sad because schools are educating the young for citizenship, they must scrupulously protect individual rights, if we are not to strangle the free mind and to teach you to discount important principles of government as near platitude. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> congressman tom cole, why do you put books and recommendations of books on your website? >> i used to be an academic and books have always been a big part of my life. i was actually a pretty smart communications director and i knew we get these questions all the time what are you reading, what are you doing, because i talk about it i use books when i'm making a point in town hall meeting so we decided we would turn it into irregular feature. we been surprised about how much attention it gets. >> you change it every month or so. >> we do, we find that the right way sometimes it will be a series of books on a particular

topic and it's usually the easiest ways, what are you reading now, we keep one up about a month and sometimes maybe i will have two or three books that i'm reading and i'll say here take the picture this month, next month, one of her. >> to ever post reviews? >> no i've never done too much of that. i just don't don't have a lot of time to write reviews. if i put the book up there means i think it was a pretty good book. >> what are you reading right now? >> i thought i take a little break and this is one of those classic cases we see the movie so you want to read the book, the martian. who is it, we're, i think andy we are, and then i got intrigued by this new netflix things, the man in the high castle which is an old book, 62, used to read science fiction when i was a kid

and for whatever reason i do not read that one and a guy named philip dicks who is now dead, so those are kind of the things, i just finished up a biography of roger sure knows, wonderful one on washington it was a fabulous book and it's long. >> you read mostly nonfiction. i do. it's mostly have a biography, history, used to be a history, used to be a historian so that's what i enjoy. we will have some things like every now and then, and if i read fiction it's quite often, not this case, this case, this is like i'm going back to being 12. two science fiction books basically. i read quite a bit of historical fiction. i i love kathleen mccullough's wonderful series on julius caesar's, first man of rome. but mostly have a history, heavy biography biography. >> you mentioned that you have your phd, where where did you teach? >> i taught at as a graduate assistant and as an adjunct professor at university of

oklahoma. oklahoma baptist university, that was a semester gag. i taught i taught in grinnell college london program, that was a fun one, i had my undergraduate degree from there. then i've done an outstanding, teaching a class, i've taught with the former democratic chair, topic raising congress and he had a class he had a class in national parties and campaigns that gw up here in d.c., caught it campaign course years ago. >> other any historians, that when they come out with a booker whose or whose entire series you read? >> i love anything that stephen ambrose wrote. he was really, and had a lot of range in his writing. very good, obviously obviously john mccullough is an excellent historian. but probably in another. it was very heavily focused on

british history, things were not all histories but churchill was always worth reading, whether it was just memorize, he had a wonderful book called great contemporaries written back in the 20s which later on nixon actually did a sort of follow up on that kind of book. >> i like to read about richard nixon, think is most fascinating politician of my lifetime. i thought the things that he wrote were really quite good. >> does your reading the help you in your work as a congressman mark. >> it does. history particular provides a lot of contacts come a lot of analogies, frankly a lot of just understanding because most people when they get to congress they sorta think history begins with them.

but you're really stepping into the flow of something, an institution, or if you're reading contemporary history, a lot of interesting, parallels and backgrounds of what's going on. you want to understand congress, john berry wrote wonderful book years ago called the ambition of the tower, which at various a real substitute writer. there is a great book on the 1927 flood, think it was rising tide or something. but he got hooked up with speaker ryan before he realized and he was in his last year basically. he was just going to write a book about congress and a turned into the rise and fall of speaker ryan. there is lot of characters in there. tonight case a lot of people i knew, the new gingrich, ricky

edwards, guys, guys like wes watkins, or more consequential figures in the sense that they were close that you read about. so those can do of things i think are extraordinarily helpful and sometimes particularly when older members are telling stories you know something about the context of the story that it comes out of. a lot of al rogers and the chairman of appropriations. my chairman has been here since 1980. when he starts telling you stories about the guys when he got here had been here since the 50s, it's fabulous. >> besides the john berry's book, are, their other books you'd recommend about congress or that you have read before you took your c? >> one of the more interesting books it's not about congress

per se, it's a biography, but lynn cheney's recent biography of madison is a good book because here's a guide that in many ways shaped the system so to speak both in terms of constitution and then and serving in the body and its very first term. i think think he is always worth reading about. i like these things, again nixon is good, johnson seriously. >> robert carol? >> yes, those are spectacular. because nobody knew this institution, the senate, the presidency obviously just the breath of american politics like he did, although to send in a very different way, i had had an opportunity to meet him on several occasions, really knew this, i would also say that the biography of gerald ford, i was

because he was president, it is very much a creature of the house, i can remember. >> i think you're right with luca cannon. >> maybe. >> i think it was time and chance or something like that. it was wonderful book. again, you lost in the politics of the era because this guy comes in the 40s, he is a minority leader when he's elevated to vice president, that's a lot of history. years ago i worked for a guy that not enough people remember, they should, guy vander jackson was the creator of the modern, political campaign committee he arrived in 1966 and lost the republican primary 92. he talked about a guy who understood the institution, because he was involved in campaigns across the country, he was a very consequential

legislator, deliver the nomination speech for ronald reagan at the 80 convention, he's a pretty cool guy and his ability to tell stories and recount the institution, his observation, i used to call him moses because he got his right to the edge of the promised land , had he not lost his 92 primary, he would have been elected as an rcc chairman and what had the opportunity to be here at the creation of the modern republican majority. he probably did more to bring it on than any single guy. but you pick up some of it listening to members and some of it reading. >> when when you read some of these older biographies about lyndon johnson, gerald ford, to ever say to yourself, the house work that way anymore. >> occasionally do, obviously the house changes with the times, although there are a lot

of elements that are the same. i like to think honestly that the appropriations committee is a little island that actually functions the way it was supposed to. that was not always true. it went through a rough time. but rogers, who very much in the best sense of the word and institutionalist in a creature the house so to speak has really done a lot to restore that in hopes that it can spread more broadly across congress per there's no question we live in a very divided and ideological time. where the ability to rise for the consensus or make a deal, or literally i have a lot of good friends on the other side, but there is not as many issues that you can work on together in the way that her predecessors managed to do. >> it given your oklahoma roots, do you ever read books on andrew

jackson? >> my grandmother, my great great grandfather was a forcibly removed from mississippi and some of the last chickasaw's to come out. so we were raised, i used to tell people when i was five years old i wasn't sure who andrew jackson was but i knew he was a very bad man who had done evil things. my grandmother really would not carry a 20-dollar bill. so, i have read, i remember when robert was historian of the house which also written a wonderful book on congress i should've mentioned him. but roy who was a big reader, you you should talk to him sometime. at one time he invites me up and rodney to have lunch with the

dr. and he presents me with a copy of jackson's indian wars and he presents rodney with a copy of henry clay biography because rodney, i believe it was his great, great grandfather theodore who actually ran on the ticket with henry clay, actually he held the floor against indian removal for three days. so we were both sort of jackson enemies by dissent. and, it was a wonderful lunch. i remember the book common and say now you probably won't agree with my thesis in this book, but i want you to read and think about it and come back. and. and it was basically not that he meant to do it, that in some ways the removal of the five great strides of the southeast, choctaw's, greek seminole, they

fail because they push them further out because it kept them to be totally up over run. that is the unique explanation for violating treaty rights and what was effectively ethnic cleansing of the southeast of the country. so the tone, i said i do not agree with you in some ways but i will say this, i remember having gone and i remember having read this and we have a great chickasaw festival which is the site of the old chickasaw capital, my great grandfather who is the treasurer of the chickasaw nation in their thousands of chickasaw's that come to this thing. it is, that may not of been the case, we might not of survived it quite the same way that we did. as we are large tribe, we are 60000 person tribe. and you don't have anything near that size on the east coast and the areas were obviously you had your pain and then american conflict in contact.

>> what about books on native american history. >> oh gosh, we did a lot of them. charles mann's book is where you want to start, it's not really something native american but it's 1491 which is the state of the indigenous population in north and south america on the eve of european arrival. what had happened and how devastating that contact was an man makes the case that disease alone was much greater in terms of the number of people. and the indians, whether north or south america always had contact in a sense with rights long whites long before they saw because disease traveled ahead.

and it decimated a lot of these populations. so that's a good one, i love empire of the summer moved, the comanche nation is in my district, that's a great biography on the quantum parker that was a an award winner, one of the best biographies, guy named gibson road an outdated history, my own tribe the chickasaw's. again, there's a lot of him. biography of my great aunt, a very indian folklore artist who lived to be almost 100. who did the first entertainment in the roosevelt white house for ramsey mcdonald and march of 33, and then entertained to the king and queen of england at high park and 39. formed all over the the world. so got to to give a plug-in for her. but again, lots a great books. one of the great historians of native american, lotta people will be familiar with her biography of geronimo, but some that are more consequential books is one called as the

waters flow and it's about what happened to the five tribe says oklahoma was opened up to white settlements and they had permission in the process and my family owns less of the allotment land still. but it's pretty devastating experience for the tribe that had already been removed and effectively have their treaty broken, had their land allotted up into individual ownership which in many cases was systematically looted from them. it was a really tragic tale. it's not as if every bad thing that happened indians happened 200 years ago. this is early 20th century in oklahoma. it's still a very difficult issue, difficult for americans to sometime get their hands from because honestly, it does not reflect very well on either the american government or frankly, the american treatment of native

americans by the nondata populations, so it is a hard history. >> congressman, do you ever bring others into speak to the republican conference or do you ever recommend books? >> i recommend books all the time. as a matter fact every christmas i have a dinner for my republican appropriators and my classmates. we threw in the perpetrators because the classmates are a diminishing group as they retire. i'm going to lose three my great good friends this year. but, we always buy a present and it's a must a book. so i gave them all, i think the most popular one was probably unbroken. which everybody loves that book. >> and he's a great author of

seabiscuit. at the fabulous book. one year i gave bob woodward's book, the price book, the price of politics is a great book. and i think particularly when i gave it to i gave it out in 2012 and it is all on the budget crisis in the budget act of 2011. i said you need to read this because all the characters are still the same. and they're all here. it will help us understand. >> d5 netbook accurate accurate when it talked about president obama? >> parts of it i knew, i think it's very accurate. he. he is one of the great reporters. he was kind enough to have us to sign all of him. the person who is putting on the dinner took him my copy to be signed as he was doing all the others. he opens it up and when i read, i write. i am underlining this or that he starts going through there and says look, does ds think of me is what i think of it. >> the center something close

close to an hour. and read the comments on the books. >> what i can what the story, it may have been aimed at it character is supposed to the account. i do think i don't want to be critical, i have a wonderful relationship with john boehner but it's an up-and-down relationship, will i should say it's up down and up, so were in a good place now. and i have a decent relationship on a personal basis, i've had no opportunity to work with them he was wonderful in my hometown and there are more tornadoes in 2013, he could not have asked for more compassionate response. when you look around the office tonight joe, probably the only republican who has a five

pictures of barack obama in my office because we have done everything. he's good on indian things. so most indian legislation tends to be bipartisan. we have worked well with the white house on everything from the cabell settlement which is the largest class action settlement in american history by mismanagement of indian trust land. we had an important tribal position to expand tribal law and order act, indian reservations are under resourced in terms of the police, there's all sorts of tricky jurisdictional problems to deal with. but, having, having said that, i like both of these guys, some of the president's observations about john boehner a really based on misunderstandings of who jumping or was. you can see in that book there is actually a part where i understand were guys like boehner is a country club

republic. i grant you that he looks like a country club republic in a place a lot of golf but he is anything but a country club republican. here's a guy who grew up in a family of 12, his only when to college, dad ran a bar. he took longer to get through college because he was doing a business, he is really a much different guy, his story story in some ways to the rise of the speakership is every bit as remarkable given his circumstances and where he started in life as the presidents is, which is a great american story. so, i think sometimes it would've helped if that book had been written before and they could've each written the book. i think we may have had a somewhat different and into the story. although frankly they maintained a reasonably a reasonably good relationship despite the difficulties of the era. but anyway back to the main point, obviously we give a books

every year to these things and it's always interesting to see what your colleagues are the ones that read him. you don't have a lot of time to read but unbroken was popular, empire they love that one. i did one recently, blinking on the author's name, devotion, it's a fabulous book. about two american pilots, one the first african-american carrier pilot and his wing mates who is annapolis, ivy league educated, educated, but from a very affluent family in connecticut, still alive. and shot down over korea and missions were there helping cover the retreat from the river. but how close they were and the white pilot and all the pilots are trying to cover this guy and had to crash land is playing, he

can't get out of the plane, he's trapped in and eventually died with the plane, his name is jesse brown. but the pilot crash lands his plane to try to get his friend out of the plane. it's everything from the letter that the african-american pilot writes to his wife the night before he is killed, and it is all reproduced and they have a photo of a handwritten letter of wonderfully clear penmanship. stuff like that is a very clear and very priceless. >> i should be embarrassed that i've forgotten it's one of the best books, he said so many great things about the country at difficult times, we we still have jim crow and yet here or two guys who go around him on the aircraft carrier, they all became friends and it's a very

moving, very patriotic story, it's like unbroken and i hope someday it's a movie. >> do you read a book a week? >> i'm easily it depends on how long the books are. yes, on average probably one week or something like that. certainly two or three a month. >> it getting on the airplane back and forth. >> i do two things on the airplane, if unfortunate to get upgraded then i keep a journal and so if i'm several days behind that's a good stretch of time to catch up. but usually reading. >> cute is that a journal for future book? >> i don't know. a good friend of mine who is since deceased was a wonderful historian named rufus fears. if you ever go to people who

read or listen to teaching company which has these wonderful lectures, he has like five different series and there. he was a classical historian. there are many famous greeks and romans but at the university of oklahoma he held the chair funded by the blankenship family about freedom and he gave a great lecture series called the history of freedom and was a specialist and he had that same, fanatic fanatic flare the early 20th century. but rufus and i, he was a guy who i used to to sit down with two or three times a year and i like to know what he would thought and i would like to seek advice. not long after i got to congress, maybe, or maybe even after i got here but i have been elected we went to have lunch and i said i want some advice, what you think i should be doing up there, and he thought for a minute and he said, right. and he said first of all time, not many people do anymore.

so it needs to be done and frankly, doing it in hand and not on the computer because the electronic technology can be corrupted in ways. so do that they said you may not be very important when you're in congress, but you'll you'll seem important when you're gone because there won't be very many of these things around and historians will look at them. i kept journals when i worked for the secretary of state, it's cool to have written through the oklahoma city bombing and have that. so it was literally that day or the next day what he was doing in the crisis and what we're seeing around us that was unfolding. so i've always started dabbled with it for certain periods of time. but when i got here i've been pretty good at it. there are no breaks. it's been a continuous. >> is it a discipline to to write? >> know it's fun. i usually do a 32 or three times a week. but you keep your scheduling card with you because you can bring the memory right

back. so i don't have a certain time or whatever, but i'm very systematic about keeping a journal. i go go back and look at it occasionally a sale i had thought about it. i found one line in boehner and i went through a good. in a challenging. i have known him i was executive director of our campaign committee he was one of the gang of seven we came up with a poster that was so cool as or his six guys and they were rubbles back then. how although leadership hated these guys. so i knew him very well and he had been helpful in my campaign. i was on his committee and we are doing well. but is also very good friends with roy blunt, and roy have been exceptionally good to me. he did not know me, but not only

contributed to my campaign, it was a very competitive race in 2002, he literally sent a busload literally sent a busload of volunteers to my district to joplin all the way down to oklahoma because we had big events going in both places. i had to cover a big parade in my home town and he said what can i do to help and i said i've heard about this is called the stomp program and he said we had 5000 doors for me and we got here and he may me a whip, as the first guy mike class to become a deputy whip in my class so we're pretty close. so they end up running against one another and i am on team blunt which put me in the doghouse for about two or three years with speaker boehner, but, one night and this is before this race had occurred i was sitting in the capitol hill club

with friends of mine, john klein who is still here, gretchen was gone, and bob from colorado was also gone now. gone in the sense of not here, they are alive. but we are sitting in having a drink boehner had this big cable work he tended to hang out with his group. but were all on his committee, bob may may not have been but i know gretchen -- so he sits down for section second. in my journal that night i said john boehner came by today were sitting around with the guys chatting and i think he will run for leadership again someday. if he does i will probably support him. unless he runs against roy blunt, in which case i'm screwed. and that's exactly what happened. and i had totally forgotten that. i'm reading this thing and can believe it. i actually sent it to my friend john klein who

is on the other side, very close to speaker boehner throughout his career here but again, like most things in life, if speaker boehner actually has a wonderful phrase that you either write things for the right reasons the right thing will happen. so over the course our relationship change pretty dramatically to the point i was ours characterize as a boehner defender, whatever's right is right in this have not been around here very long because we went through few difficult years. but that happens in politics. it wasn't unfair, it was just that we are on different sides on a lot of things. it's it's not smart to be on the wrong side with the leader in the speaker and to be fair by the time he was speaker i think we had work through our issues and work very hard to find common ground so throughout his speakership we had a terrific relationship. >> how do you your books?

to buy them, go to the library? >> i very seldom go to the library, a main i like spending time, i'm not cannot the libraries, but i am going to mark them up so i do go to bookstores and just browse like everybody else, read reviews, i just see something or hear something, there's no particularly systematic way, or i decide i want to read something on fill in the blank. you just go to the internet and pop up something that is about this and there you go. if i'm going have an opportunity to meet and author, the other night at the library of congress we had this presidential series that they're doing and i did not

have a chance to meet him but i've been a big admirer of evan thomas, he wrote a wonderful book on the which a friend of mine got me autographed from him. so i wanted to make sure what i knew that was coming that i read the indexing, which i think is one of the best and honestly most of the sympathetic portraits of richard nixon that i've ever read. if you're going to get to hear them, you have liked to have read it. one of the nice things in this business is you do do have these opportunities perhaps more than other people do. >> so on that night that evan thomas was at the library congress, how many members? >> quite a few. there is probably at least 50 would say there, a lot of couples, but it got a big turnout. again, it was a terrific terrific book. i was actually sitting next to

ken who i think was chairman of california and he knew nixon very well and he was tell me about the congratulatory call he got from nick's in the night won his congressional seat 92. and he said i was talking about a guy in this wonderful guy who is a senior republican political guy but was annexed in speechwriter in california and he said i was talking to ken earlier today and can have been interviewed extensively in the book, he's author the book, but i do not think he had read it yet. so he said ken told me you go listen and you make sure he's fair. and at the end of the evening can concludes that he really was fair and he said i'm never gonna get a call back they set okay nixon got a fair treatment here. >> have you read presidential

biographies on most presidents? >> quite a few. they're interesting, i don't have any, my taser about the same as everybody else, maybe not, nixon is a different taste, i've read a lot on him a lot of eisenhower. again, you do get some wonderful privileges when you serve, i have met eisenhower on several occasions she was nice enough to invite manage your friend to come out to gettysburg on monday to get a personal to her of the eisenhower postpresidential homestead. it was wonderful. it was one memory after another because she had on to high school and lived close and this

is where she met someone in the house where talking and i actually said i actually got close to his plane and 59. she looked at me and said my dad was in master sergeant in the air force base. i'll never forget us going out there to look at the plane that brought the cruise ship to the united states. he is the most senior master sergeant on the base. so there is a viewing area and so they could get us pretty close. my brother and i, so it was wonderful. but what a treat. she was sitting there listening to stories about the grandfather and grandmother, what they're like and to see the things in the home but to have a personal touch, this was this and this was here, this is where i would sit with when my grandmother was doing this. it was fabulous. >> i don't know if you have picked up peter with the washington post book about the trip. >> know i've not read that. it was a big deal. at the time i was 59 so i was like ten years old, i remember

it very well. and following it on television and all those sorts of things. but again, she she has one story after churchill, montgomery coming there and walking the battlefield with her grandfather and fun stuff like here's the barn and the horses, is run off and the secret service and try to catch me and collar me or find me, again, she's a wonderful person, what a treat. >> the importance of william shakespeare to our culture, our politics, in your view? >> very profound. next. next to the bible shakespeare is probably more influence on the way we think in the way we talk at on literature than any other person in the history of our language.

and i think it's wonderful, obviously it's great art, great, great place. but it's great history too. it's a reminder of character and history really matters, that history is not just a matter of demographic forces. that's that's a big part of it. individuals count, individuals matter, motivations are complex. so i am no shakespearean scholar, but anybody tells you they have not been the most influential writer in anglo-american history, so to speak and probably around the world in some ways because he studied in some new languages, i think you have to make him a pretty important guy. >> okay congressman let's say after congress you decide to go back to teaching and you have to teach a class in give your students one book to read. >> go that is the most unfair

question. >> honestly it would vary. it would depend on what i was teaching. if i were just giving them a great book and something on american history i would probably pick, i love stephen ambrose's book, he used to say, and told and i think i read someplace his favorite book to write and you think of all, he had a three volume and i think nixon nixon had a two-volume on eisenhower, d-day, band of brothers, this is a great historian. he wrote a book that that is not as widely known as it should be and it's called the called crazy horse in custer, the the dual lives of two american warriors. actually found a copy of it when i was going to little big horn battlefield out on the next petition and i've eyes wanted to see that place which is haunting. there was the book.

so i bought the book actually at the park a little place where you get the trinkets in your books and things like that. it is a fabulous book about these two very different warriors with very different traditions. if you live on the planes like i do, oklahoma's part of that, as medevac the first battle of custer's in oklahoma. in western oklahoma. i worked with frank lucas years ago when he was in congress and i was secretary of state, it was in private hands to get it into the national park system which it is now, thank goodness. but he described perfectly everything from weather to how this a vast battlefield shaved regionally and it shaped the sioux and the other great plains tribes that were involved. but the nature of warfare the nature of whether and how they

interacted. but it's a great book. you know when you're in it that here's a guy guy that has been pulled into the character of custer and pulled into the character of crazy horse and just understands, he was just so good. and i could pick out a bunch of other books and tell you, but i would pick this one to and it would not even be a history book, but again is a wonderful first man of rome series, that book on politics and intrigue in the roman world. is probably better than any history written at the time. it was some wonderful histories but what a tremendous historical novel. you learn a lot from it. >> congressman, republican of oklahoma, thank you for joining the. >> thank you, i enjoyed it.

>> when i tune in on the weekends usually it is authors sharing new releases. >> watching the nonfiction authors on book tv is the best television for serious readers. >> on c-span they can have a longer conversation and dive into their subject. >> book tv, weekends, they, they bring you author, after author, after author, that spotlight the work of fascinating people. >> i love the book tv and i am a c-span fan. >> here's a look at authors recently featured on book tvs afterwards. our weekly author interview program. senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell mitch mcconnell discussed his political philosophy, and his time in the senate. the vice president of policy and research, tamara draut talked about america's new working class and its potential political power. and shaka senghor weighed in on criminal justice reform and recalled his 19 years in prison. in the coming weeks on

afterwards, natalia holt will profile the women instrumental in america's space program in the 1940s and 50s. historian, pamela and haig will look at gun ownership in america. eric fehr will discuss his time in iraq working with as an interrogator as an independent contractor. this weekend, senator barbara boxer of california will look back at her life and career in politics, she is in conversation with minnesota senator amy, shar. >> when the seat open up, and election for the county supervisor opened up in california which is a beautiful place with a san francisco, the issues were what we could do locally. and the environment, and women's rights. so, course everybody came to us and and i said why don't you do

it? and i said it pays 11,000 dollars per per year, what you do it. >> so i ran. and it was so crazy. >> afterwards there's on book tv every saturday at 10:00 p.m. and sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern. you can. you can watch all previous afterwards programs on our website, booktv.org. >> this is book tv on c-span2. television for serious readers. here's our primetime lineup. starting shortly, william walker provides an account of a world war i battle that resulted in 122,000 american casualties. then at eight p.m.. then at 8:00 p.m., author and activist david horowitz describes the idea of progressive racism. on afterwards, at 9:00 p.m. eastern, senator senator barbara boxer talks about her book, the art of tough.

then at 10:00 p.m., mary ratzenberger, executive director talks to look to be about how the guild works with authors. we wrap up book to be in prime time at 10:30 p.m. with national affairs editor discussing his most recent book, the fractured republic. that all happens next, c-span two's, c-span2's book tv, first up, william walker. [inaudible] [inaudible] >> good evening. welcome to the center for arts in virginia. my name is rick and

i am the president of the augustine county stargell society which is the sponsor of tonight's event. the historical society has been preserving and promoting the history of augusta county virginia for over 50 years. as many of you know our county was created in 1738 and at one time expended all the way to the mississippi river. we have a great deal of historical heritage to be proud of. we are also very proud of our 20 century history, tonight we are very pleased to welcome you and are c-span viewers to an event featuring two stanton residents and members of the society. a great evening on the great war, features features william bill walker, his brand-new book on the muse and offenses on world war i we will explore tonight with assistance of a