treason. >> see the world at large is collection of materials used in the earliest days of the revolution displayed at the concorde museum. watch c-span at cities tour of concorde massachusetts today at noon eastern on booktv and sunday at 2:00 pm on american history tv on c-span 3, working with our cable affiliate and visiting cities across the country. >> good afternoon and welcome to the franklin roosevelt presidential library museum, happy to be here today for our 14th annual roosevelt reading festival. the program format is the author we are talking about for 30 minutes, there will be a 10 minute question-and-answer period and then a book signing

out by the store. we have season with us today, we are thrilled so if you are going to have a question please use the microphone on the side so that we can record your sound. these reading festivals and all the programs we do are supported by our members and trustees. we have any members today, raise your hand, there you go. love you guys, we couldn't do this without you and we appreciate your support. if you have one of these buttons for attending today, that will give you free admission to the museum. hope you will visit. we have a wonderful temporary exhibit called images of internment, it is an important exhibit for us, the library has never done an exhibit on a japanese internment before, it is a photography exhibit but very powerful and hope you will see it. this afternoon we have one of our most sensational books.

it has sex and drama and beautiful woman trapped behind not the lines. it is actually in the process of being made into a movie or has all the elements of it. nominated twice for pulitzer prizes. he wanted, the gold exodus, gained land, the floor of heaven but the book is talking about today is called the last good night, the world or 2 story of espionage, adventure and betrayal and it is one of those books where the story, you can't believe you haven't heard this story before because it has all the right elements. it will star angeline jolie and brad pitt, it was supposed to but they made a different movie but what i think is interesting about festival is we bring these different stories together, different authors and books and these stories are so universal, they touch us in so many different ways, howard did a fantastic job in this book putting you in the moment, you can smell it and tasted it be

right there so please welcome howard blum. [applause] >> there is a moment in every author's life when he finds a story that interests him, he feels he can wake up each morning, said at his desk and try to make those characters come alive on the page but those moments are preludes, small ones, to that great energizing moment when he decides this is a story i love, this is a book i have to write and i would like to talk this afternoon how i came to write "the last goodnight: a world war ii story of espionage, adventure, and betrayal," the story of betty pack who became a secret operative made healthy allies in the war and whose activities and missions fdr followed quite carefully. but betty's story is primarily a spy story so it is appropriate

that my book began to coalesce, my commitment began to formalize as i was walking among the ancient stones and tall spires of cambridge university in cambridge, england. cambridge university has a long and often infamous connection to espionage, most notoriously a group of long-term penetration agents or moles who burrowed their way into the english society working for the soviet union but i haven't come to cambridge to talk or look into kim filby. but i get ahead of myself. in the beginning when i first started looking for a new book to write i decided i wanted to write a woman's story. i had 11 books before and in none of them was very central female character.

perhaps this was a tacit admission that i wasn't up to the task. but now i was older and if not wiser at least a bit more battle scarred. had two daughters in early 20s, one ex-wife, paid my dues, not to mention alimony and tuition. i thought i could handle a story of a complex, willful, beautiful, intelligent woman. even as i made this decision i was pulled back on another matter of concern, usually filled with drama and events, my thoughts gravitated towards a female spy, making our way through the literature. i came across betty's story and what there was was still intriguing. a woman from a wealthy family grew up in minnesota and washington dc, debutantes, many

daring admissions and came across an obituary in time magazine, called her a blonde bond, a woman who used bedroom the way bond used a beretta. i said intriguing. i will try to pursue this but for story of betty to work it has to be more than an espionage thriller. i had to be able to explain to the readers how she made this from debutante to spy, how she was able to live with the moral ambiguities of her chosen profession, how she lived a life filled with roller coaster romance and how she had been disloyal to everyone she encountered except the spy she caused, and had to do this in betty's own words and thoughts and this is a bit of a challenge, betty has been dead for more than 50 years.

and churchill college, a star collection of modernistic buildings, come to the churchill archives. and a man by harvard montgomery hide. a former british by, barrister, member of parliament, professor and an author, and and as a bodice ripper and spent some time with betty and collected her papers. after he died his papers went to the churchill center.

i went hoping to find something. as i sat in the archive center, box after box after box, i realized i struck gold, a treasure trove, an unpublished memoir, and our own green ink, diary, even a book her parents published for her when she wrote a fairytale which at the same time was revelatory about the woman she would grow up to be. and i could tell a fairly accurate espionage story about betty, and write about her romantic life in her own words,

how she used the bedroom as an operational battlefield. and could create a psychological detective story, i could explain how she lived with the amorality of the profession and committed to one relationship and live the life of betrayal, how she made this journey from washington dc debutante to a spy. something totally unsuspected was betty's final mission, in her early 50s, living in a castle of the south of france with her second husband and came to visit her to talk about this book and decides to go off with him to ireland and england, leaves her husband behind and keeping a secret from her

husband she is trying to understand the decisions she made, the consequences of those decisions, she hasn't revealed to anyone she had cancer, she goes off to try to understand her own life. and was retrospective. i began to follow in betty's footsteps, and in the castle where she stood, where she made up her mind to drive off, i went to ireland and followed the footsteps into the bar where she sat in front of the red roles and talked for hours into the

hills where she drove with hide and went to spain, madrid, valencia during the civil war but the sky was not filled with bombers, and didn't have to worry about what was behind the next corner. i went to washington dc to the quaint little house on 0 street, the site of many of her operational missions. i had a surprising discovery, surprising utilization, i set off looking into her life. had been such a disloyal spouse, a treacherous mother, to both her children, and wasn't very sympathetic, then i had a great deal of respect for the woman

she was, the decision she made for continuity of purpose, courage and what she contributed to the allied cause. and they crossed the rubicon but separates, and was in prewar poland, warsaw, she wrote the letter home was a sad place, and for betty was more lugubrious, and a disastrous marriage, it was a british diplomat, three times, the age difference, and

vivacious 26-year-old looking to charm every man she met. this complicated marriage was or more complicated on new year's eve, a very severe stroke, beautiful wife takes him back to england to cooperate, and keep the house open, you realize i am not that desperately ill and i will be returning. betty returns to warsaw, winter in poland, she is all by herself, she follows her wayward heart and not for the first time in this, and the young polish diplomat, she describes in her diary, and played chopin, they would sit at night, and a tiger

skin rug and blazing fire and one night when she was in his arms, she mentioned something in the office that day, and how poland made an agreement with germany, and poland, and call the british embassy and asked the passport control officer. the passport control officer at any british embassy, thin cover at best, a secret intelligence service man at the embassy. how would you like to play golf today.

and he says why not. he admires her tradecraft, and without attracting attention, and she tells them what she has heard, and what they have to say. and london thinks this is great, and stays with this young polish diplomat for a wildland told spy masters in london, tell her she should spread her wings, move up higher in polish society and betty has no regrets, doesn't really have romances, she has adventures and one day her hand

note comes to her and says michael lubinski, she says no, we would like you to get to meet him. to joseph beck, jared kushner type, young, handsome guy in poland who knows everything that is happening. betty approaches the american ambassador, and tells him i think you should throw a party. why? it would be fun and i would like to sit next to count lipinski. now i understand. so betty is put next account lubinski, they dance, champagne flows. and and would type up everything

and pass it on to her handler. at the end, that was betty's great gift every spy has to learn. we believe something the moment you say it and in that moment passes you believe something else, maybe not a gift but for politicians too. betty stayed with the count and in the process learned what was happening at the black chamber which was a basin, and polish labor specialists, enigma is an encoding device developed before the war by german merchants when they want to send trade secrets.

war approaches and the german army takes it over, become so complex it can make any message have 185 million million million million permutations. the devices have to be booked up in a codebook, understand what is being sent. after three years of working, these young polls cracked the enigma machine. the spy masters and england are able to purchase the enigma machine and bring these young polls who allegedly park and it is one of the key events when cracking enigma. in something as complex as cracking the enigma code there are many heroes who deserve the crown of woe, alan turing and other geniuses, leslie park, the british facility for code breaking.

and thinking submarines. betty played a key role, british official history of the secret service, played an essential role in cracking the enigma machine and how important is the enigma machine, the germans were spending - sending 85,000 messages a month and were able to read those. general eisenhower said it shortened the war by several years, and uncounted thousands of lives and betty made this possible. then there is another operation that he was involved in, and italian naval society. the year was 1940, in georgetown rented for her, that lovely college, $250 a month was

recently sold. and a flash cable arrives at the headquarters, and run by williams stevenson called intrepid. they need to get the italian naval sites by the embassy in washington at all costs. and it is well known spread perilously thin across the mediterranean. and through italy, will be postponed or made impossible and italian naval ciphers provide the missing link. betty is told by her handler that the man in charge of the italian naval ciphers is named

admiral albertoh lay. she knew alberto lay. she was 12 years old and was determined to convince the no longer a little girl but a woman. admiral lay was invited to her house for dinner and the admiral is 65 or so, portly with grown children. 28 and beautiful and chose her winds very carefully and lined up in her bedroom. the admiral keeps coming by several times a week and betty finally tells him she needs his help in getting some and the admiral is shocked, committing an act of treason, can't do that and stormed out of the house. it is a very rough moment for

betty. she doesn't know if she will return with a couple italian security goons or notify the fbi she is working for british intelligence and affect foreign agent at the war at this point and she thinks of leaving town but she stays and a week later the admiral returns and says he has the honorable solution. i can't give you the ciphers but i can tell you the name of one of my quotes in charge of the ciphers and the rest of it will be up to you. even if it is not quite an honorable solution needed as the admiral to return to betty's bedroom. betty now uses journalistic cover and goes to the cipher clerk and tells him she is doing a story on little people in the embassy, people behind the scenes who control things. quite flattered by this, invite him over to her house for dinner and can see is not a womanizer.

sitting there in this wonderfully appointed room that is paid for by the british taxpayer. betty sees this moment and says you can. and has been authorized to pay $100,000, astronomical sum. betty knows the art of the deal and gets them for $2500. and was photographed and returned and how important are they? on march 28, 1941, off of the southern tip of greece, the british, led by admiral sir andrew cunningham, approaches the italian navy spread out, open their 15 inch guns and by don, three destroyers and two cruisers and one battleship are

sunk, 2400 italian seamen lose their lives, churchill describes this encounter, and at that moment the mediterranean remains and betty helped make that possible. there is another incident involving betty, it is december 1941 and it is a low point in the war for the allies. pearl harbor has just been bombed, the british have been pushed off of the continent of europe, germany is marching into russia and at this point churchill comes to the united states and meeting with fdr, trying to convince him what should be their next move. eventually it will be operation torch in asia and africa but even as they are working towards this decision the british government decides they need to

get into north africa and betty is told about this mission, when the nazis invaded france, paris in the north by germany, the south and central area with quarters there, famous for its mineral water is in independent state that just answers to everything germany says, they are allowed to have an embassy in the united states, they have one in wyoming and one in washington dc. betty is told to get the ciphers from that embassy and they explained to her the ciphers on the second floor in a locked safe with an armed guard. it is an impossible mission and betty says i will take it.

she's a goes about this is all her missions, looks for a friend and charles bruce is a very french frenchman. he likes his wine, his good food, according to the us record, had been married three or five times, can't quite decide. betty goes to interview him. the next day roosevelt delivered to her door and asked her to lunch, after lunch they wind up in betty's bedroom and in her relationship with bruce something happens to her that never happened to her in the her career. she falls in love with him, describes it in her memoir being greatest love of my life yet even while betty is in love with bruce, she has no problems taking everything he is saying

and passing it on to british and american spies who she is working for and betrayal is a very repetitious profession. betty finally tells bruce what she wants, what she needs to get through ciphers. bruce comes up with the plan. we need to get into the embassy. he approaches the guard who has the oscillation and introduces betty as his girlfriend, betty lives with her parents and we need someplace to go at night. we would like to use the embassy. andre, betty and bruce build their cover every evening, at the same time the americans by

network is working, we need to get a context from a jail in georgia, and a pardon in the os s records, the georgia cracker and teaches betty to crack the safe and the os s tech department, when the time is right, a follow-up champagne, go to see andre at the embassy. we are going to celebrate for an entire year, and champagne for andre, and in the sleeping powder, in the dog's water bowl and they go out like a light.

betty makes her way and get to the safe. and get it open but the sun is coming out outside and the cleaning staff will be there and the codebooks which are the size of the two of them, need to be photographed and returned so all betty can do is kiss the books, put them back into the safe and turn the wheel and she had bruce leave and go to the handler and he tells her you did what you could. it was an impossible mission but you can't go back again, can't give the sleeping powder again and betty agrees but she insists on going back and two nights later eddie and bruce. things are not quite right, and

asking if he has a headache. betty figures she will wait until they fall and wait until midnight, this time the safe opens up very quickly. as the safe opened, footsteps going down the hall. what does she do, she starts taking off her clothes. why are you doing this? we are doing something not a, and andre the watchmen, the flashlight and betty makes a halfhearted attempt to cover herself up, and he backs off, betty is able to get the

codebooks out to be photographed by the oss and replaced in time for betty to leave, no one can know the difference and how important are they? 40,000 allied troops landed on the beaches of north africa and largely possible because of what we know about the activities. and planes bombed the right installations, churchill goes before parliament, the invasion of north africa is the end of the beginning. the war can now move forward and it does move forward for the allies and betty helped make that possible. according to the osf she changed the whole course of the war. after this event the oss and british decide they will go to great things with betty and bruce.

bruce's family is well-connected, and members of the oss tech team say wait a minute, the gestapo are going to look at everything, and invent a new biography, and that old goat is old enough to be her father. bruce will be -- there is one other problem. betty is going to be the stepdaughter and not an american spy. and she dies it, doesn't wear

makeup, and it seems to be working and something happens. the germans take over france and one of the first things they do, the diplomats were there. and the vichy embassy, and hotel hershey and hershey, pennsylvania, a couple hundred acres and they were not happy, it was about the wine list at the hotel hershey. not up to his standard. and there is betty, she goes

screaming through the hotels, this woman is not my daughter and she is a spy, what a career it had been. and channeling the way word emotions and sensibilities to the cause they believed in. and help the allies win the war, when i went to the cia to talk about betty, i asked do you still mention betty. we tell our new recruit something, we tell all our new recruits, it is the most dangerous. the last person to say good night is the most dangerous. betty, they told me, is the personification of that warning. our spymaster's seem more concerned with electronic

intelligence and more concerned about hacking into computers and iphones, and information from the enemy, more likely to get involved in waterboarding. >> [applause]

>> mark kovach is the name. with the oss, with their interface for virginia crawford, did you find any records of that. and she was -- used the bedroom as the operational battlefield. and betty's activities, james bond does it. it was not frowned upon but

applauded. any other questions. >> the information you wrote about is in diaries. >> i pieced a lot of it together. it is in memoirs, diaries and letters, there are other sources to the oss records, many references to her, the astor connection to vincent astor, the navy was involved with her, stephenson, a man called intrepid. the secret history of the british intelligence service in america during the war which was finally published two years ago it makes many references to her. they have one section, the admiral when she gets the codes

and they point out this whole thing seems incredible, we couldn't believe it and yes, in fact, when the admiral developed from the united states, to harvard, new york, and wife and daughter are there, it ignores the manned say goodbye to betty instead and that was alberto. >> when she was exposed at the hotel hershey in pennsylvania she retired and that was it. >> she tried to keep on going, she tried at one point she goes to london for more training but the gestapo is aware of her, they expect her to come and the oss says it will be a sudden death and she doesn't go back to france until after the war. >> another 50 years. >> she died when she was 52. she died at the castle she was living in with her second husband, bruce, who she married

in the southeast of france and 10 years later there is an electric blanket and he dies in a catholic goes up in flames. >> could you please expand on the astor connection if you could briefly. >> originally i had written quite a good deal about astor into the book and it became too tangential. astor was really a spy, he and fdr would meet up here and the president was astor's hand and we talk about spy activities and astor before the war ran a group of well-connected new yorkers in a townhouse on east 61st street, room 1610, can't remember the exact name, they were sort of an

intelligence gathering, different bankers about different trades and astor would also take his own yacht out to find locations of japanese installations. when betty was coming back on the ship, william stevenson asked astor to get a navy man to check her out and they do a first check to see if she is as effective as they think. the navy man who portrays himself as an officer, not an officer yet, but a gentle inspiring and reported back to astor. [applause]

[inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> and this weekend on booktv on c-span2 we have 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books. here's a few of the programs you will see. on our afterwards program --

>> that is just a few of the authors you will see this weekend on booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. >> the brain is incredibly sophisticated, tiny device. i will give you two examples of that. in language if i said two sentences like they gave her what? they gave her cat food.

there are two different meetings based on pause. another example in music, doesn't make sense blues music would be less enjoyable in an internal list universe because it is already out there. now might be a time if we could play the audio clip. the challenge to you is to see if you can recognize the song. if it reminds you of anything, i will explain what it is later. i will give you a clue, when i give this to my undergrad they look at me with a blank face but the name of the group is the beatles. so this song reminds you of anything, can we play that please? ♪

>> does that remind you, does that remind you of anything? anything else? what? any other beatles songs? that is what somebody said yesterday. people who picked up on that were paying attention to the notes. the timing was yesterday. it was a hybrid song in which you cross spatial and temporal. the way it is to everything we do and the idea of time is showing. at the same time how sophisticated the brain's ability is to tell time on the scale of hundreds of

milliseconds to a few seconds. if you slow music down or speed music up too much or slow speech down slow speech up, it ceases to be speech or music. it is very critical range or the goldilocks zone of time. ..