mark boutin talks about the bloodiest battle of the vietnam war. [inaudible conversations] >> book festival. i am chris goodwin with mississippi to permit of archives and history and you are at the way 1968 turning point of the american war in vietnam panel. you are welcome to take photographs, post to social media. they ask if you do that the hashtag is@literarylawnparty.

in a state that has produced some of the nation's most revered arteries, howard bar stand among its finest writers of historical fiction. the civil war trilogy the black power, the judas field chronicles the conflict with deep understanding for all those affected by it. bar is former longtime curator of rover, the home of william faulkner and vietnam veteran. .. these two fine gentlemen who you will be introduced to

directly. i know that you will know his name he has long been a favorite author of mine especially i love the black hawk down. it is a wonderful film and i think there will be a film made of that. i hope i live long enough to see it. i hope i get to play with that. this book in 1968 will go down in history as one of the great american war narratives reads like a knowledgeable. it is chilling, and it is engaging. just a long string of adjectives. it has been will reviewed as

you might expect. i did encounter one negative review a writer for the new york times said that one of the flaws of the book was that the reader will be exhausted i thought the poor reader he ought to go up the perfume river. if mr. larry wells is out there in the audience is anywhere. the lovely woman i was talking to her in the front yard one time i was complaining about the new york times and something they said about that. she said don't you be worried about that. i've a little puppy and he just loves to we we on the new york times.

let's all carry that with us. before we begin the actual interview and the imparting of wisdom and knowledge i would like to see mister boutin here. and he would like to say a few words. thank you all for coming. to my left is abie ransom. if you have the book those that you have a volume in front of you. buy by life magazine photographer. if you got a chance to get that picture.

with a gunshot to his chest. he is the marine ceded to the rear on the tank as they were on their way out of the battle [applause]. it is a reminder is not a novel it is a true story. for these gentlemen it is not

story it is their lives. that is the united states navy we carry them anywhere they want to go. and even some places they don't. as i told the gentlemen. i have looked at the photograph a thousand times. and to think that one day i would be sitting in the same room with those two lads is beyond comprehension. let me begin with something rather general here. in college we talked at the history. is trained --dash mike trained

to be objective. in the contemporary world in which they live in today. the social media has eroded with objectivity in a lot of places. everybody seems to have an opinion. the historian and the honest historian's objective. he shows, he tells he narrates, he analyzes by his does not judge. the marines in the soldiers and let me just say never call a marine a soldier. they are not soldiers they are marines.

mister boutin like any good honest historian is extremely objective. i one of feet hint of scorn whenever he talked about general westmoreland. i thought that was pretty funny. they're in it for the rest of the book. then he calls him wesley. can you talk a little bit about that in the historical narrative. in how far is the good historian how much room does he have. matter how subtle of his own opinion i don't think you can resist in some cases. i am in journalists.

i was fortunate to be young and at work with the philadelphia inquirer my editor is the person to whom i dedicated this book. in the standards that we learned were to be accurate and to be fair and set aside our own our own notions about the story before we begin to work on it. i think that is a great tradition to come at bin. i try to practice it myself. i've been asked how in the world can anyone be completely objective and the answer is no one can but it's really important it seems to me to try. when you had worked as a reporter for as long as i have. it is relatively easy to be objective.

you are ignorant of most things. very few of us are experts on anything except for maybe our personal lives for the profession that we are in. if you are a reporter or a journalist you're you are constantly being thrown into situations where you have no experience and no background in one of the first lessons that you learn is how little you actually know. as soon as you begin talking to people who actually know what they're talking about you learn and then you go and talk to another person and everything you thought you just learned is turned upside down. it's a process of discovery. when you work on a project like this book and i worked on this for six years. probably digging deeper into this one incident than anyone ever has either gets appropriate and understandable that you do arrive at your own

understanding of what happened. and that's all that it is. it is your own understanding. and anyone who reads my book is perfectly free to quibble with my understanding of things. but i have arrived at it honestly. i did not know much about that before i started working through this book. it struck me that he was not the kind of a general that i would want to be serving. if we can move a little bit closer to this in the war itself.

the disconnect between the rifleman on the line in the officers that something that we see throughout history. he is always a good example. the fog a battle is understandable. you will all agree that command is who is conformed of the conditions at the ground. and yet they persist in denying. it must've been infinitely so to the men who had to carry out these orders.

could you talk about that a little bit. what are some of the factors that you saw as you looked through this work, physical and psychological factors that contribute to the gap in perception. vietnam was really the first war work because it was telecommunications. to essentially run battles. without actually being there themselves. it will take shape with a commander in a helicopter up over at the battlefield giving orders. i found it just researching this book. the best army refused to do that. they want to be on the ground with the men. they want to be able to look their men in the eye when the given order. the problem was exasperated because there was a general in general westmoreland who was

so stuck to his theory of the battlefield. he believed going into it. that the north vietnamese army were not capable of launching any significant offenses in any of the urban areas in south vietnam. the enemy strength was in the mountains and the rice patties. and as why he failed to anticipate the attacks that took place hundred different cities and even further north during the offenses. i think frankly that is somewhat forgivable. nobody in command can be expected to know and everything. the enemy is smart also and sometimes they do things that you don't anticipate and i could happen to anyone. but the real feeling came when the offensive occurred when

the city was taken general westmoreland and a lot of those on the staff when the ignored the reports from the marines doing the fighting in the city and have actually a wonderful and very active cia report that was done on the day that he was taken. they refused to believe that the enemy was there in significant numbers. the number of those who descended on that dissented on that was about 10,000. on january 3021, 1968. he reported to the white house into the joy -- joint chiefs that there is about 500 in the city. as a consequence of that. the small units of marines with hundred 50 to 200 men were ordered to attack positions that were held by thousands of enemy soldiers. and in the northern part is a

fortress with a 30-foot high walls and 20-foot thick. this was meant by an overwhelming number of enemy forces and in the very beginning of the battle in this repeated itself over days captain chuck meadows in his company of second marines were ordered to attack the saddle. in captain meadows lost half of his company. and then made the decision on its own to not proceed because he knew it was suicidal and ordered his men to retreat. in fact later that same day the remainder of his company was ordered to go back out and fight their way across the city to the prison and these orders were being given they

were not listening to the reports that were coming from the field. it happened repeatedly over the weeks that these young americans you are an old man at 21. these marines say they are as brave as brave can be. didn't have any say in how they are being used. that was my sense of how they lost their lives because of that refusal. with that refusal on those two facts. can you give any explanation as why they gave that.

there was a lot of arrogance involved and there was a lot of racism involved. the theory that they have about the north vietnamese army was that they didn't have the same level of equipment as the american army had. didn't have the same helicopters and endless supplies of ammo. how would they get that successfully and fight against the united states military. the american military was and had tremendous advantages. what they failed to realize was that they were very smart a lot of the infantry that they were fighting against was

they had been fighting against the early 1950s. there were commanders who have a far more experience fighting in any of the young americans who were being sent out against them. i think they underestimated which of course is a classic mistake that the military commanders have been making. they failed to see how formidable the enemy was. they have the same with korea. with the early days in the korean war when mcarthur underestimated the north koreans and later the chinese. what about television and what difference it make in the vietnam war. what did they bring to the vietnam war that have not been

brought to news reporting certainly television brought the horror of combat to american homes. and i think anyone who paid attention during world war i or world war ii or korea is aware that fighting was horrible and that war was hell. but when those images of fighting and dying when they were arrested and shot the famous image which was actually a little tv image of the south vietnamese army when they were handcuffed and tied. these were horrible frightening images and i think they left an indelible impression on the country and i also think that a lot of the reporters in the field were

aryan stories because they were going out in the field and talking to the men who are actually doing the fighting the stories that they reported were very frequently at odds with the official version of events. i think television pet played a played a big role in undermining america's trust in the country's leadership in the military leadership in particular. you point out that walter cronkite was important to that. some of you might have remembered his wonderful voice reporting the disasters of the day. there were only three television networks as opposed

to the other channels. and he was a very traditional and conservative man. he had been benefit essentially been reading reports on the air for several years that pretty much conveyed the official position about how the work was going and how rapidly the united states was achieving its objectives in vietnam. and he began with the official version of events. when some of his young correspondents were sending back reports that contradicted the official line. when it have happened they just come back to the united states in november of 1967 and given a speech at the national press club.

they were on the verge of defeat. soon the american soldiers would start coming home from vietnam with stripes in every major urban center in south vietnam. so he felt angry and betrayed. he felt like he had been used to pedal a false information from his anchor desk. he went to vietnam much to his credit. he told him things were just fine and away. the fighting was all but over. he found the worst battle in the city that he have seen since world war ii. and very definitely not over. americans were still dying and still been wounded. and when he came back to the nine states he aired a documentary and he departed from his usual practice of not

giving his opinion about things and very famously said this war is not going well. it is at best a stalemate. and gave his opinion that he felt it was negative be a military victory on the horizon. now given that they had been labeling critics of the war as hippies and radicals that didn't jive. uncle walter was probably the most traditional figure that most americans knew. he was certainly not a hippie and he was certainly not a radical. i think his report have a tremendous impact and is one of the things that began to shift with the american public opinion against the war. you mentioned a moment ago another iconic autograph of the war from vietnam and another one i have looked at and pondered a thousand times and it's the one where the

police chief you all have seen this photograph. he has a little humorless weston 38. and the photograph was the shutter that was clicked. you see them react to the impact of the round. what is interesting to me about that is that for many years it has been eased to show that he did not come out good after that. he was criticized highly for having done that. and there was a lot of controversy over that. they revealed to me and

probably won't be news to all of you something very interesting about that question and that has been shot. would you like to talk about that for a moment. an interesting elevation about that. not to excuse the summary execution but the gentleman he shot has been executing people all morning. they took it upon himself to kill him on the spot. they're just so happened that there was a camera there. the image conveyed that there was this unfeeling cruel regime in south vietnam that the united states was

supporting and they did things like thai people up and shoot them. it came completely free of contacts. i don't think it completely excuses that. but when you add something that is not approved to understand. history is a realm where there is as complicated. i want to move a little closer to the soldiers and marines in vietnam our students bless their hearts. most of them have never heard of vietnam. kind of like us i never heard of vietnam when i enlisted.

the young are innocent there's so much that happens that people don't remember how many have heard of the ancient city how many have heard of that. or hamburger hill in 1969. or the terrible siege of the marine base. these are great events and powerful and tragic events especially to the men over there they were largely forgotten today. sometimes i have to ask myself

why do i say that. why is important that we remember these things. can you talk a little bit about that. either you believe it's important to study and learn from the past or you don't. in my case. i was a teenager in high school when this battle happened i remember i was against the war my dad was in favor of the war. neither of us knew enough to have a strong opinion. i would have to say that that was the first time in my life that i really disagreed with my father about anything. we have knockout drag out discussions. and he would always say how do you know that. why do you believe that. these are really good questions and i can remember as a 16-year-old i started reading the newspaper i subscribed on my own to time

magazine because i wanted to read more about what was going on there. they were generally science fiction books. now i started focusing on reading about south east asia and the war in vietnam. i was reading those books because i wanted to win this argument with my dad. i think that experience let me in the direction that i went which was to become a journalist and lately history and myself although i'm still far more of a reporter in for me the war in vietnam was formative. as it was for most americans who lived at that time and i never had have the chance to really study it to arrive at my own understanding of what went on there.

my preferred way of writing about anything is really about the american intervention in somalia which took place over a 14 month time span. i prefer to find the story which i think if you can dig deeply enough into that particular event you end up learning a great deal about the larger story so that was my goal when i wrote this book. and also it is kind of sweet spot for a journalist historian because some of the participants are still alive. in consulting you. enough time has gone by that some of the passions of that moment have receded and i think you've a chance at arriving at an independent judgment about what is going on. i certainly felt no pressure researching this book to align myself to one side of that old

argument or the other. i just wanted to finally win that argument with my dad or agree with him. i might have ended up agreeing with him by working on it. this is my chance. we have about ten minutes left here in this part of the show. i like to ask quickly why we don't ever seem to learn the lessons of that. when they went to iraq. what lessons you think you should've learned from vietnam

were and open morgan open up to questions from the audience. i think our military learns. that doesn't mean they don't continue to make mistakes because they are human. i think it can fight an urban battle. demonstrated that in iraq and they have learned lessons. my favorite character in this book frankly is colonel ernie cheatham. who was the battalion commander who was sent in three days after the city was taken. and in contrast to general westmoreland who proceeded with the idea that he knew everything colonel cheatham who went on to become a

general began with the assumption that he knew nothing. he knew only one thing and that was where he was gonna fight. where the marines were would have to fight. it was in the city and he now that they have not fought in a big city since the korean war. so he went out and he found in this trunk that they lugged around with them. they have manuals. and in that trunk were manuals about how to assault a fortified position. and how to fight in an urban environment and he spent the whole night before he came reading this manuals and decided what tactics he would employ and what weapons he needed in order to get those. they carried these lightweight

antitank weapons which were plastic. in world war ii a lot which was a rocket propelled grenade launcher was a big metal bazooka. they had 3.5-pound grenades that they fired. they realize that there can have to blow holes in big stonewalls. that they were going to be delivering the punch necessary so he have as weapons officer roundup as many bazookas as they could find in their armory and hauled them up with them. this is the kind commander that i want to follow into battle because he doesn't proceed with the idea that he knows everything already. he's figuring it out as he goes along. that was not the only weapon systems that he brought with him that proved to be really important in being

successful. the military does learn i think they are one of the most remarkable achievements of modern times. how they are used as a is a different question. and i think to me one of them lasting lessons of vietnam is that we make a mistake in this country when we project our politics and our ideology and the things that shape our elections and things and we project these ideas on the world so back in the cold cold war it was communism and we need to fight it wherever it rears its head. that was our understanding that sent us to vietnam. a deeper understanding of southeast asia might have informed our leaders that this

was not just an exercise in global contest that it was an actual country with an actual culture and history that the people there had been fighting for their independence for generations. that the movement that we called communist was in fact communist but it was also nationalist. and as such had a lot in common with our own history. if you read his amazing book the best and the brightest which i went back and reread it before i wrote this book he documents how systematically the area experts in the state department and the pentagon in the halls of power in the white house were discarded the people who knew the language and the people in the history of the people who have lived in that part of the country and if they stood up in a meeting in president johnson

or kennedy's office and said wait a minute this is not just a simple war against communist this is something much more, located they were labeled soft on communism and out they went. we dumbed ourselves down as a country before we went to vietnam frankly i see a similar process at work today. there is a anti- intellectualism in washington and area experts in the state department our leaving in droves. many positions had not been filled. and what were doing is i think deliberately dumbing ourselves out as a country we ought to approach the world it seems to me with humility and with a sincere desire to learn. i think if we do that we will send this terrific military that we have on fewer futile missions.

[applause]. i will ask one more question in this question as i ask it i will turn over the panel here to mister boutin and he is going to carry it on if you well. a lot of people went to vietnam but very first --dash make very few people on the sharp end. there always is. a very small percentage of the people who actually go into the combat zone. in vietnam the popular image of the combat soldier in the marine in vietnam in the image in the 1960s and 70s some of you may remember was a certain thing and over the

years the image of that combat soldier has changed and evolved so when i give it to you now. i wonder if you could talk about what was the original image here at home of the combat folks and how it changed and what was some of the influences that led to that. i think in vietnam and those of us who are old enough to remember know that as a work workgroup increasingly unpopular in this country a lot of anger about america's persistence in that war was directed at the young men and women who served. i think that was terribly unfair there were obviously atrocities and they shaped a lot of people's ideas about marines and soldiers and those

fighting in vietnam unfairly. i think a lot of those who in good faith either volunteered or went when they were drafted and risk their lives in many cases lost their lives as was the case of richard. they were wounded in service to their country. it not only didn't respect their service but actually kind of scorn them. i think that's embarrassing. i think we have gotten past as a country i think we make that distinction now when we look at our service people and realize that they are following orders and they aren't the ones who are making the decisions all the time about how they are used but they are willing to sacrifice themselves and willing to put themselves at risk to do a job that they are doing on our behalf and that most of us are not called on to do. so i think it's unfortunate

the experience that so many veterans have i think that that is changing and i'm glad that it is. i'm delighted to have them here with me. and to recognize those it's not just a story. these guys were actually there. i will ask a question and then open it up if anyone in the audience wants to ask. to briefly tell us how you ended up splayed out on top of that tank with a hole in your chest. and all of the glory. early that morning i was in the machine gun team. i was in the machine gun

team. and that morning just at daybreak the north vietnamese that we were fighting launch an attack on our positions and tried to break out. we have them surrounded. they launched a full frontal attack in the machine gun team took a rocket around right in the living room. they were using the bed down in that night. and all of the people in that machine gun crew were wounded shrapnel's other than me. after we took care of the wounded a little bit. i took the machine gun and they were hiring for that. they were being overran.

it's what we called a rich environment. anyway after quite some time and i stepped into the window to fire. right where that button is right there. and i went through and came out the back. they not me down pretty bad to get the reinforcement back up to get it back off of us. they were able to get us out in a back u.s. no richard you are actually wounded. how did you end up on that tank.

in my original part was i was in 81 motors. we have no rounds left. we were then dispersed into that unit. on the 16th we had reached a whole the fighting at the wall was pretty tough. so when i went in the whole there was some fighting above us and we were pinned down and i got hit in the legs. i was brought back out because

the fighting was so close. they come on more than once. so i was given that. and said they would not be able to get me out until the next morning. my leg wounds weren't as severe. there are other guys that needed to be medevac a lot more than i did. the next morning they told us that they could probably start medevac ines out. if it you take have come by with the marines on it and they said do you have any more room up there. the marines will always take one more. he was laid out on the tank. i want to tell you one thing

really quickly. i really love this. i was contacted by someone who said he was not the marine on the tank. that i had been misinformed. it was someone else. it's a long story. i remember calling him insane there is this journalist in the united kingdom that says this is that you on the tank. in the southern gentleman he said i don't want to rain on anybody's parade but if something wants to some he wants to say that they were the one laid out on that tank that's all right with me but like most people i recognize myself when i see myself in a photograph. [applause]. does anybody want to ask any of us a question.

can you please take the questions with the microphone. great. at second work. the microphone is at the back. the question is was he and artillery men. in world war ii. he had been an artillery officer and apparently he have attracted president johnson's attention when he was a super attendant. he was a particularly handsome guy. he looked the part of a commanding general and sometimes history turns on such a small things. two questions. the first one is two parts.

how did they pull that and how did the cia and the american army monument only monumentally fail to discover that. in part two is if you would comment on the overall massacre of civilians that took place that i think was unreported first of all. i can't speak for all of south vietnam. but it is pretty amazing that they could amass an army of 10,000 without tripping any alarms. they were extremely six sophisticated. they carried most of their equipment in. they were skilled in the

secondarily i think it shows the level of popular support that they have particularly in the world --dash make rural areas. no one it seems sounded an alarm. i detail in the book. it was that remarkable military. when they took the city away and as i detailed in the book they began rounding up civilians that worked for.

and that held positions of authority or who were simply perceived as being supporters. in many of them were executed on the spot. some were marched off supposedly to reeducation camps many of whom never returned. later there were mass graves discovered it was difficult to tell how many of the dead in these grades has been killed. how many had been killed deliberately by the occupation forces. it was a hint of what was coming when the communist forces were successful this was after all a civil war and in this civil war we are considered to be traders.

there was no shortages of ways to die in february of 1968. speemac 24 years before they pulled out the census. how do they have that. i have never made a study of the battle of the bulge. i think it was hugely different. the third largest city in south vietnam. at the time the allied and the german forces were arrayed across the battle line. that stretched from the northern end of europe to the southern end. they were pushing that line ever eastward and i think that

was more a story a military maneuvers in the field. they were conducting as i said. the purges of the population. and of course the fighting took place. that took place. the fighting in the big city. one follow-up. what part of the army services would've been responsible for having the intelligence. the american advisory command vietnam has extensive intelligence and their units and they did everything from wiring with the forces to viewing aerial photographs to human intelligence on the ground. i think all of that failed to add up to what was the largest

defensive of the war. it wasn't working. my question is for a veteran in the marines. i don't have know how many books you've read about vietnam certainly you lived it but there are countless books available whether it is history or journalism that try to explain the soldiers experience or depict the soldiers experience and put it into words what you went through in large part for civilian people to kind of close the gap between civilians in the military. when you care about books like that if you do.

what do you look for or what do you expect a ready think it takes for a book like that to get it right and then for mister boutin is there something in particular that you want to put in your books that would get it right. >> as far as books i have read a few books about vietnam and there is one particular book that is written by my platoon commander. he was my platoon commander in the city. i have never read a book like this on. all of the books that i have ever read it tells the story from the standpoint of the american commander where the american troop.

whoever wrote the book. the unique thing about this is that it tells us from the standpoint of the north vietnamese. is important to me to learn more about the battle i learned more about the battle out of this book than i ever knew about the battle. in some -- some of it was an eye-opener for me and some of it i knew already. i agreed with this. this book transported me back to the battle. it does such an exceptional job of explaining in detail and for many standpoints of people who well actually

transport you back to that particular time and place. when i started reading the book i could not for the life of me put it down until i finish it. it's a good thing i didn't have a job or i would've been fired. i took time to eat and go right back into the book. i am a slow reader. i think the book is as accurate or even maybe more so than many or any that i've read. excellent job. what you look for in an accurate account. when someone is writing a book or is can write a story that either the person was actually there or actually talks to

someone who was there. not getting secondhand. mark called me one day he wanted to verify that. he wanted to make sure that he have it completely right. he sent them and said i'm and ask you to questions and he asked me the two questions and apparently i gave it to him right. you have to live the experience to be able to write it. a lot of it has seen some of the vietnam movies and we all know most of it is make-believe. but when you watch black hawk down and you realize that the people that were there actually wrote it helped make

that movie the way it was in the same with this book. they had reached out to a lot of men and women who tasted, the mud and the blood in the guts in the bad food. to make the story what it is. i'm just honored to sit at the same table with these two men. [applause]. i think we have to wrap it up. just to follow up with your question to me. i try to build them from the ground up. i am more interested frankly in that. there will be other chances to talk to these gentlemen.

i want to say to these two men. [applause]. [inaudible]

[inaudible] that was a mark about it. in a few minutes will be back from jackson mississippi with an author panel on the lives of the u.s. presidents. a reminder to follow book tv on twitter. for behind-the-scenes videos and photos. at book tv is our twitter handle.

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>> >> it is about any avenue in which women feel they have not unheard. moving to college there is a huge problem of date rape then moving into the workplace they are confused

to find out they were all not treated equally unfortunately many of us will be harassed so the book is about empowering women with all aspects of their life in sharing my lessons of what we need to do to join the movement together. >> it was pretty well publicized can you tell us why?. >> i cannot talk specifically about the case because i reach a settlement but what inspired me to write the book was that i heard from thousands of women across the country immediately after. after words i had no way of knowing the safety net but

all these women were sharing their own personal stories, the new daiwa said kenneth there were thousands in the home office. so that is what it was is giving a voice that sold the the people had felt victorious. so they feel what i took was a victory for them as well. >> 70% of women who have experienced some type of harassment?.

>> ask them to raise their hand and and partially almost every single one still has a story we feel we have come so far i have two children 14 and 12 i know somebody parents across the country don't want to fathom the idea of their daughter going to work so this is about coming together in that same goal of how we will do that or taking a pledge together to raise our kids of gender neutrality there is a whole chapter on a playbook help the women to navigate though waters of a situation like this at work. there is a tad of the

information spicule also report of through the 1970's the term sexual harassment did not exist. >> looked at where we have come with regards to civil rights with equality of women but we still have work to do. so if you say the '70s now dizzily 2017 yes we have made progress but we still have so much more to do one of the biggest issues the myths that surround this issue so when women finally get the guts to come forward why are they still penalize? the majority of women who in

many cases end up getting fired in the per traders stay in the workplace and they never go back to their chosen field so we need to get rid of the of the f or that you're trying to root cause problems if you cannot take a joke we need to celebrate the of with bin who have the strength to come forward to eradicate the myth that is still out there and unfortunately it is hard to believe but it is definitely still out there. >> you say that winfield guilty -- women feel guilty? >> yes because they are raised they are to blame for things that happen in their life that is out of their control.

so this tells them not to feel guilty anymore. some of us are raised to be perfectionists and pleasers the like to call myself a recovered part -- protectionist i'm trying to teach my daughter because we all make mistakes and learn more from our failures that inhibit some women from coming forward. so that fits into the parenting chapter to not be that way. >> what constitutes sexual harassment?. >> gore the quid pro quo

that you are asked to fill an obligation or get a promotion. and so i go through all of this in the book so people can get all the knowledge that they need but it really comes down whether or not a woman or man feels they are in an environment that does not feel comfortable for them. >> did you hesitate?. >> yes. i thought extensively about my feelings but the most

important thing for me was my children that they were okay. >> the copy comes out in october will include the women you have heard from?. >> extensively i a interview politicians and accountants and doctors so we're runs the gamut, teachers. that was astounding to me that it wasn't just like a couple of professions. it is everywhere. i think that is why so many women are courageous to hear my story to go public but

they felt that power in my voice and a victory they never had. >> to people stop you on the street?. >> yes. in my enslaved of a steady near a city more men stop the bay and when did it i am excited about that. they most often want to shake my hand and the key for doing this for my daughter's. or my granddaughter's or releases. if men have children or specifically daughters, they are very critical. who was their child to go through something like this? that is why we all need to be invested.

civic this is just a preview coming out in october. she brought this on herself. grow up and move on and. stop pointing. --- wining you are a stake. >> that is my twitter feed. and my facebook post. it comes with the territory. everyone is human but i developed a thick skin in a long time ago because my pastor is a make in life i was and mrs. america. having gone through that experience to be valedictorian and go into oxford i was also a

classical violinist. i had to learn that 22 house and the people don't like you for no apparent reason. i remember going to my father to say why would people lot like we just because? it has been very helpful in the last year. because he tried to accumulate as much as possible. so in the end you have to let it go. i expect to please everybody with what i did that.

>> you refer to yourself as a recovering perfectionist. >> because i thought i would be recovered at 40. [laughter] i recently turned 50 now i am proud to say i am on a road to recovery. it is important to achieve as much as possible with that grit and determination and that fighting spirit but that also lead to a tremendous amount of unhappiness. and we should celebrate our mistakes a little bit. make them fall of their face and turned something.

you have to know how to handle yourself when mom and dad are not around. sova turbo is perfectionists and proud of it. coming october 2017. this is a preview. [inaudible conversations] >> live at the old supreme court room inside mississippi state capitol post of the third annual

mississippi book festival live from jackson shortly. [inaudible conversations] >> now coming out this fall mr. young before read it too far. >> heinemann do director of the schomburg center i have been there since december it has been great if we just announced two days ago you papers and we are excited to have those archives come to

be a part of the schomburg center for the we have been at the same quarter and 82 years. we are happy to have those. >> what is the focus?. >> african american diaspora from history to art to photographs, everything on world wide black culture so we started 1925 in the negro division of the d york public library the carnegie library is still steve the nimby got the bay national historic landmark in jiri so we are coming full circle

and so we looked at the harlem of renaissance and then to be born in hot harlem ended to have them come home is big. >> i was a professor 20 years university and there i was archived as well. but i am also a poet and a brighter with one previous nonfiction book and from there i was interested in the subject of liars and american history to. >> it comes from politics arguing over the of missouri compromise someone in north

carolina said then they start to use of political b.s.. civic the term fake news is not new?. >> so starting in the 1840's. how did this come about? is a particularly american? what does it have to do with now? so in the 1830's where i first began the book comes about from new media and that's used to be a little

more expensive so it was pretty scandalous. what we're talking in the newsreader's -- and used readers. >> so you write that transformative aspect of the penny press most resembles the current change demonstrated. >> yes. the internet in the printing press but to take that to its extreme with access and often and are reflected back what they like it was very competitive much like our news outlets now with

proliferation. optimally it is hard to you debunk because day circulate that that is what is happening to me with the fake news of today how hard it is to obtain goldis shared notions. >> what about p.t. barnum?. >> he is a fascinating figure because he is helping to invest of what we now call pop culture. he touched the side show but they negative professional. in d.c. these figures of dubious origin many of them

were centered around race and the one that got them going and was a black woman with 161 years old and going around the northeast to be george washington's nurse made. but to physically examine her. because then she dies and then yes. but then to reveal is the of revelation. that is the idea not only of

of what you could say to believe that that was part of the hope that i use the that now those accusations are just as important. some of that circle is part of barnum's legacy. >> donald trump signals a troubling mindset. it is a the absent or contested. >> yes. i don't think i am alone when i say these types of questions but those almost predate our current situation from conspiracy theories but it d bunk these

notions of what is that about i'm interested in tracing why do we have that at all? sows citizenry in patriotism and those big cosmic things better part of our fabric as a nation to be resurrected. it is even hard now with president trump it is hard to unsubtle that so with that bursa for to - - per certificate of president obama so why do we believe as much as we deceive.

>> why do we?. >> so the fed is on who we are but those who they want to believe with those programs in the absence of the answer that is complicated or troubling but because my discomfort is hidden from me. so there was a notion that barnum had that i was an expert but he gave the power to the people to say i of an expert. that looks like a mermaid. so now there is the assertion.

so there is a fascinating denial of expertise in the of becomes even more troubling is a difficult position to begin. >> coming out november. kevin young is the author. [inaudible conversations]