and this book, for example, i take the story back to the colonial period or the early national period where you had debates between jeffersonian farmers who want free trade across the atlantic and people like alexander hamilton who wanted to protect northern factory owners through tariffs and through other legal actions. in a lot of ways, we are seeing similar types of debates today. smaller entries versus larger. [inaudible conversations] >> at evening. thank you for coming. i am the programming coordinator for st. louis county library.

i'd like to thank our presenting sponsor, mary ville university barnes & noble. that evokes personnel in the back of the room. consider buying a book tonight on purchasing the book helps bring more great authors. lee will sign copies at this table after the talk and get it going very efficiently. this event is presented by the favorite author series or the program was started in 2004 and represent opposite politics, history and sport. you can visit the program for a list of the business organizations. our next westfall event will be next month -- next tuesday, may 23rd. we will have our first fiction writer and jet shower will be here. he is a writer who writes sort of military history, but they are sort of novelizations of his

oracle event and is about the korean war. on to tonight's program. leigh montville is a former columnist at "the boston globe" and senior writer for "sports illustrated." he's written a "new york times" best-selling biography with such iconic and fascinating sports figures this paper is coming ted williams and dale earnhardt. tonight he will share his new biography of one of the most celebrated and controversial athletes of the 20th century, mohammed ali, which is appropriately tired old "sting like a bee." if someone overlooks. of life, the struggle is a conscientious draft during the tumultuous vietnam era and the legal battle that took him all the way to the supreme court. master play research with great suspense, "sting like a bee" is an inspiring account of the individual and never fails to capture the charisma and complexity of mohammed ali.

please welcome leigh montville. [applause] >> thank you for that nice introduction. it's nice to be in st. louis. [inaudible] the last time i came to one of these, i gave localtalk and i walked off inside a long plastic thing that said 30 by 32 by 30 by 32. i was very careful -- [inaudible] that should be like the greatest booktalk ever come in the greatest of all time about mohammed ali.

why should there be another one? that's a great question. why i writing this for? it was about evil knievel. we were talking what i should do next with my publisher. i think what i want to do is be obscure story from a sort of a seabiscuit kind of thing, where america all of a sudden discovers this and i propose a guy named will mcdonough. he had some on connections and things like that and they tell great stories. my aunt said it's about a 25 page proposal on ms. it was a 25 page proposal down

in about five seconds and he said their son iconic athlete. they all seem to have been on the skies and then i put down mohammed ali and they said is the most iconic of all. then in the united states, and the world. the time. i came up with, mohammed ali was written by "the new yorker," david remnick in 1997 and covered the time to win the

world title and it ended right there. i think that time. from there and the trouble with the united states government kind of go with that. i said that tonight at it here and how well mohammed ali versus the united states of america. he said could you write me two paragraphs on that? i wrote the two paragraphs then said we've got a deal. we are going to do this. i found as i got into it a couple of great reasons to be doing that. i am 18 months younger than mohammed ali was. i was going through the stuff with the draft in the vietnam war. i got married around the same

time. problems came up around the time my draft problems came up. so i really honed in on now. the vietnam were trying to change the lives of just about everybody, kind of was the fact that somehow. they got married to stay out of the draft. they started careers and education, but they had no reason to be an education and they've been in education all their lives because of the draft because you get a deferment. i graduated from the university of connecticut. i kind of bummed around for a while, but she really couldn't do that. so into 16 different national guard outfits and said since ig, i'd love to go there. i found some that actually needed somebody. the first time i flew on an

airplane was from john tend to st. louis. we hitchhiked once in stating some kids room at washington university and then we went to hitchhiked back and we got stranded. we stood by the exit there for six hours waiting for somebody to pick us up and finally again it came, he had a truck in the kind of pick us up and i promise to god that from that moment on i would always pick up every hitchhiker that i saw and i kind of broke that promise i think. i'm sorry, god. the draft effect did everyone and mohammed ali, the first thing that happened with mohammed ali liz's 1964 when he

was called up to go at the age of 18. he went through the physical and mental tests. he really couldn't read very well and couldn't write very well and he was dyslexic i think. so he phoned the mental tests and then he flunked it again. he had a score of like 16 on the past and that was underneath. he got married, so then he listed the second and he joined the nation of islam and make a divorce because his wife wouldn't conform to the nation and wouldn't dress like that.

and so, he now is eligible that way. vietnam they dropped the test. and so now they pass the test instead of font attests. he was called to be in the service. that happened in 1966. i'll try and read you what he said when that happened. you can edit out the spurt review looks for the book. when he was reclassified and the reporters stood around outside, he was going to try chicago when

he was in miami beach when he found out. he came out from this house where he was living and reporters put on and stuff. he said this. he said i can understand how they can do this to me. by the actions to take me, amanda pays his salary of at least 200,000 men a year. i can understand how to salsa baseball players, football players, basketball players why the world's only heavyweight champion, why are they so anxious to pay me $80 a month commend me to it to fight. i'm fighting for the government everyday. i'm laying my life on the line for the government everyday. nine out of 10 would not want to be in my place in the ring.

for two years they told everybody it was the night and i was ashamed. everyone was asking, even my ex-wife was ashamed. now that testing to see if i'm wiser or worse there than before the army. he said all that stuff and more. the next tab around the country i don't have any clout with the vietcong. at the time was picking out and he was like aligning himself to the enemy appeared his popularity just kind of went

down and it was canceled in chicago and a whole bunch of stuff. the reason he objected to the war was because he's a member of the nation of islam. he was a true believer in the nation of islam. it was an offshoot of islam with a different kind of theology on the side and oppressing the black man and just a different theology. the idea was why should it? insight and a white man's world. he was the head of the nation of islam. he had served four years in jail. a bunch of numbers that the religion that served time in

jail was not going to korea and mohammed ali was in that line in his religious thinking. so he applied for conscientious tourists, which entails pennridge apco who was a big lawyer for malcolm x in the nation of islam in harlem. he was called jaco the giant killer because you eat and the government on a bunch of things. as part of that he had to go see a special judge and they brought in a retired judge to talk -- to decide whether or not he should be a conscientious objector.

this is the one time he could really see this case. he was in louisville, kentucky and was in a big seller red sky at all. you wouldn't think he would have much of a chance. a guy who had been a defender of the jehovah's witnesses for a long time. he had been the most successful lawyer ever to appeal cases to the u.s. supreme court. that a lot of jehovah's witnesses under the army and refusing to say the pledge of allegiance and stand and salute the flag and things like that.

always stated his case. the fbi presented as file and after about three weeks from a judge, decided that he should be a conscientious served to be filed to justice department a nonbinding decision and the justice department says that's very nice what a sad, but we think you really should consider mohammed ali one name he should be drafted. the justice department overrode what he said and away we went to the whole thing will eventually he was called for induction into the army in houston and refuse to step forward in every state

for the new york athletic commission. and took it away in the justice department and i couldn't go anywhere else in the world to fight. so he was out of a job. at three and a half year. started that he got married to a 17-year-old girl who's a member of the nation of islam had grown up in the nation of islam's world and she probably knew more about the religion than anybody. the kind of went off to figure out life. he was making no money. he spent all his money and wound up as college campus where he went to college is then

presented his case to the college kids. he wasn't part of the draft or apparatus the into the great protest of going against the draft. it was mostly for himself. he wasn't with the priests who are going in on the draft records at all that stuff. he was out protesting on his own roots and he wasn't a civil rights kite either. the nation of islam bully if with separation, not integration. if he could vote, he would've voted for george wallace. he wanted a segregated society

where they would give them a state or something and it would be a separate country. the one fact, he would call the people that were marching under reverend martin luther king. he would say whether you doing? this is the nothing you should be doing. he should be trying to force yourself upon them. you should go off in a different direction. so we have a very different viewpoint than he had later in life. it was very controversial in the funny thing happened in a couple years went by. 1968 came along where everything went crazy and i was maybe the craziest year when martin luther king was assassinated, robert

kennedy was assassinated. the convention with mayor daley in chicago arriving in 110 cities in chicago. stuff which is going on everywhere and mohammed ali just didn't seem that controversial anymore. more and more kids had convinced their parents maybe this wasn't the greatest war in the world for them to be involved in and kind of a valid against. slowly but surely, the natural perception of mohammed ali had become much different. when he finally got the end of 68, he was on the filing line with william f. buck lee. i don't know if anybody remembers that show.

the guy with the words of the whole thing. he was really good against him. he had gone off and perfected his rap in arguing with college kids when he was very good in that show appeared different thing along the lines he showed up more and orange on a person in the mike douglas show and he became more mainstream. he appeared in a play on broadway in the idea became maybe he should be back fighting. a guy in new york, a young civil rights lawyer tried to file a whole thing in new york to get his license back because he said he really hadn't been conveyed

to did anything. he was still in the appeals process. how could he lose his job for something he had been conveyed to four. that was in an kind of thing. that has gone on to another guy tried to get in the license in atlanta, georgia where it was sent the state boxing commission so under the nose, the most segregationist governor in america, they pushed through the thing in atlanta and they do his comeback fight any fight in 1870 and it opened up and he fought -- he beat jerry in three rounds, cut them up pretty bad and they stopped the fight.

then he fought in madison square garden and that went the distance 12 rounds and he won a decision and then the fight that have been building and building and had become the champion and i'll be considered himself to be the people's champion. it got built up and it was probably the biggest sports event in 20th century america. each fighter got $5 million, which was an unbelievable amount of money at that time. ted cook who is the owner of the washington red skins and whatever, he was the one who put up the $10 million. all leave for some reason but

the comeback fight of his life really didn't train that hard for it. he wound up spending most of his time talking to reporters in hanging around in the meantime fraser was grinding away, greg demolay, grinding away. she said you're going to to lose to this guy. in this that way in the back seats. sure enough, fraser just ground away at a ground delay and knocked all the way down and one that decision. about two months later, the case finally came before the supreme court. the supreme court had refused to rule on that, which would've sent him to jail.

a second thing came up about wiretapping and the fbi had wiretapped the conversations of mohammed ali, just five of them without his knowledge of not running back for another chance to go through the court. it reached the supreme court and the supreme court decided judge thurgood marshall recused himself because he is part of the justice department prosecuting all the way back before he became a supreme court justice. eight judges are voting and the vote was five to three of and ali was convicted. he was going to go away for five years. judge john hartland was given the job of writing a vast majority attending and mohammed ali was going to go away.

at stake is in turn, his locker -- law clerks and they were part of the young people who change their mind about mohammed ali. they figured out a way to convince them that mohammed ali should have got a deferment of the conscientious their way back in the beginning when the justice department had turned over what the judge had ruled. so to his credit, kind of believed the clerk and he would act to the supreme court and he said i change my vote. it is a tie in mohammed ali still would go to jail with a tie. one of the other justices said what kind of decision is that?

people in america will look at this famous guy and say the court can't make up its mind and they still have to go to jail? and they changed the vote to get them off the hook. they found somebody in the justice department decision that kind of seem contradictory. they all voted eight to nothing in ali was off the hook and off into the world. that kind of ends right there. all a bunch of his life was lived afterward. i had a problem figuring out what the introduction was to this book. i was doing it for a couple years and i couldn't do it. and then, ali died and there was

such an outpouring of emotion that gandhi had died or mother teresa had died. you know, billy crystal and all these people were talking and he was all great stuff. you didn't see where the edge was, what was going on at the time, but the friction was. that is my book, showing what the friction was. ali at the end of his career, he became sick and he just for the last half of his life was more of an inspirational figure than anything. he did some wonderful stuff. i think a lot of qualities were assigned to him that he had in

the second half of his life that maybe he didn't have in the first half when he was a much more controversial guy. he's a fascinating guy and will forever be the most interesting plate in iconic guy that we've ever seen. anybody want to ask him questions? >> powered the funds provided in the years he was not rock scene? >> to jehovah's witness because they were stepping for the money. that is why he wound up doing with the civil rights attorney from atlanta named charles fort and who have been involved in a whole bunch of civil rights

things fair since the birmingham march in the bombing of the church in birmingham. he became involved in at the end the legal defense fund, which helps the civil rights cases kind of did a pro bono and charles work and did a pro bono and the guy who did the work back in new york, he was the legal defense fund guy, too. ..

saying he was terrified and everything. but he truly, i don't buy it. i think he truly believed in the nation of islam and was very strong in the nation of islam. for sure there were some tough guys in the nation of islam. they did kill malcolm x and they did some things to kareem abdul-jabbar also. but i think you was just a true believer, i really do. when he got the olympic gold medal, he was backed by this group in louisville 11 white businessmen, and they hired angelo dundee to be his trainer and they sent him down to miami,

florida. it was all good. angelo was a great trainer, but angelo went home at 5:00 every night and he was this 18-year-old kid down there trying to figure out and make connections in lif life and be people and do things, and that's when he fell enthralled with the nation of islam. it really became his life, you know. i don't think he was a frayed. >> -- afraid. >> you never talk to them? >> i covered five fights of his but they were after this time but no, for the book, no. he was kind of out of it. >> and so talk about the direct research. i mean, you have a lot of newspaper accounts and things,

but what about direct intervie interviews? >> i talked a lot with his wife at the time. she had a good point. she said that ali always, the narrative, he controlled the narrative to his life and that anybody controlled dinner. people would give him quotes come he would never talk anybody else they would never hear anything from anybody else. she was really interested and is countertop on it because their life ended badly with his womanizing. there's a famous scene where the thrilla in manila, she was home with the kids in chicago and he was with veronica porche, his girlfriend and he went to see ferdinand marcos and he said

your wife is just a beautiful woman, and he said thank you very much and belinda saw this in chicago and she would write to the airport and got on a plane and flew right to manila and came to the hotel room and raised a huge ruckus. and then turned around and came again back on the same plane that she had flown. they were refueling the plane and she came back to chicago. and that was kind of the end of their marriage. she had interesting things to say. [laughing] >> other questions? [inaudible] >> the nation of islam, once the honorable elijah muhammad passed away, his son, his son changed the nation of islam over to,

like a sunni muslim kind of part of islam. and ali went with that. the reverend louis ferrick and about three or four years later reinstituted the nation of islam -- reverend farrakhan -- when he broke with the sun. so no come he became just for lack of better words a normal muslim for the rest of his life. which was what happened with malcolm x. that's when malcolm x got in trouble with the nation of islam because he had become a regular muslim and not a member of the nation of islam. iyes, sir. >> howard cosell and ali always claimed they maintained a

friendship as you can see. >> yeah. i mean, i think they were friends bu but i think it's a business relationship, you know? i think they both got a lot out of it from each of their perspectives. howard afforded him as stage to work on, and he afforded howard a stage to work on. i think they were friendly, but i don't think they went out to dinner a lot, you know. ali was walking out of what it is court dates with one of his lawyers, and he said to our reporter come he said, i don't have any white friends. reporter said, welcome writer, your lawyer is a white man. is he a friend? he said he's my lawyer, he's not my friend.

they were friendly but, you know, they didn't go over to each other's house all the time. yes, sir. >> the abc studio fight between him and frazier, was that legitimate? >> you never knew with him, you know? early on when he came back from the olympics he thought the streets are going to be paved with gold and he was just start to fight and it would be so lots of people would go crazy. he had to fight a whole bunch of people that most sports fans did know about to kind of build up a record. he wasn't getting crowds at all, and what he did, he met gorgeous george who was the wrestler, and gorgeous george whole thing was art i pretty? on a good-looking?

he had blonde peroxide hair. he throughout bobby pins and he had a valets that would spray perfume on him and things like that. and gorgeous george which is packed these arenas and people would go crazy. and ali looked at it and he said well, that's how you do it. if you are a bill and you people to come out, and he kind of added that to his act and that's what he did with sonny liston and the bear, i'm going to be the bearer, you know. he made himself into a villain, which is all well and good, but then when the draft thinking of he became the villain plus because he had said these things that most of america didn't like at the time. you wonder if ali were around today in his prime what would he

be like, you know? and i say if you look at colin kaepernick, you know, and you say people have a lot of problems with colin kaepernick, they would've had ten times the problems with muhammad ali. colin kaepernick wasn't doing anything. he just won't stand for the national anthem. he was just protesting, and so he would be a very controversial guy today in the situation. yes, sir. >> during your research did he ever, was he ever reimburse financially for his loss of employment during that time after his case was rolled upon favorably? and then, a two part one. was there any other president for this or any other conscientious objector cases that followed or maybe his case set a precedent for?

>> the answers are no and no. the first, no come in a way he was reimbursed and that everything was so big when he came back. he he had not gone away for the three years, wiki and frazier have gotten $5 million apiece to fight each other? that's what made that whole thing, and coming from the desert and frazier being here and just colliding. i remember watching that fight. i live in boston and i went to this, there was a nightclub, caesar's monticello and framingham, massachusetts, and no place i think my wife, she was young and we were there, there were 9 million guys and they were all happy drunk and the whole place went crazy. tiny tim had walked in. [laughing] everybody, tiny tim, tiny tim. it was just a crazy time. frank sinatra took pictures for life magazine, you know?

no, there were no precedent. if muhammad ali were just another guy, and he kind of got celebrity justice in the first part, singled out because of things he had said and so he is kind of singled out and classified one a and eligible for the draft. but at the end he got saved with celebrity justice because his reputation was such. it's an odd thing the way it all went. if you been another guy, he would've been either in the service or in leavenworth i think. he had legal copy of lawyers to back them up. >> any more questions? i'll come over with a micropho microphone. >> i remember his later years

and how weak he looked for my guess parkinson's disease. did he ever talk about that and whether, how boxing had affected the rest of his life? >> while i mean, you know, it's an easy top medicine kind of thing to say that boxing is what happened. the rope-a-dope and all that what he was just letting people out on him and a cumulative effects of all the things. the moment when he lit the torch in 1996 in atlanta was a huge iconic moment. janet evans gives him the torch and i think america watched it with a whole bunch of different emotions going on. and part of it i think his guilt, that you get so much enjoyment from this guy. he was so interesting the way he talked and the way he acted, and

the thoughts he made you think, and you kind of let him in a way because you cheered him on as a box and stuff. i think there was some guilt and some definite devotion, you know? he certainly, while he wasn't part of the antiwar movement per se, and he was a part of the civil rights movement per se, he certainly got a lot of people talking about that stuff. it will kind of used him as a model for action to stand up to the government, to go for your rights. in the end that's what his image was. in your research did you ever come across anything on joe

frazier being in the service or having served in the service? >> no. joe frazier had a lot of kids real early, you know, and i kind of kept him out. but he was always very patriotic. like five or six days after the fight in 1971 when he beat ali the one time, he was in the white house with nixon. and ali said, before the fight ali said that. he said joe frazier will be there with nixon. nixon's won't have anything to do with me. and that was part of ali's rap about the whole thing. >> i was at the airport here several years, many years ago on a flight from atlanta came in and guess it came off the plane? and we locked eyes just very briefly, and without even

thinking about it my hand went out to him and he put his hand out to me. we shook hands and i thought i just met the most famous, i will probably. he was very friendly. he wasn't put off or anything like that. >> he had a great curiosity about people i think. that overrode a whole lot of stuff. he was very pleasant and very glib. my big memory, the first fight i covered him was when he thought chuck wegner. there was a movie that just came out about chuck wegner. i was young and it went, it was a richfield ohio right outside cleveland and it was 45 minutes in cleveland. so went to the car. i was there for the "boston globe" at a rented a car as i drove out to the way and the day before the fight at i didn't know the media mostly got on a bus and without and then they got taken back on the bus picks i drove out in a car, and after the way in everybody got on the bus but i was still there. and i said maybe i should go to

muhammad stretch and check it out. maybe i can get something different. and so i went and i went in, and there was no security, nothing, and i went in and/or maybe, i don't know, seven or eight people in there and you stretched out on a rubbing table. his back was kind of against the wall and build a epstein, singer, that old black magic, james brown, the singer, poppa got a brand-new bag, he was very calm and red sox wasn't there. red fox was telling dirty jokes. red fox is from st. louis i guess. he was doing the best dirty jokes i've ever heard in my life. everybody sides which is splitting and tears were in their eyes and we would all be kind of, all he would say tell another. and red sox it to know one that was even more dirty and even better than the last one.

it was like a moment, unity, just in that moment i can think i wish this could go on forever. maybe james brown will start singing. maybe somebody else will come in and the whole thing. i kind of peeled out of there, you know. i was just a little howdy duty i standing there. i went over to chuck wepner dressing room. he and his wife with her and there all by himself so we talked and it was nice. the famous quote from chuck wepner for the fight, he bought his wife a flimsy negligent in his that i want you to wear this tonight when you go to bed with the heavyweight champion of the world. so he goes into fights and he puts up a credible thing. they base rocky on the fight but he gets cut up when he goes to the hospital, stitched up at its three, 4:00 in the morning and he gets back and his wife the city that she's got the négligee on and she says, well, is he

coming down here or am i going to go to his room? [laughing] >> i was interested in your comments, paraphrase it, ali was the most iconic athlete i just use history i think he said. and you've written about babe ruth and ted williams and a number of others. so quickly, who else do you list as iconic? are there any quick answers, response, why ali is number one? then nsi do that, what were your impressions and did you respect evil? >> okay. one, let me think, ali was global. i mean, that's the difference. babe ruth was semi-global, but all he was global, you know?

everybody knew, he was probably one of the, i don't know, foremost known people in the world when he was going on right up there with presidents. he was the biggest. iconic, i don't know. i mean, we all knew all those people, the famous athletes, you know. i suppose iconic is touched to your age, if you said johnny unitas may be that says you're a certain age, or if you say walter payton or jim brown. but all those people are iconic in their own respects, and evil knievel, no, evil knievel was a bad guy. there's a lot of talk about narcissism today. he was a narcissistic guy with big hair, so i don't know, you know, how you want to relate that to our present situation. [laughing]

>> i think one or two more. >> anybody else? >> i was just curious to know if laila ali is the daughter of the land or some? >> leda was later. she was later after veronica porche. he had some children, too, were not with any of his wives here he did lots of, to propagate the future of america. >> is there one more question or should re-sign some books what's okay. well, thank you so much. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> again, the book is for sale in the back of the room from barnes and noble and leigh will be writer at this table and we will get you guys some books.

[inaudible conversations] >> booktv recent visit to capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. >> what are you reading this summer? >> i've already gotten through a few novels and them in middle of the couple and a couple that are on my list. so one of the books i recently read was the nightingale which is a story about women who are resisting nazi rule during world war ii and some other efforts to try to help the resistance. really excellent book. i highly recommend a so much of history is written by men and the stories of women are not told and so that was a very interesting book from that perspective. a book that i'm in the middle of now is option b, how to build

resiliency and deal with laws and find joy in life by sheryl sandberg. as you know she lost her husband a little over a year ago and to this book is a great way to give some helpful lessons and suggestion from people can learn to cope with loss and learn to live again. that's been a very eye-opening book. one of the books i'm calmly reading with my eight-year-old son this summer by the graphic novels march by john lewis, a colleague of mine which talks about the civil rights movement and my site is transfixed by the stories in the book and images in the book, talking about how people fought for civil rights and equality in this country. one of the books on my to relist that of a getting to a little bit later in the summer is theft by finding. i very much looking forward to reading that book. and also a bit of a historical

book, it is churchill and orwell, the fight for freedom. so i'll be reading that to kind of bone up a little bit on my history. >> booktv wants to know what you are reading. send us your summer reading list via twitter @booktv or instagram @booktv, or posted to our facebook page facebook.com/booktv. booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. >> i can see after isis ceases to exist, i can see them -- these millennial, he was trained for the last seven, eight years by some of the top command in al qaeda, people that his father did not have access to the council because all of them were in house arrest and the rent in the same place. he could marry the number two

person and al qaeda daughters, involving virtual alters attack that happened against us and in the world. he masterminded the bombings himself. so i think he will be the person. he aubert had about five different messages. at the very beginning they always called them brother bin laden. in the last message the announcement and the message both refer to it as shake bin laden which indicates promotion. because you cannot be the leader of al qaeda with it having that title. so i think if you listen to his statement and a listening to all his statement you see something really interesting. he never attacks isis. he never mentions of the caliphate. he never attacked the keeper that something so what else

does. he says was happening at a bank and us are libya and somalia was happening in algeria and mollie can what's happening everywhere, all these guys are mujahedin and are the followers of bin laden. he says look, you people and the west, we used to be only in kandahar. now we're everywhere. and his town, he tried to copy his father. he tried to copy his father. his tone is exactly the same as osama bin laden and his message identical to what bin laden used to say. same statement sometimes. in his last statement, the one before last where he gave his commandments for marxism offers and was, he said look, try to kill as many people as you can. don't just take a knife. tried to do it right, you know.

and then he said and always leave a message why you did it. and i'm telling you why you did it. so i'm telling you what to say. number one, our lands are occupied. the land of the two holy places meaning saudi arabia is occupied. we did not hear that since osama bin laden died. we did not do that is 9/11 turkey brought it back. palestine, if we don't live in peace in palestine, you will never know peace in america and in the west. well, that something bin laden said himself. but also we did not hear that in how long? long, long long time ago. then you talk about stealing the wealth of the muslim world, right? we did not hear that for a long time. he's bringing it back. he only had one thing that we

did under his father talk about. what's happening in syria. the murders of the assad regime and the russians, which he said that we are doing attacks on the west because you are supporting them. you are supporting the resistance. that's the only thing he added. and, frankly, he cannot not mention syria, one of the largest affiliates of al qaeda in syria. but he's bringing back original message of osama bin laden. at a talk about his character. i talked about his childhood. he was a poster child for al qaeda. in the early days if you look at the old tapes of al qaeda he is always think these fiery speeches, poems, when seek it. he's training and he told his father, father, when i was in jail i learned a lot and you are going to be proud of me. i learned about this, i learned about that, but now i feel i forged by steel and i'm ready to

march and your commandments. bin laden, from all the sons who released, he won only two people to come and join him. his wife, which has a phd, older than him, which is only one son, hamza, and his wife wasn't just a wife. she was his advisor here she was his wordsmith. she was his concierge, literally. he wanted her to come because he missed his wife after been in jail in iraq were seven, a district he wanted her to come and he threatened his committee come if you don't bring her here i will myself go up there and bring here in which his commanders, i think this guy lost his miter what do you mean you'll come and bring? but then you know why. because he wanted her to basically work on his statesman on the anniversary of the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

he wanted her to tell him what to say, right? and when they could not bring her to them, he actually, you know, was convinced finally any center a letter he said you know what, the tenth anniversary is come and you know how important this is. so i told my chief of staff to my computer and usb and please start working on the data for the tenth anniversary for 9/11. so she is the son of hamza who pushed hamza for following up in his fathers footsteps. she's kind of like the woman behind the father and the son. so today we see al qaeda trying to wait until -- i believe after isis, a new bin laden will come and claim, claim that message.

claim the ownership of that message. and i think they will be successful with that. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. >> host >> "the communicators" is next with aol cofounder steve case. that's followed by the democratic national committee holding a news conference about their concerns with the new presidential commission tasked with identifying potential vulnerabilities in the federal election system. >> host >> c-span, where history unfold the daily. in 1979, c-span was created a aa public service by america's cable-television companies and is brought to you today by your