program. we'd also like to remind everyone here in theli room that signed copies of mr. schwab's book will be available outside this room following the program. i am adam lashinsky and this meeting of thehe commonwealth cb is adjourned. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> welcome to the 24th annual texas book festival. my name is katy vine and an executive of texas monthly. we are here to talk to amaryllis fox with her new book "life undercover" coming of age in the

cia. wonderful book and i encourage everyone to pick one up after the panel. she's going to be signing copies for people. i'm going to give a quick introduction and then i'm going to ask a few questions and leave the last 10 or 15 minutes for audience questions. we have a microphone set up right here in the front and another one in the back. please silence your cell phones before we start so we don't have any surprises. even before shehe finished studying at oxford before 9/11, before her writing mentor was captured and killed amaryllis fox was invested in international affairs having taken great risk, message out of burma when she was a year out of high school. she eventually got her masters in conflict and terrorism at georgetown's look toward service where she developed an algorithm that were terrorist attacks based on 200 years of data.

age 20 when she was recruited to the cia for seattle is classified -- for the federal government. she went through advanced operational working undercover as an art dealer specializing in travel and business art. it's not a huge surprise to hear her bookk called -- a novel come to life. in shanghai shaner has a new is also a spy rendered surveillance by the chinese so they had to talk in code all the time. the housekeeper was -- the place waser bogged. as if that weren't enough of a hall of mirrors we find out the cia was spying on the chinese who are spying on us so they are the new at the chinese were doing. then she left the cia in 2010 she turned her sights to see in and the "national geographic"

channel al-jazeera the bbc and is spoken around the world on the topic of peacekeeping. apple is currently developing this d book under the tv series starting -- starring bre. she's working on a young adult novel in an upcoming documentary series called the business objects. ladies and gentlemen amaryllis fox. [applause] >> thank you so much. >> i'm wondering if you could start by talking aboutut the way your view was brought in because it sounds like it started that very early age. >> i think it was kind of a blessing that i moved every year of myss childhood. a lot of that time overseas. my birthdays in september and every september i was started at the brand-new school and didn't know anybody. at times i was challenged but it also gave me a sense time and again of being at home in the world and this idea that the

differences and wardrobe or cultural habits that you could drop a soccer ball in any park in the world and make friends and the same archetypes exist everywhere. i think that was a philosophy that drove me as the unperson to be really drawn to journalism and to being r able to share the stories on places with friends who i would see periodically when i came back to the states who hadn't had a chance to run around on the soccer fields with different folks. that is what led me to the type of reporter as a teenager. >> any talk about that? how did you know to go there and

then you kind of it sounds like went not really knowing when you are going to land. >> my poor mother. luckily this is in the days where is okay to go to a cyber café once a month. she didn't know a lot about intella was over but my last year of high school in washington d.c. i had really fallen in love with a philosopher and theologian houston smith. he was speaking at the smithsonian i had heard that he was battling cancer. i skipped a day of high school to go and experience him talking in case it was my last opportunity. that day itself i don't regret doing that visit was very powerful and yet talked about the fact that he had studied every one of the major world religions and nonreligious philosophies and found the

notion that we are all part of one whole was at the core of all of them. that really stuck with me which is good. it was worth it because when i got to schoolt the next day my name was on the daily lists. i was given a bunch of friday detention but i also turned up in class and found the final assignment or papers have been handed out and i got the one nobody chose which was aung san suu kyi and the political situation in burma. i grew up moving around a lot but i didn't know anything about the politicalal situation. the more that i learned about it theab more this one unarmed womn peaceful fight at the time against this authoritarian military regime that was really similar to north korea at the time began to fascinate and

inspire me. in thinking about taking it last year before university actually before deciding to take the ear itself i took the money my mom gave me and instead of buying a palm dress i went to a travel agent back then there were such a thing and bought a ticket to silence. the idea was to do a couple of week on volunteering at burmese refugee camp on the south side of the border. at the end of those two weeks we went back to this volunteer group. i was at the gate and everyone was getting ready to board and i just got this really strong instinct that my work there wasn't done. i said to the team later i think i'm going to stay. i was 17 but he had other

teenagers to usher onto the plane and ultimately let me go. i walked back out the doors and headed back up to this camp as well. i was there continuing this volunteer work. i met more and more of the burmese dissidents that were publishing a democratic newspaper and opposition from the jungle, mimeograph machine. they were preparing for protests that were planned for september 9 of 1999 to try to topple the regime. they wanted to be sure if there was any violence it was documented and with the kind of immortality that we only feel his teenagers i said i will go. at the time they had stopped

issuing student visas and stopped issuing tourist visas. he could only get in if you had the is this it as a back pack or in a teenager and had no access to it. i called collect a guy that i had met who was 15 years my senior and an investment banker that i had met him at a free burma rally while i was researching my final paper. said to him it's a long shot but how would he feel about taking couple of weeks off of work and coming to thailand and going to burma on your business visa. which seemed reasonable at the time. [laughter] to his eternal credit he did exactly that and we went to bangkok where you can pretty much forge anything to make that affords merits certificate. we knew we might not get out so

we packed the pens. we went inside and the protest never happened because the security was so tight at the time. we did have the opportunity through these dissidents to interview on once g. who is under arrest at the time and try to get her words out. we were warnedd that if we did that we might be seized by the military. we did it anyway and spent two hours with her which were fascinating an extraordinary at the time. and we were detained when we left and eventually deported. for me that really was the beginning of understanding how powerful an hour or two of truth telling from a single human being even in the face of all the military might in the world. >> you were able to get that

message out. >> here was sue chiesa woman and a mother with no arms available to her and was so threatening to this regime that they were detaining people just for talking to her. that was an electrifying idea to me that the truth of the pen and the word could be that powerful. it really made me start out at oxford during my undergrad committed to the idea of continuing and network am becoming a journalist. >> when you are finishing her last year at oxford september 11 happened.em i was wondering can you talk about how that changed you because you were in d.c.. >> i was in d.c.. oxford starts not over so it's going into my last year that i was home. i was watching my mom walk her dog in a park across the street in her neighbor pulled up in a

volkswagen rabbit and said to me go turn on the tv. i turned the tv on just before the second plane hit. my little sisters were in the cathedral school in washington d.c. at the time and they weren't sure whether the cathedral was at target so they were evacuated. eye round for being with my mom and herth dog in our jeep trying to get two little girls in their trschool uniforms evacuated outside of the school and the the first loveme of my life which is a eurocrat who was in the third grade was on theow flight went down over lockerbie scotland with her sister and parents and their whole family. my mom waited until after christmas to tell d me. she told me that was better that they had all been on a plane because there was no one left to grieve.

it was the first person that i knew who died and i loved her very much and all of that really came back to me picking my sisters up after 9/11. four months after that this journalist danny pearl who i had only met once briefly when he had done an evening for a fund-raiser at a bar when i was still a student. i admire tim immensely because hely was an israeli journalist o wrote with such dignity and curiosity about the islamic world and really was a hero of dialogue and pearl is him. after the overwhelming scale of 9/11 the incredible intimacy in a way of the loss of danny to the world really struck me as terrifying that this was a new and different kind of war that

not only threatened lives but threatened truths and dialogue and the sharing of experiences around the world that danny representative. i went back to my death by sector laura died. when she died it was really troubled with it. my dad said to me eventually if you don't understand the forces that occur you are going to be overwhelmed by the fear. we fear the things that we don't understand and he introduced me to the newspaper. as a third-grader that was just a really transformative thing for me. i read it with real care. i think possibly it wasn't super healthy but i felt ast though te characters in names i couldn't pronounce it the time seemed remote but at any moment they could jump off the page and take another one of my friends from the air. learning to understand what

their relationships were with one another and how it gave rise to violence was really important to me as a kid and processing laura's loss. after 9/11 and the violence that came after itnd including daniel pearl's murder i returned to that idea. if i wasn't going to be overwhelmed by this i had to understand it and that was what i embarked on on the projects you mention mentioned, the algorithm. >> and the cia, you took the job and started looking at cables. there was one particular before you were overseas when he realized the man had been taken eaten and starved and it was the wrong man o. i'm wondering if you can talk about that moment and how you react to it and how the people around you react to it.

>> i won't get into the operational details on that anymore than what's in the book because they've been reviewed and elements that are necessary have been omitted so i will let it stand as it's written. that particular case was covered very widely and heavily in the press. i think that it's indicative of one of the great challenges that we all faced after 9/11 and by we all i mean the americans and allies but also the subset we are serving in government and the military intelligence organizations which was this terrible tension between having signed up to serve on behalf of the american ideals and city on the hill and moral leadership

that were so important to me and america's position and credibility and friendship in the world. the thing that happens after an attack as significant as 9/11 which is you know fear and velocity-based reaction where things happen really quick lee. communication isn't always crystal clear and they think it's no surprise that mistakes were made. i think what is critical now is as a country and as a community we are mature enough to learn from them and not repeat them and analyze them. i think we have done that in some areas better than others. we have been quite thorough in our examination of whether or not torture is something that is americans we want or can

tolerate and whether it's in fact useful and practical. i'm not sure we have been quite as thorough about things like the program.shall dealings on to work in progress but it's on all of us to have those conversations as americans. >> i wanted to discuss to controversies that have come up in the book. one is you've had a lot of cia insider training which is raised some questions about theue cia stamp of approval. the second part of that is there are some people thatom criticizd some of the being impossible. you've addressed that before but i wanted to give you a chance to respond. >> one of the things about going through the review process,

there are operational details that have to be changed in their operational details that have to be omitted for very good reason. as you set out to share interactions that have been put into a the course of your cruise figure out which interactions make sense given those changes and omissions which included entirely. for me was important to put up front on the front page that changes have to beha made at i don't think it was a significant challenger pose as big a problem for me because this look is really about the personal journey. it's noterer about an operationl feed a feed here is how the bin laden tape downwind or a particular operation happens. we heard a very detailed account

account of an operation this morning. there are important omissions but for me this was about not just coming-of-age as a wife and mom in myom 20s against the back drop of the war on terror but also the evolution of a perspective. .. the killing of the journalist i respected so much. it honestlyy wasn't with a view to peacemaking or finding common ground, i was young and we were at war and we were afraid it was pretty much over the course of a 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]

on "after words" our weekly author interview program with matt gaetz of florida

interviewed a republican senator of kentucky, the case against socialism. some of the discussion. but you will have to have rationing. they don't seem care about your hyper placement. it's directed towards their ideological concerns bring it seems as though you're making the argument that a country more socialist becomes more selfish. i think that is true and i think it's an irony in a way because they would profess to be for the

other man and everything for something else and in the end it is true and by selfishness and driven by elite in their society and they consume and acumen lay power and money and homes and everything else all based on the cronyism of their system. >> to watch the rest of this interview and divide more episodes "after words", visit our website booktv.org and click on the "after words" tap at the top of the page. >> here are the current best selling nonfiction books topping the list is triggered, donald trump junior's argument that the left is using political correctness to silence conservatives. then former un ambassador nikki haley, chronicles her time serving in the trump administration in her memoir with all due respect, in teen hampstead and the element of

venture. fox news provides a history of america's war for texas. that is followed by lee smith the plot against president which contends that intelligence officials, political operatives in the press work together to try and remove president trump from office. wrapping up her look of the bustling nonfiction books, according to the wall street journal's mitch album recount of adoption following the country's 2010 earthquake. in finding chica. most of these authors have appeared on the tv and you can watch them online at booktv.org. page. >> tonight we will hear from david silverman, a professor of history at george washington university. he received his phd from princeton university and of course he was also an mhs fellow. it's important to put in there. he specializes in native american colonial american and