the protections afforded by the first amendment. he he goes on to say that he was a jehovah's witness or 45 years. many more people have died from being jehovah's witnesses due to the watchtower society prohibition of life-saving blood transfusions, and heels -- he asked the question of you why our government permits grants benefits to religious organizations which routinely mistreat citizens? >> the jehovah's witness is all over me. i get facebook messages from the. they want me to take on you know, their organization. and you know i think it's a good question to ask about tax exemptions for any religious organization. but the rules of been laid out pretty clearly. if an organization such a

scientology stands aside from those rules that i think they i think they should be called to account and that's true of any other group as well. >> plan is. >> plan is calling and from freeland michigan. your on book tv on c-span2. >> thank you all very much. since camp david accords we have given billions of dollars every year to egypt and israel. i think it's going on out close to a quarter of a trillion dollars now. and egypt, of course is a brutal military dictatorship always has been except for the brief time when they chased out mubarak who actually scanned billions of dollars. lisa think when he left office he might've been the richest man in the world. also israel is a kind of liberal democracy as most americans imagine. the state of utah, for example have the same laws

as they do for non-jews in israel it would violate all of our civil rights laws in that kind of thing. that's not even getting into the palestine abuse. so you were talking about president kennedy before. he said that when you make peaceful change impossible the makefile a change inevitable. don't you think that is spending billions and billions of dollars to help prop up these unpopular undemocratic regimes that use torture and abuse to stay in power actually promotes groups like al qaeda and isis and so on better than anything else really? >> host: glenn glenn thank you. >> well, we do spends -- we get israel and egypt several billion a year. aside to an have billion to

egypt and 3 billion to israel and then half a billion to the palestinians since camp david. and a lot of people feel like we are paying them to be at peace. but honestly, let's compare that to the cost of war. you know, we spend the train and a half dollars in iraq. you know a few billion dollars every year does not even register command we don't have much stability in the middle east at all. any stability is worth clinging to. and i think i've got problems with the governments of both egypt and israel, but keeping them a peace is a tremendously important strategic goal for this country and those

billions of dollars just seem like a really inexpensive way to do it if they actually have anything. i don't think that if you withdrew those billions that they would immediately go to work, but it does help stabilize those countries, and that's the most important thing in the middle east right now. >> guest: from in the new world which came out and 87 you write i have wondered at times how the country might have been different if nixon had won the election. which fairly counted he probably would have. >> yeah. yeah. votes -- folks in chicago have been fairly. that is where the election was thrown. so you know, it is an interesting thought experiment that may be the time for nixon had come earlier the country would

have been different and also it would have given kennedy a little more seasoning in the senate. he might well have been able to use. he was pretty green when he came in office. the cuban missile crisis was a real test of that. >> charles from canonsburg pennsylvania. go ahead with your question or comment. >> i. i find your approach very sobering and peaceful, kind to everyone you are approaching. growing up in central until the familiar with the amish. the dynamics that they create. i'm also acquainted with someone who actually hates muslims in hyde park in england for the purpose of converting in the christianity for the purpose of serving are so out of love and am also interested in the historical approach to islam someone like tom harmon. documentary from bbc.

i no you already have your scientologists after you and maybe the irs. would you ever consider looking at mohammed and islam and approaching the? >> well i have written about islam and looming tower. you know, you asked if i use the word cold. i think one can fairly say that al qaeda is a religious cold obama. and i have written the father so many religious groups. i wrote about the orthodox jews in jerusalem. they want to destroy the dome of the rock and bring on a cataclysmic, maybe apocalyptic religious war. i've written about sickness.

i've written fundamentalist baptist, jimmy swaggart, mormons. i have not empty the category, but i am perfectly willing to move on to some other pursuit that religion. >> is there a a book your working on currently, an article your working on this could potentially become a book? have you become a playwright and an actor at this time. >> am using real actors now. i am working on a story for the new yorker about the behind-the-scenes negotiations to try to free the american hostages that were captured by isis. it's a heart stopping tragic story. so that is being tracked checked right now. i'm working -- of always for years and years want to

write a buzz and obeah. you don't know who she is. very few people do. she was a fascinating warrior queen and the city upon their. bill maher has now been captured by isis. the glorious ruins there. the reason their words is that they took up arms. a part of the roman empire on the edge of the roman empire and the persian empire. her husband was murdered. she might've had something to do with that. so she began to she became the region. she led her own army and concord egypt. that was a part of the roman empire.

sackett and captured the took her back to rome and paraded through the city and don't -- and golden chains. the story was that she wound up marrying a roman senator and became a socialite. she's a fascinating figure in prehistory has been completely forgotten. now legacy there likely to be destroyed. it's one of the great examples of that kind of early roman, greco-roman architecture. it's going to be a tragedy to watch it go. i like to take note of this one extraordinary individual >> host: a young man here in chicago with the question >> caller: i also picked up the looming tower.

i've read lots of other stuff. i am appreciative of what you have done since september 11, since you were talking about before. i was wondering how -- what for you personally and also possibly what you would recommend other people would be the reason to stay with journalism stay with the true life stories? >> well, i realize now that i'm not ever going to do it. i do a lot of different things right movies and plays and television. and i love doing all of those things. writing is a wonderful profession. maybe financially erratic but the -- you know as a journalist you have a passport and other people's lives. you can go ask you know, pretty much anybody anything

think also that is. i mean, would you feel like you have the right to walk up to people and say why did you leave your wife? you know it's kind of amazing to think about it. we are invested with this kind of authority. i i think we should be given subpoena power, but that's -- you know. [laughter] the only talk to people that are willing to talk to. but i thought about -- i like writing dramatic stories as well as narrative stories. that was the of the movie business, but i did not like not having control which was the idea of being a director as well. and i feel -- is still write scripts and occasionally acted my one-man shows but i always come back to the fact that what is really

interesting to me is what really happened. how did this happen? what events led to this? i am blessed with the fact that i can write for a magazine that can accommodate thousands and thousands of words. of course i get paid by the word. is less to consider, but the latest article i turned into the new yorker is now a 24,000 words. i don't know what they will publisher that can but it gives me room to go deep on a story and spend the time go to a number of places that need to go to talk to as many people as i can ignore and understand it. all of that is very fulfilling for me. and i think if i have a particular personal quality that works to there advantage i try to be a

compassionate listener. i think you know, everybody feels that they have a story to tell. why people talk to mr. -- mr. -- to reporters is mysterious. they trust you. i try to be the person in the moment nonjudgmental but also not allowing them to escape the questions that i no my reader would want me to ask. so i have to put those questions forward in a nonthreatening way but at least try to get them -- i can understand why they didn't i can write about it. if i can understand it i find it's very difficult for me to write. >> host: 24000 words for new yorker article. what what is the timeframe from going to write about this to publications back. >> guest: well, it depends

on the story. in going clear it took about nine months. in this case i think that i made my 1st calls in february. so for me that is really compressed. but you know, i felt under the gun. and i didn't have any foreign travel involved which can consume a lot of time. so i have a method. i rely on it. i no it sounds -- i have been preaching this method for years and nobody has taken me up on it, but i use notecards, just like a graduate student in 1965. and i -- because my memories not that good. but you know if you are

interviewing hundreds and hundreds of people and you are reading countless books and articles there is too much information to try to then spontaneously sit down and write it and retrieve it as a young writer i found myself stopped because who said that to me or where can i find it. i didn't know. i had all these notebooks with all these interviews and. so finally i stopped. i went through everything again and put it down notecards. and just by assembling the subject you know, like bin laden family, wives his 1st wife each of these is a category. then when i get down the writing about this 14 -year-old girl from syria that he married when he was 17 i have all the

information that i retrieved i retrieved from all my interviews from all the books and articles that i translated. everything is in everything is in this nation. so i get to that. i pull it out. i write about it. and it's all there. and i sit down, put it back in the box. now, it takes a lot of time to assemble all that. but then the writing process is better so much more and you're not stopped. and i think there's a sense of momentum in the writing process that carries over in the reader's experience. >> approximately how many words are in the looming tower? 24,000. typical book about a hundred thousand? >> guest: hundred and 20, i can't tell you honestly how many words are in their. looking at the size of it command thinking probably about 220 thousand.

abcaten next call comes from david santa fe new mexico. thank you for holding. jan book tv. >> thank you. i'm also an archaeologist. i'm very sorry to here about paul mara. glad that we're not saying similar things happen to the cultural resources and are part of the world. my question was about the book. i wondered if you had a perspective on the archive facility that has been built and new mexico east of albuquerque north of a small town called chairman tina. there is a geopolitical a modern essentially sign constructed on the ground of some overlapping circles on the order half a mile wide. with diamonds inside.

it is just amazing. it is viewable from space. i imagine how hubbard created the symbology and ultimately wanted his record secured in a secure archive. your your thoughts on that are appreciated, and i will get off the phone. thank you. >> there are several repositories in this country where the worker elron hubbard is preserved and titanium canisters and argon gas filled caves so that the -- so that it is there for perpetuity. in the site that he is talking about a new mexico there are these interlocking circles that can -- you know, if aliens come to the us humanity this appears in the planet they will be able

to locate the works of our own hubbard. it's also thought by some that if elron hubbard comes back committee is expected to community will be able to find it. and every scientology office has an office for him. several facilities that are homes ran. there is you know fingering now on the bedside table. the table is set for one. his flippers about a shower. so but the interlocking circles someone very cleverly analyzed where that came from. he used to smoke we will cigarettes. and it looks exactly like the circles on the cool cigarettes. i wonder if that was the inspiration

and he divides his life from living in la where he makes his movie stars and other scientology and the base in southern california and also in clearwater which is a scientology spiritual headquarters. his wife shelley he exiled her years ago to one of the spots in southern california where they had the archive of hubbard's works. she has not been seen in public for many years.

so his personal life is hard to know. i no he keeps himself on the incredible physical regimen. he works out. it's very buff. ..

>> for future researchers to use your material if you chose to do that. >> what kind of archive are you? >> i work at the here university. >> guest: right now i am using my archive but at some point we will have to get that stuff out of the house. have you been approached by anybody except depaul university? >> guest: the lbj library asked me what i'm doing with it and i said i am using it and a writer writer's collection at texas state university.

i am renting a locker in one of these rental places. the french video episode happened happened. i am going to get around to saying i offer those what were i think, precious interviews to california state historical society. and they didn't want them. but i had decided my editor, tina brown, asked me if i would

go to waco and write about under the siege. i feel that i would be useful but i had been really moved by the fact that just before the apocalyptic ending there was a van of children sent out of the compound. they looked so lost. and they went through the police line the atf, the fbi were there and they went through the media with all of the camera and so on. and you could see their faces. and i thought they are leaving everybody and searching with the cults in the past and i found that jim jones actually had three sons who survived jones

town because they were off in the capital of giana, georgetown in a basketball tournament and never shared their story. so, and i am not sure exactly why they agreed to talk to me. there are three sons and two of them are adopted. steven, the natural son, looks so much like his father and extroidinarily handsome with this father's cheek bones. and 15 years has passed since 900 people died and tim had never told his wife.

and one surprised his wife. we went to a restaurant and tim is physically a formable guy who is curl a one pounds with either hand and he could not get on an elevator. last time he tried to fly he made the plane turn around and take him back to the gate. and within minutes of sitting down, you know he was sobbing and pounding the table and the waiter was waking a big detour and people were starring at their plates of food. he told the story of having to go back to georgetown because he was the one who identified the 900 people and they included his wife and children at the time his natural parents, his adopted parents -- his whole world he had to go identify.

and after that i have been in awe of the power of religious belief to take people like that and plunge them into tragic ad ventures. >> host: why did you leave the methodist church? >> guest: it wasn't just meth methodist i left. it was organized religion. the minister strangled his wife and got away with it and i wrote an article about it in the texas monthly. his mistress was the woman that play

played the role. and i was trying to to believe thick things i wasn't sure were true was hard to believe. >> host: i was an unconscious racist. a fact i discovered in dr. crisweld's church. >> guest: he was the leader of

the biggest methodist church. he spoke out against kennedy before. but i had a date to that church and she was partly philippine and i was uncomfortable. i had never gone out with a girl -- i had gone out with very few girls -- but she wasn't entirely white and i felt unnerved by that and then later in college, i actually had the experience of getting to be friends with a black person. i went through school in dallas texas with the brown verses board of education in 1954 and i graduated not seeing blacks or hispanics. there was a high school for

hispanics in north dallas. so i was unexposed to other races. it was difficult with me along with that and the woman's movement, they were movements that changed the way i was in the world, who i am and i later wound up writing about civil rights. that is how i got into journalism journalism. i didn't know what to make it.

>> host: jim from tacoma washington you have been patient. >> caller: i want to talk about the movie the siege. i like it very much. very smart and great dialogue between washington and benning. i am curious how it came together and how you got hooked up with it and why you haven't done more of that kind of work. >> guest: as i said, there was a time when i was going to be a movie director. i think writing the siege was, you know a great experience in many respects. i had a friend linda oaks who was a movie producer and she had approached me with what she said was a movie idea which was with a woman in the cia. that is not really a movie idea. that is kind of a notion.

she wanted me to come up with a plot that we could sell. it was after the cold war was over. so what is the cia anymore? it seemed irrelevant. communist behavior was dead so how do you write a story? i realized the cia did have a real life antagonist. and it was the fbi. once i realized that and they were fighting over at the time it was who would control terrorism inside the united states states. the fbi won that battle. but it was fiercely fought turf battle between the two agencies. washington plays the fbi agent and bening is the cia agent and

there is a terrorist in it. that movie was a heart breaker for me in many respects because i had rather carefully worked with some of the arab american association associations. there had never been a movie with an arab american hero and tony who is an arab american played an fbi agent and a heroic won and never had the opportunity to play an arab before. i thought they would be in favor of the movie. but when it came out there was a campaign waiting into the room for the next movie that had an arab terrorist in it. and mine was the next movie. so there were protesters around the theater and people don't want to go to the movies if they are crossing a picket line. and then after 9/11 it was the

most rented movie in america. i am puzzled over that. because it was creepy similar to what might happen. the movie has a good ending. i think after 9/11 people were looking for good endings. right after that, trailers showed a bombing in south cape

africa that killed two people and a little girl lost her leg. it was said that the balmomberbombers did it because of the trailer of the siege and they picked the restaurant boston bruce willis was a co-owner of it and in the movie. it was very upsetting to me because i felt they were attacking my imagination. i had written this story and suddenly people are dead. >> host: dan in bridge water, new jersey. >> caller: the world trade center was twice attacked. i was in there on 9/11 and

really shocked by how much confusion there was and that delay of the people getting out from the other building that was hit. the other side of the coin is if you look our soldiers fought in iraq, afghanistan, and other places, they killed to stay alive. most of the jihadis kill their own people. the more we kill the more offenders we created and we are still looking for military solutions for these things. and i wonder what you have learned throughout the years about the american propensity to go involve itself there and regulate what is going on with generals excusing or explaining all of the failures as successes. >> well, i would be happy to talk about our military.

the war of when i was a man and i am a conscious objector no doubt my opinion. but what blow back did we get? we got both people and the stereotype is they came and took over convenience stores and their kids are now in ivy league kids. but on balance, we didn't think we didn't have to pay a price for watt we did in vietnam but

that is not true in iraq. i think we will be paying a price for that until the end of this century probably. it is fought all america's fault. i don't want to it sound like we are engaged trying to manage a volatile region of the world and the reason we are there is there are resources that the rest of the world defends. and trying to keep some kind of control and order in the oil producing regions is a strategic goal of this country. keeping the see lanes open no one is going to do. if you study the middle east and look at the history of the wars there they always turn out badly and prepare the ground for the next war. camp david is one example where

diplomacy succeeded in an extraordinary way of preventing wars. there were four wars in a single generation between egypt and israel and that document put an end to it. there hasn't been a single violation of that treaty since. if you measure the success of the wars we have been engaged in or others against the triumph of diplomacy it is clear what side we should put effort in. >> host: you can make a comment via twitter, facebook or e-mail. at booktv is our twitter handle. facebook./booktv you can make a comment there at the top of the page is where you can make a comment and you can send an e-mail as well. next call for lawrence wright comes from martha in irvine california. hi, martha.

>> caller: hi, peter. in my conversations with the muslim and other groups -- and jewish people is that the media makes the differences look gray greater than they are. what did you find most agree on between the two? >> guest: the muslims and jews -- their religions are similar in many respects especially the legalistic qualities of them. a message i have been trying to

get out that i thought would solve the israeli and palestinian group. the jews and the palestinians are the same people. dna evidence has shown these are the same people both descended from the can nites and both lived in the same region for thousands of years. and in fact david van buren, the first prime minister and israel's second president wrote a book in 1918 when they were living in new york and they talked about the palestinians being jew and the evidence put forward was interesting. there was a battle where the kingdom was invaded and all of injew

the jews with money and talent were taken and put in babylon were they stayed until alexander the great freed them. and they came back and claimed to be the original jews. those people many of them converted to islam or christianity. they think they are right. scientific and historical evidence sports this.-- supports this. and there is no difference when i aired this.

>> host: we have more people lined up here. >> i have not read 12 days but have read the others and my question is about what you are talking about. one of the themes are came away with could be summed up in three words: lack of trust. i am wondering if this lack of trust between the parties and whether there will be middle east peace in our lifetime do you come across that as well? >> guest: lack of trust is essential to what is keeping these parties from making peace with each other. 25 years ago what is happening

is they will know each other and if i was thinking about 25 years ago you could drive from gaza city to go on hikes without knowing through a checkpoint. israeli's used to drive down and have sea food on the gazea beach. many israelis spoke arabic and many arabics spoke hebrew. they knew each other. and now the are walls and fences between the two and they don't know each other. it is easier to hate people when you don't know each other. to try to establish trust, the first thing to is get acquainted. >> host: david is calling in from houston. >> caller: mr.wright wright, this

question is about your book on scientologist. i was studying this subject and turned on to his book that i felt had practical issues and tools for psychology majors and people like me cases involving communication tools, person interaction and the whole issue of end grams and there seems to be a very compelling and seemingly legit application for mental health time issues and problems. but i always had a healthy uncertainty going in and i was looking for inconsistency and there was papers trying to come out for students that were

taking classes in scientology and dinetteics. and i could not find any. just the sheer amount of work he put out was impressive and then i found out he was a successful science fiction writer and had impressive books. i read fear and final blackout. and in many ways he seemed to be ahead of his time in terms of predicting things that were happening involving nuclear fusion and nuclear war and things like that. i guess what i am saying is i can understand how people could have gotten drawn into it because i was. and felt like i learned positive things and it wasn't until the end of my time where i began to feel the sense of paranoia or there is not the right word but an effort to keep people from

leaving the classes. but nothing more than the hard cell tactics we have today -- sell -- i wanted to give that perspective and get your take on it. >> guest: a lot of people read dinetics and thought they were getting the key to understanding their problems and mental health. he talked about the clear as a phenomenal when no one has been declared this. he had at one point, going to reveal the world's first clear and he did so in los angeles and

a young woman i think she was a physics student. and she was lying on a couch and he had an audience and he was talking about all of the attributes she has. and someone asked when hubbard's back was to her, what color tie does mr. hubbard have on because she is supposed to remember everything. one question after another testing her memory and intelli intelligence. and it 'was a disaster. it was a long time before they brought another clearer in. what was interesting in reading the dianetics is this breezy

sense of authority that cast a spell. and of course reading the proof he is enlisting at the moment he is writing it. >> host: as we continue to take your calls, e-mails, facebook comments and tweets we have an audience here in chicago and he a gentlemen waiting to ask you a question. >> thank you. back to the book "13 days in september" i had the impression that you felt megan reneged on the latter parts of the potential peace treaty. what happened there?

>> guest: carter also felt begin lied to him. it had to do with the settlement building building building. the whole camp david accords, that part of it is unfortunate. it is a triump they were able to make beef between the two nations. i think it turned on -- you were asking earlier about carter's

opinion on begin but neither of thes mean liked each other and thought it was going to go on. can you imagine two weeks? suppose the president of the united states disappeared for two weeks. not just one president but the heads of three countries are gone from the world scene and no body knows what is going on. and carter at a time when the shaw was going down the prime rate was 20% younger people wouldn't know what that is like but it is bizarre. huge gas lines and it was a difficult time in international and domestic politics. so for him to take that time off, it seemed crazy. and egypt and israel were going through stressful times.

the agreement, after 13 days carter felt that he finally had it in the can. she is the communication director and told the networks there is going to be a presidential address and they will interrupt the emmy's and were setting up the east room of the whitehouse and carter had made a side letter. often times international diplomatic accords are decorated with things we don't agree on. we agree to disagree on. and one of the side letters was about america's position on jerusalem which has been it is occupied territory. and this goes back to several administrations, republican and

democrat democrat,?? she didn't withdraw and maybe carter was ascetosastouned. and he was someone in jimmy carter's life and she was fail injury and begin asked and we saw the

photograph of the three men sitting on the porch. there were signs for each of them. i love jimmy carter he would say. he never wanted to see begin again but felt obligated. he pulled out the picture and there he began to weep and went

back to his cabin to him the agreement is off. one human moment deficit made all of the difference. >> host: this is one of those e-mails that is entitled "life. it is frame victor patell. it is a pleasure to listen to you. how do you divide your time between the new yorker, book writing and other creative endures? when did you relax? and what is your favorite restaurant? >> guest: that is a lot of questions. i love my work. i love my family and i love my

band. i am in a band. i took up the piano when i was 38 and a half to play. i try to go to work in the morning, try to get started by 9:00 -- >> host: you work at home? >> guest: i work at home having a nice and didn't go back to work. i usually quit around 6:00 and get exercise and then play the

piano, and then we have dinner. i think that is paradise. i try to keep my life -- as a reporter, i go out and talk to people that have been in great turmoil and it is a balance to life. >> host: what about restaurants? have you been to salt lick? >> guest: i have been to many of the famous bbq restaurants. i think the restaurant my wife and i tend to go to more than any other is called east side

cafe. what is nice is it has a garden in the back of it so great vegetables. any place where where you can talk, and have good food and there is not loud music playing, that would register on my favorite. >> from mas new brunsfel texas. are you playing music around the area? has the band found in a new place since jovita's closed? >> guest: we used to play there and let young people sit in and get experience. there was a judge who had a 12-year-old daughter who wanted to play and we let her play. and the next day the fbi closed

the place down. they blew the doors off using explosive. it was a heroin den. anyway, 11 people were arrested. it turned out the owner of the restaurant served time for three murders. how he got a liquor license in austin, texas was myster hazardous -- mysteriou s. and we found a venue called one to one on south lamar with no legal activity.

>> what do you think is the future of politics with religion and vice versa? >> guest: religion plays a big role in our country. i think it is unfortunate it gets mixed up in the political system. for one thing i don't believe a lot of it. i think often times they are pandering and i think it is disgraceful and hypocritical. and yet there are parts of the social agenda -- i mean one of the reasons i think about the power of religious beliefs in people's life is if you take the liberal, and their attitude about helping the poor and

empowering people through government policies which is fine those are the people actually putting their hands out there and doing things. so, you know i think, religion has place in here and i spent time in countries where religion was so predominant and unified. and i think a lot of companies you could only belief were right or left.

and i think those countries and forces of religion and secular society are in such eternal combat. and you see something like a country of turkey where you were secular and try to push religion out of civil life and now you see it coming back. and the same tides are at work now in egypt and the bulk of the middle east. >> david is in tulsa, oklahoma and you are on tv with lawrence wright. >> caller: thanks for taking my call. i am a middle school teacher and i believe i am teaching the

first generation no conscious and that is when the a guest walked in and asked about 9/11 how would you initiate the dialogue. how do you teach them when they have no memory of 9/11. >> guest: that is a good question as you would expect from a teacher. i think the thing that is so dramatic is we were so invulnerable and the idea we could be attacked our soldiers

and they could plan something that would result in devastation and a tremendous trauma. and that would prod us and lasted every since and cost the country in many directions. but the initial trauma. now we know we are exposed to the world and will always be so. >> host: we have another gentlemen in chicago with a question. >> three comments: one, you spoke of the palestinians and jews being one people.

david van goren about one thing keeping them apart. the second thing is and -- diplomacy expresses the nature of the state. so i don't mistake these from diplomacy from getting rid of the states. now whatone effect of camp david is

releasing israel to a grant 11. finally, you i would teach 9/11 it would be an inside job to get the wars in iraq for israel. how do you comment? >> host: if we could start with 9/11 being an inside job led by the bush. it is non-sense. i have been followed by truthers

and who told kennedy and there evidence is lee harvey oswald did it by himself. so the mind of the conspiracyman is this doesn't correspond to my view of the world. in the case of 9/11 people who think the united states and israel are the avatars of evil in the world feel we did it to ourselves.

the general take is we knew we would be attacked. but it would not succeed or be successful enough. so in order to make it succeed we had to plant explosives inside the trade center to make sure it fell down because i would not happen a plane running into a skyscraper would fall down. that experiment has been performed twice and the evidence is they fall down. there are other buildings destroyed in the area. and then there is part of the plan. and where is the plane?

where are the

advent of religious wars will

not end until we see the end of religious behaviors. it has been one after another throughout history. and i wonder what the origin of the belief. i think superstition is a lot of it. they say a volcano blows up if you don't throw a virgin down it. why does the human psyche belief they need a religion? i don't think a child should be taught anything through the brain wiring part of his life and then at 21 decide what religion they should be. that is for every religion around the world. i will take your comment off the air.

and he seemed to be steering ourselves into apocalyptic games in the middle east and i see this thinking in a number of cities. those who think about the apocalypse and it is easy to see their goal is -- the reason they are fighting in syria and iraq is iraq is supposed to be this place where the impostures of the muslim religion are put to death. and the impostures are the

shiites and isis and al-qaeda are sunni organizations so they are trying to create a civil war between the two. and it is going to end with the annihilation of all of the shiites. and syria is where the final battle between the muslims and christians take place in a place that shares a name with the isis online magazine. so they are inviting us into a war with the goal of ending a society.

holocaust wasn't a generation away. there was a tremendous amount of anxiety about where they were. so if you imagine the anxiety, just another ghetto another trap for views. they were leaving israel in vast numbers. and that summer of 1967 the egyptian president threw the peace keepers out and closed the gates blocking israel's access to the red sea. the anxiety in israel was tremendous

tremendous. egypt was engaged in a war with yemen using chemical weapons so gas masks were passed out and trenches dug for the mass graves they expected they would need and they struck and we call it the six day war but you could call it the six minute war because it was all over after that defeat. the psychological affect of this on all three religions was transformive. there was an influx of and they

became the backbone of this. and the prophecy toward the end time and when the leader comes. and many christians look at this as well and thought we are steering in the end times. and they asked why would god turn against us? the answer and that is when radical islam began to awaken. >> host: that last caller said he would like to take a history class from you. do you teach? >> guest: no i would love to teach but my schedule is erratic

so i don't know how i could take a semester off. i thought about it and enjoyed working with students. >> host: clint posted on our facebook page. mr.wright, you mentioned being hypnotized. have you ever taken a poly graph test? >> guest: no i haven't. i was interested in hypnosis. in high school i read the whole shelf on books and hypnotized my sister laying out her between two chairs and stick pens in her. >> host: does she still speak to you? >> guest: yeah i don't think she remembers is.

i was always grateful for the dallas library for the knowledge. one of my books is called "remembering satan" and it is about the recovered memory episode. there were thousands of people mainly young people who were diagnosed with having multiply personality and they would uncover memories of being abused by satinist and i got involved because my own therapist said they were seeing all of these multiple personalities and were interested in having me right

it. they said satinist were responsible for 50 murders a year in austin and we have never had that many by satinist or anyone else. there is a workshop and they said satinist were responsible for 50,000 murders in the united states. far exceeding the national murder rate. and these were cops. so i thought there was something to this. tina brown was the editor and i went to her saying i would like to write about multiply personality disorder.

and people suing their parents for abuses they had forgotten and now remembered and were the cause of all of their eating disorders and one person was convicted of the crime. he was a man named paul engram who was a deputy sheriff in washington. his daughter made these claims and he confessed to them. and this was atrope on day time shows and television shows. many books like sybal and free faces of eve and the whole recovered memory phenomenal swamped the culture.

in austin we have four hospitals and there were disassociative wards in all of them. they only occupied one room but their personalities were all over the place. i met one with 360 personalities which is impressive. i got involved and went to olympia, washington and there was -- it turned out other people got arrested. some of the friends including a guy name jim who was in the sheriff's department and was in the sex crime division. he was accused of having and the

period is if you plant a question in the reader's mind you tonight answer it immediately immediately, and the pages -- jim -- demanded a poly graph and they asked him if he had ever been a satinist or abused these girls and me failed on every response and that was the end of the first part of the story in the new yorker. the greatest rubber broadbandand.

and it posed a problem to me as a reporter and writer because i knew the reader. i know i would plan for him to have another graph. if he failed that i don't know where they would be. i made a plan for him to have the head of the polygraph examine him and he passed with flying colors. but had i not done that i think it would have defeated the story in the minds of people. >> we have a young lady with a question. >> i wonder if you can help us understand the prosspectpects of

diplomacy. usually it is between nation states. all are any possibilities with diplomacy for groups like al-qaeda and isis when it isn't a nation state and the apocalyp apocalypse is their goal and when religion underlies their work in the world too. any possibilities for diplomacy and not just war with groups like isis and al-qaeda? >> guest: i think we will have to talk to a lot of groups we don't want to talk to. and you know for instance hezbollah.

we had boots on the ground in iran and a lot are regular troops and some kind of coordination is obviously going on between militias and different militant groups and the united states in order to keep us from bombing the wrong people. and the vision right now having a conversation.

and that is the force out there now. >> if i could ask a follow up. hasn't the american policy been we don't negotiate with terrorist? >> guest: you know, that is an unfortunate unfortunate unfortunate unfortunate --trope that is very damaging in the hostages taken by isis. the origin of that idea is not providing material support to terrorist. say your child is kidnapped, and this happened to american families whose children were kidnapped by isis you go to the fbi and state department and help and you get well we will do what we can but we don't negotiate with terrorist.

who do you negotiate with if you don't with terrorist holding your children? and then was we don't talk to terrorist. so people turning to the government were help were told we don't talk to terrorist. why not? they are holding my child and they need help. >> i am hopeful after this article comes out that the government is doing a policy review that we will clarify the issues and we do talk to people we don't agree with. we do negotiate with them and have done so throughout history. maybe we don't pay and provide

support to terrorist. talking and negotiating are two different things. >> host: when will that be published? >> reporter: it is scheduled for the end of the month. >> host: dave you are live. we have about ten minutes left. >> caller: it sounds like hubbard had the best version of the rubber band theory and create new levels. and what has been the response to the church and the book? any legal challenges you wis to discuss. and regarding the e-meter, i

know it is one part of the pauloly graph, but what it is measuring that allows them to tout as a reliable measure. thank you very much for your work. >> guest: in terms of the e-meter it measures your sweaty palms and how you grab the can. it has been tried on me and the experiment was to think about a thought that i knew was true.

sometimes it would pinch you on the neck and you would remember the pinch and the needle moved. but i didn't have that. i forgot the first part of the question. >> host: we will go to mike. >> caller: mr. wright thank you for your work. interesting you mention multiply personality disorders, i think there is 135 cases of that in congress right now. i wonder if you had a thought about investigating the financial terrorism with the buffet and diamonds and the way we vilify the pursuit of money and the way this crowd is above

the law when it comes to obviously convictions for fraud and money laundering and wire transfer. it is crazy. the current manipulation and on and on. it is like the swagger and hubbard of the day. i wonder about your take on that. thanks again. in the case of scientology, -- -- >> guest: in the case of scientology, he doesn't live an extroidinary extroidinary -- extraordinary

life. i did write about jimmy swagger. his church was taking in half a million a day at one point. they had their own postal code. people were sending in letters with an unbelievable amount of money. people were sending in wedding rings of their own. and a lot of tv preachers live well what he seemed to be interested in was expanding his empire and i think that is pretty much the case with scientology as well. >> host: lawrence wright which of your books has gotten the most attention? >> guest: i think a looming tower. it has been translated into 25 languages and probably has had more attention in the world culture. in terms of recently going

clear. people think of it as my last book because it was one before because of the documentary that put it back on "the new york times" best-seller list when i was thankful for. but the book and documentary were impactful. there saturday night live skits and i was surprised. it never happened before. >> host: the looming tower steve huitewitt, brings it up. >> guest: i have a lot of conservative fans i think in part because i criticize the clinton administration but i do with the bush's as well. facing terrorism is something

that appeals not just to conservatives but maybe especially conservatives. >> if david from the new yorker calls saying i need you to write about election 2016. where do you start? >> guest: my wife and i are throwing my support toward donald trump. >> host: roger in ohio go ahead. >> caller: i saw the documentary on scientology and for some reason it reminded me of 1984. hubbard, his big brother, is the police enforcer.

where do the lies like the party members come in? >> guest: >> guest: 5,000 people and then 6,000 people. and scientology took off. and the numbers are not out there totally. but scientology has large members. and their lives are pretty much

constrained constrained. you can take courses, and you can leave and you may be followed by phone calls and you can leave that. and then there is celebrity scientologist and that is a different category. typically your image has been exploited as a scientologist, you are expected to go to workshops and endorse the religion religion. for a person in the public eye

like let's say john travolta it would be difficult for him if he changed his mind to walk away from the church. in the therapy sessions which are in some respects is like a real therapy sessions there are confessions made and sometimes they are video taped without the knowledge of the person being audited. i talked to one former scientology and there was thought travolta was going to leave and his job was to assem assemble all of the damaging things he said that would be used against him if he decided to leave the church. that is a strong reason not to go. it is level of celebrity and you might include major donors who

are welcomed into the celebrity center in los angeles. and at the bottom you could talk about the members, some of whom have to physically escape. and then often times they were tracked down and brought back. in one case travolta's plane was used to go retrieve a member who had fled. i think for those people it is a lot harder to leave. >> host: lawrence wright if people want to see your work contact you, you have a website? >> guest: i do. lawrencewright.com will get you whatever you want in the lawrence wright category. >> host: and we would mention roberta, his mother is sitting next to him.

lawrence wright has been our guest. his books city children; country summer the story of ghetto children among the amish, in a new world the story of growing up in america, saints and sinners, remembering saten twins coming out in 1999 god's favorite; a novel 2011. the looming tower pulitzer prize winner came out and going clear about scientology came out in 2013 and 13 days in september. lawrence wright has been our guest on "in depth." thank you. [applause]

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cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you as a local service by your cable or satellite provider. presidential candidates release looks to promote views on issues. here is a look at books written by declared candidates. ben carson calls for greater responsibility to preserve america's future in one nation. and former rhode island recounts her time serving in the senate and hillary clinton looks back on serving in the obama administration in hard choices. andane time for truth, ted cruz talks about his