check your program guide for schedule information. i look now at some programs to watch out for this weekend on book tv. nikki haley former un ambassador chronicles her time. she offers her thoughts on contemporary feminism. the left is using political correctness to silence conservatives. the new yorkers reports on online extremism. it has the former harvard law school check your program guide for more information.

[inaudible conversations] welcome to the 24th annual texas book festival. i name is katie vine. we are here today to talk to amaryllis box author of the new book "life undercover". encourage everyone to pick up a copy of this. she is going to be signing copies. i will give a quick introduction and then i will ask a few questions in leave the last ten to 15 minutes for audience questions. please silence your cell phones before we start.

even before she finished studying in oxford before september 11 before her writing mentor was captured in killed they have already invested in international affairs having taken a great risk when she was just a year out of high school. she eventually got a masters in conflict. she developed an algorithm that could predict terrorist attacks based on 200 years of data. at age 21 she was recruited to the cia where she analyzed classified information. soon afterwards she was selected for advanced operations and training in the middle east and asia. it's not a huge surprise to hear of a call when they come

to life. she and her husband who are also a spy or under surveillance by the chinese so they have to talk in code all the time. the housekeeper was spine, the people in the street were keeping track of the movement. we find out that the cia was spying on the chinese who were spying on them. they already knew what they knew about that. she'd offered her insights to cnn the national geographic channel. and the bbc and has spoken around the world on the topic of peace keeping. apple is currently developing this book as a tv series. she is also working on a young adult novel and an upcoming netflix documentary series. ladies and gentlemen amaryllis fox. [applause].

>> i am wondering if you could start by talking about the way your worldview is brought in. it sounds like it started at a very early age. >> i think it was a blessing and a curse that i moved every year of my childhood a lot and that time overseas my birthday is in september and i started a brand-new school. it also gave me a sense time and time again of being home in the world. a the differences in wardrobe or accent or cultural habits the same humans in art types exist everywhere. i think that was kind of a

philosophy that drove me as a young person to be really drawn to journalism into being able to share from those stories in the far-flung places with friends that i would see periodically and who had have a chance to run around in the soccer fields with different folks. that's what led me to that quarter as a teenager. what drew you how did you know to go there. it sounds like he went not really knowing where you are going to land. she didn't really know a lot about it until it was over. i have really fallen in love with a philosopher and

theologian writing, houston smith. i heard that he was battling cancer and i skipped a day of high school to go experience him talking in case it was my last opportunity in that day itself i don't regret doing it because it was a very powerful very powerful and they talk about the fact that they studied every one of the major world religions.e they found the notion we were all part of one whole was at the core of all of them. it really stuck with me which is good that it was worth it. when i got to school the next day might name was on the daily list. i also turned up in class and found that the final assignments or papers have

been handed out and i got the one nobody chose i had grown up and moving around a lot but i really didn't know anything about this political situation in the more that i learned about it this one unarmed woman against this military regime that was similar to north korea at the time it began to fascinate and inspire me. in thinking about taking a gap year before university before even decided to take the year itself instead of buying a prom dress i went to a travel agent. i bought a ticket to thailand.

the idea was thatt i would do a couple of weeks on volunteer at a berman's refuge can't. at the end of those two weeks we went back to the airport in bangkok i was at the gate and everyone was getting ready to board. i think i meant to say i walked back out the doors and headed back up to this camp. and while i was there continuing this volunteer work i meant more and met more and more of the burmese. that were publishing a

democratic newspaper and opposition. ti and they were preparing for protests that were planned. to try to topple the regime. and with the kind of immortality that we only feel as teenagers. you can only get in if you have a distance visa. it was 15 years my senior. i have met himnv at a free burma rally. i said to him this is a

longshot but how would you feel about taking a couple of maeks off work and coming to thailand in pretend to be married. to his eternal credit he did exactly that. we got a forged marriage sufficient certificate. if we got film we would have to get it out.g the protest never happened because the security was so tight at the time. we did have the opportunity to in interview. her words out. if we did that we would

probably be detained by the military. and spent for me that really was the beginning of understanding how powerful an hour or two of truth telling can be even in the face of all of the military might and the world. as a woman and a mother would know with no arms available to her and was so threatening to the regime. it was an electrifying idea to meto the truth and append --dash mike penn and the word could be so powerful.

mimi start out committed to the idea of continuing to that work in becoming a journalist. >> when you are finishing your last year in oxford september 11 happened. it sounds like you are very close.e. oxford starts in october. i was home our neighbor pulled up said to me go turn on the tv. i turned it on but for the second plane hit. my little sisters were in the cathedral school and washington dc at the time and they weren't sure whether it was a target. they were evacuated. i remember being with my momat

trying to get these two little girls in the school uniform. it brought back for me the first loss of my life which is a dear friend of mine was on the flight that went down. with her sister and her parents. their whole family.t my mom waited until three days later to tell meti and she told me it was better that they have all been on the plane because there was no one left to grieve. it was the first person who i knew that died and i loved her very much. all of that really came back to me after september 11 and then four months after that the journalist danny pearl who i have only met once and briefly when he have done an evening for inspiring journalists at a bar in dupont circle when i was still a

student.ar i admired him immensely. he wrote with such dignity and curiosity about the islamic world. it is a new and different kind of war. that not only threaten the lives with truth and dialogue. i went back to my dad's advice after laura died. i really struggled with it.

if you understand the forces that took her. you will be overwhelmed by the fear. he introduced me to the newspaper. and as a third grader that was just completely transformative thing for me. i read it with real care. i think having possibly it wasn't super healthy. they seemed remote but the any moment they could kind of jump off the page and take another one of my friends from the air.on and learning to understand what their relationships were with one another and how they gave rise to violence was important to me as a kid. after september 11 and the violence that came after that. i return to that idea. if i wasn't gonna be overwhelmed by this i have to

understand it. and the cia approaches you and you take the job and you start looking at tables. there was one in particularr before you are overseas when you realized a man who have been taken and beaten and starved was the wrong man. i'm wondering if you can talk about that moment and how the people around you reacted. i won't get into the operational details on that anymore than they are in the book just because they had been elements that are there had been omitted. it was covered heavily in the press.

i think it is indicative of one of the great challenges that we all faced after 911 also the sub set that we are serving in government and military intelligence organizations which was the terrible tension between having signed up to serve on behalf the american ideals and llty on a hill and moral leadership that were so important to maintaining america's position in credibility. and then the thing that happened after an attack. fear and velocity based reaction. things happen really quickly

communication isn't always crystal-clear. it's no surprise that mistakes were made. i think what is critical now as a country in the community we are mature enough to learn from them and not repeat them. i think we've done that in some areas better than others. we had been thorough in our examination of whether or not torture has as americans we want or can tolerate and whether it is useful and practical aside i'm not sure that we had been quite as thorough about things like extrajudicial killings in the drone program. it is a work in progress. i think on all of us to have those conversations as adults in americans i wanted to

discuss two controversial issues that have come up in the book. it has raised some questions about the stamp of approval. the second part of that is there was some people that criticized some scenes as being implausible. i want to give you an opportunity to talk. one of the difficult things about going through the review process necessarily is there are operational details that had to be changed. with very good reason. as you set out to share the interactions that had knocked lessons into you over the course of career it's about figuring out which

interactions even make sense given those changes and admissionsra and leave that entirely. for me it was important to just put up front on the front page that changes have to be made i don't think it was as significant a challenge for me it's really about a personal journey. here has our particular operation has happened. there are important admissions not just coming at age as a it was also the evolution of a perspective when i started giving that background.

the killing of the journalist i respected so much. it honestlyy wasn't with a view to peacemaking or finding common ground it i was young and i was at war and we were afraid. and it was pretty much the view of wiping the adversary off of the map. over the course of her career in interaction after interaction i realized that that is just a fiction and doesn't work. it risks creating more adversary than you destroy. there is a more long-term and holistic way to bring an end to this conflict we have just proven time and again that we cannot prevent violence through violence alone.

it kind of brings me to my question. i didn't expect a book about the cia to be so deeply spiritual. does the idea that all human beings want the same thing. remember the other person is you. the deep down in the targets. can you talk about your own misgivings at times. spirituality has been a huge part of my journey.

thatat tradition. and even the non- spiritual philosophy really did reinforce what i have heard. as you say the other person is you or we are all connected or part of one. we know that from a scientific point of view.

in the school of hard knocks for my 20s. oftentimes we humans on all sides of the conflict it will take a short-term short term solution because of the illusion that we are isolated. and then find that in the long-term potentially endangers more people than not doing anything to begin with we've seen this in terms of our alliances over and over again. the arming of groups. in the short term. intolerance on all sides. it is such a fueling of future extremists.

in planting at the scene the scene of violence and extremism. for me the simplicity of treating people with dignity even when you disagree with them emerged as a very powerful lesson and sometimes we think we can discount that. in the real world.mo it is the most pragmatic thing that i discovered. the sounder of the networkov that is responsible for spreading the nuclear precursors. not just a rogue state. here it is someone who has done more to endanger global security. and when he talks about where

he took that turn off of life's normal path he tells the story of being a teenager on a trainin crossing the new border. and he saved up for a fountain pen. when the indian guard took the card he said i will also take that pen. he said no i love this pen. in his teenage brain at that moment. and his inability to do anything about it. i'm never gonna be powerless again and that morphed into the program that has put so much of the globe in danger on

and on. many people don't walk down that path. we underestimate the power of one moment of humiliation to fuel violence and likewise the power of one moment of treating someone with dignity that's what you usually use. did you feel like at least in the book did you know at the moment always to take people to that idea. we believe the same things. did you find that usually it took some talking into.

it deftly takes time. it is a slow process in the field but it starts right with your future communication with anyone. i think we are more sensitive to authenticity than we realize and when someone manufactures a reason to connect we feel it the need even when faced with someone who is involved in horrific areas of violence to search for some glimmer of humanity in order to build a relationship over months and years to coax this person to a place where they can actually move to help prevent the talks.

it's really soulful work actually. it's often lost in our pulp --dash mike pop culture. because the kind of roof gymnastics. but all of that is just kind of safeguard you would get kicked out of a country immediately. but even the tradecraft that does happen is not the point. it's just there to safe guard the actual core work which is relationship building with those who it is hard us in the world to listen to. >> we will get to the q&a. hootie hope reads this book. who is the main audience for itn i'm happy when i talk to

young women who are reading it there is a lot in therert for all different walks of life by young women i think see a different kind of national security picture from the reality and they don't realize how important their contributions are and can be what we see on screen as this either no women involved it is so dismisses of the really subsisted work that they bring to this world and are uniquely well-suited for. this is an alternative to the necessary solutions of the military that's based on emotional intelligence in relationship building and intuition and multitasking and these are things that feminine

e problem-solving often has great strength in. i really do hope that the young women and young people of color. who don't see themselves unscreened in this work realize that actually they are the ones we both --dash mike we most need doing it. i wanted to open it up to the floor. that was quick. i'm actually not going to go into the cover and operational details for the same reason i said earlier. anything around those details has to go through review.

i had wondered that a business like that might actually produce revenues. if that were to be the case it certainly would it be the officer involved. the as a one and is granular. i will sayay that one of the real challenges in the shift from that traditional warfare to these asymmetrical sites that have morphed into terror groups and challenging inates.

as necessary to be really creative about how to be in the places you need to be in order to do the work that needs to get done. they go around with a film organization film company to go in to location scout in iran. and was pretty will produced. but in those cases there definitely would it be anything drawn by ben affleck's character. >> think you very much. we appreciate your presentation very much.ke we really like the traits that you see its most valuable in carrying on this kind of work. a quick question for you just a reflection seen the way

things had gone since you had left the agency and where we are in the world today i'm'm sure you were many in your own mind how we would get to a place where we would deal better with the kind of issues that we are confronted with.ss do you have any kind of prescription or direction to go other than the type of people that you see. are there some things that we could do more universal late. i think at the state level. i think one of the things that is most important is looking at that precursors of instability in the infrastructure in support that is necessary and much more efficient and cheaper in terms of lives and trevorar --dash mike treasure early on.

those are things we talked a little bit about the academic work that i did. and that was the clumsy graduate school work of a kid. but one of the things that came up time and time again in c the data has been heavily correlated was the percentage --dash mike percentage versus livable wage. there are many such data points that we know are correlated with instability and are not easy to fix but significantly cheaper in both lives and cash. studying those is very important doubling down on our

investment and soft power overseas in general i think is really important. i think it's very important for us as americans to know it's just about to come up to a trillion dollars in a million chinese people on the ground and two thirds of the world country to invest in the building of infrastructure not as charity but as a shrewd geopolitical move.ut and when we take our resources and commit them in military ventures. they are doubling down on south -- soft power in that way. i worried for that continued moral leadership of our country because a flag on a brand-new train is a very different feeling locally than a flag on rubble even if it was a legitimate target.

i would like to see us do more of that. in terms of our own responsibility here at home. the division i is to see play .-dot on the international stage are starting to crack our own house from inside. the disagreements are an important part of our democracy but our inability to have them respectfully. i think it's getting to a point where it's undermining our own internal stability every school kid learns the linking quote a house divided cannot stand. it's on us to learn how to disagree with one another without exasperating they

would most like to see that there. >> i have other questions if no one else does. we will keep you waiting waiting for people to come up. it sounds like we were able to transfer to show people how to bring their guard down can you talk about some of the projects that you had been working on. >> it's an interesting realization for me especially after have my daughter that so many of the toolsyo that the human intelligence officers are givingng as part of trading in the field are around learning to create relationship or commonality with those we most fear. in fact the same tools are

applicable out of geopolitics. in all kinds of different aspects of the community. i work now to share them especially with young people but with several different communities the prisoners who are looking to make amends or meet their victims. with gang members who are interesteder in and dropping their gang affiliations. before i have the nine month old i was going back and forth to that the middle east. and working with the young people in the camp there. i'm giving them these tools because they really are at an age t that can reject the words of their parents. this is an exciting generation because like they had had to

organize themselves vertically by geography. it's where the first one has been so involved in their life right from the get go. they are the first generation that can organize themselves were sunny -- horizontally by age. we've seen that with the it with the climate movement. in the moments when it is so difficult. we are just talking to be another link in the chain working to do it. i think that is a rewarding and exciting path.

i think it is hard as it is for parents to ever see their little ones we model what we hope they will be in the world. they will be the version of the country that they want to see. i think often it's the people who are least likely to find personal happiness in government service in intelligence service that we most need doing it.st people that aren't necessarily there because they would enjoy it. they are feeling the weight

and responsibility of the loneliness that comes with the work. it's certainly a prescription for purpose and meaning and service and we can help that life hope that life is long enough to be able to do that and then step back and enjoy time with family in the community. do i see peacemaking as a challenge and climate change as a challenge to peacemaking.a it's an anonymous enormous challenge to stability around the world. the pentagon actually added it to the list of security concerns over a decade ago now.

we are seeing an enormous crisis. they have always driven human contact. it is a viable land in many parts of the world. in the early days of the syrian conflict which is now been so brittle for so many years. i think it's important to consider it even though it's a conceived slow slow-moving threat. one of the great challenges of the human mind and certainly of democracy especially. climate change is one of those

issues. every policymaker understands the security ramifications as a country it's important that we prioritize that. and let them know that we support them. given the grisly description we heard this morning. with other security agencies who are alarmed by the level of details that was made public. it's certainly unusual to have that much granular details.

to the extent that it was agreed or cleared it with the intelligence community first. there is some method to that menace.fi it is an incredibly somber thing across the board. this is one that marks the end of one particular era of leadership under which thousands of families lost people to the actual recruitment of their sons and daughters. it's certainly not a moment for celebration. i think the objective there was probably to remind people

to whatever extent that in the final moments the character of this person was regenerated by the fact that not only did he take his life but he took the three innocent lives with him. it's an incredibly somber day for everybody who has followed this. i would have liked to see him to trial. but the suicide bombing made that possible.

amaryllis will be down signing books. [inaudible conversations] here is a look at some of the events that book tv will be covering this week. at the american enterprise institute. the national review will argue that nationalism plays a vital role in maintaining american democracy that same day look for us at the richard nixon property. on the lessons on leadership that he has learned. it will be at the constitution center in philadelphia. our government is not representing its constituency. all of these events are open

to the public. next week and anonymous person believed to be a senior official in the trump administration will release a book critical of the president. it is titled a warning and published by 12 bucks. according to the washington post which received a copy of the book ahead of publication the author reflects on why he wrote the book anonymously. i had decided to publish this anonymously because this debate is not about me it is about us. it is about how we want the presidency to reflect our country and that is where the discussion should center. some will call this cowardice. my feelings are not hurt by the accusation. nor am i am prepared to attach my name to criticism of president trump. i may do so in due course. the anonymous author is expanding on an op ed they wrote for the new york times.

in the new book the author corrects an assertion they made in their opinion piece from last year. i was wrong about the quiet resistance inside the trump administration. unelected bureaucrats in cabinet appointees were never going to steer donald trump at the right direction in the long run. or refine his management style. he is who he is. next we can book tv will host a journalist discussion on a warning the white house bureau will be our guest. in addition you will hear from joe klein with a long time anonymous longtime anonymous author of the clinton era novel. check your program guide or book tv for schedule information. we have the creation of the

national museum of african-american history and culture. and then we visit charleston west virginia to explore that area of literary culture. and scientist weighs in on the state of artificial intelligence. check your program guide for more information. .. .. welcome to "a fool's errand: creating the national museum of african american history and culture during the age of bush, obama, and trump" book tour, a conversation with secretary lonnie bunch and scott pelley. welcome interim director of the national museum of african-american history and culture, doctor spencer crew.