and navy seals, sometimes the information will just come and then come to a abrupt stop. having someone like tom to work with was a lifesaver. i just had to step away. >> to watch the rest of this interview, watch the website. booktv.org. click on the afterwards tab. >> up next on book tv, ira rosen provides a first-hand account of working on the television news program. >> welcome. i would like to welcome ira rosen to our program. one of our many online programs.

we have done over 300 since the virus shut us down. ira is coming to us directly from savannah georgia. >> i met up great bookstore called the book lady. they don't have my book. they will have it after today. [laughter] first of all, the first thing that i thought when i finish reading your book, the usual 6 degrees of separation between me and thousands of very important people will be classed down to 1 degree of separation. second thing was i better work really hard to keep that 1 degree of separation because most of these people do not seem to be that good. it is very fascinating. except for a few. [laughter] i am curious. your experience with so many

different types of people, what do you think drives these people to be less than pleasant. you told a lot of great stories of people you really like working with and stuff like that. overall, making people drive themselves into that corner. >> it is the pressure to win and the fear of failure. i saw this with everybody from mike wallace to the head of organized crime in new york for a period of time, i saw with john godey, i saw with andre when i was with him in moscow. it is really that simple. people respond to pressure in different ways. it is a greater fear of failure. the greater fear that something will cause them to look bad.

that is really what it is about. >> that is a great answer, first of all. i am glad you brought andre into it. i love the way you pull them into the program and how it made that program work. i love that you told that story. it is a great one. >> the creator -- in fact, he is to be stationed at the hoover institute out where you guys are. heller insisted, he wrote a book at the time and he only wanted us to ask questions from his book. i told wallace, this is going to go bad. he wants to start, as i said, on page 33. he would cite every page of his book. he said, no, it will be fine. trying to make it seem a little bit better, he had a great admiration, as you know, created it for the russians. i went to moscow, this shows you

a little bit about how we had an open expense account. i went and met up with him and it was really a remarkable moment in time. he had won the nobel peace prize and the russians were leaving him alone. he had a gathering of dissidents in his home. i remember going there and it is like the world's greatest coffee clash. [laughter] people who are all there and have been through extremely hard hardships. we picked the doctor and she put her finger at me and said you make sure you bring him back by 3:00 o'clock. that is all mike wallace had to hear. mike is a contrary and. [laughter] he would be sure he would bring him back up for.

sure enough, that is kind of what happened. we do an interview where he said no way the russians figured out how to build the h-bomb was to go into the snows of siberia and after a nuclear test and gathered the fallout from the u.s. test and they would deconstruct what they found and then they could figure out, you know, the components of the bomb which i thought was fascinating. fascinating that the translator did not want to translate it at the time because he thought he was revealing some state secrets it was delivered in a broken english. anyway, we bring him back. they are having a good time. we bring them back at 330 or 4:00 o'clock. sure enough, he had been locked out of the house. he is sitting on his stoop on a

very cold wintry day in moscow. he is fine. he is fine. he is all right. that was the last that we ever solve them. [laughter] it was remarkable to spend a little time with them. he diminished the rosenbergs in the sense that they did not really contribute that much to help build the bombs. >> it was so fascinating. i'm always fascinated by scientists i can do this. figuring out how the h-bomb was constructed. reengineering the first engineering of it. it is pretty impressive. i love that story. let's go back a little bit to your start. you got started at cornell as a writer for the paper. you did an exposé. i thought that that was a great

way to get started. >> my friends were telling me, i said you guys must eat while on the road. they said, what are you talking about, we go to mcdonald's. you go to mcdonald's pregame? yeah. i went to the school's office and got the accounting of what they did and it was a sheet of paper. each one of these players receive $55 in cash per meals. i showed it to the players. they said $55. we received $12. i then attracted to each one of the players and the longer story is that they were using the money to pay for incoming recruits application fees. that became my first kind of big story. it help me get a job with jack anderson who was kind of a columnist in washington at the time. when i met with anderson, i

actually met with his deputy person. les had me sit there and he is having me open up a letter. oh man this is, you know, i get these. oh my god, it's a letter bomb. he threw it right at me. i did not know what to do. it turned out it with -- it was a gag with jack. the kid fell for the old letter bomb trick. i think he just went his pants. it was a period of time where people are just wandering off the streets. the ci had planted a body. what les did was -- it attached to the back of the guys pants. he said this short circuit them. it really messes them up bad. the guy wanders off. i always wondered what happened

to him. he kind of wanders down the street. it was an extraordinary time of year to investigate a reporter in washington. i was inspired by these guys. part of me never wanted to be like them because i never thought i could be like them. jack anderson. i mean, i got friendly with side he would stand up outside of people's homes when they left in the morning and he would be waiting outside their homes when they got back in the evening. he would just constantly be chasing these people. i loved him. i loved that kind of zest. and it really helped me kind of energized me to do the work. >> the first thing you said when we first started talking about why people do this, the

insecurity and the feel of failure, do you think that's why people are willing to tell their stories to the media. you could almost go to any senator and get their time because they wanted that time. they wanted that media time. >> you are 100% right. people thought that they could outsmart you. outsmart you, out charm you or out finesse you. what i learned from mike wallace is he built up confidentiality with the person. he used to say between you and me and 12 million viewers. [laughter] he kind of left that part of it out. he about this error of confidentiality with the person. we got kind of sucked into it. you always want to ask the

hardest question first. then they can kind of breathe easy. then you can come back at it the middle or the end again. that kind of bothered me that you set that. people feel that they could rehabilitate their images if they have been accused of something. they feel they can do this on air. the people that come off best on camera the people that are the most interesting people. i learned this actually from bob simon who was a correspondent on our broadcast. the whole time i came back from israel and i was so proud of myself i got the director of intelligence on camera. he looks at me and says is he a good talker? i said not really. he speaks with a heavy israeli accent. they just want to know if he can talk well. you know, bob is so right. bob always got the best talkers

in israel. he did not care what their position was. as an 800 israeli bureau chief. >> someone -- >> absolutely, yeah. >> always thinking people can talk their way out of it. it reminded me immediately of prince last interview where he just dug himself deeper into the hole. >> i did not get that. first of all, you could think someone like prince andrews gets a little media trading. he would have been prepping for days and, you know, yeah, you are right. i just do not get that. >> somebody like nixon or the other big politicians, i don't need any practice before i go on. i'm a debater or this or that.

really getting destroyed by what they do on stream. if you had to advise all of these people, so many politicians, so many people in the entertainment industry, you worked with guys in the media that are famous, everybody is doing stuff online now and out of their own homes and everything, what is the crucial part of it? >> carnegie hall practice. they need to try out their lines and their responses with people who they trust. whether it is boyfriend, girlfriend, friend, whoever it is. they need to see how that sounds. you want somebody who gives you kind of honest feedback back. the main thing is the viewer has a great eye. there was a book that dan rather had written. the camera never blinks.

the viewer kind of understands when a person is lying or not lying. that is kind of why i got fascinated with all of these gangsters. once they decide to tell their story, they often tell the truth. now, it is a journey to get them to go on camera, but once actually sit down, they talk about some of their crimes, they talk about the commission, they talk about amazing stuff. politicians are constantly thinking which constituents do i not want to get angry. which constituents have i been trying to cater to. i do not want to start calling out this one or that one because quite frankly -- >> it is universal. >> exactly. it is universal. these are people that i got to know. i had good relations with a lot

of these people. just tell me what you are thinking. they can't. they are constantly just trying to spin you. you know, whatever your politics are, one of the things that, you know, i keep coming back to, donald trump got 70 million people to vote for him. yes, a lot of them liked his policies. and a lot of people thought that he was a genuine person. a genuineness to it. whatever that was, they thought it was genuine. this is my opinion about why he cap holding onto a lot of people you know, when the election was going on, i went to a few of these rallies. people would line up for hours to get in. like some rock star.

then i went to hillary clinton's rallies. some of them they have to sort of pull people off the streets. i am not saying one versus the other, but, you know, people saw that. that is why he did so well on camera. he would be screaming get that person out of here. you would never see hillary clinton or anybody, they welcome diverse opinions on things. >> one of my questions. you are in a great position to overwatch the interaction between media and politics over the years. we were both young at the time when kennedy and nixon did their first interview. six, seven, eight years old. now it's the media and how people have evolved in their relationship.

back and forth between the media and the politicians. what you are saying is very interesting. it is still the genuine part of somebody to come across. just think of all the difference i assume that you assume that the future will be more and more of the same. >> yes. you are exactly right. how do you teach authenticity. how do you teach honesty. you are obviously a student of socrates. how do you teach truthfulness. how do you teach honesty. [inaudible] >> right. it is getting harder and harder to do that. i think that the people that come off as genuine, whether it is somebody buying a pizza on saying i like this pizza versus that pizza who has, you know, an

enormous amount of followers, the reason that some of these platforms are heading, tiktok, for example, you know, people see that there is a certain realness to it. i remember when i was doing a story on social influencers and it was a woman that went and bought a chewbacca mask and then put it on. she was just laughing. it became the hottest video. all it was was a woman who went in, had a authentic reaction to it. seeing her with a silly mask on. it went viral and viral and viral. she ended up getting invited to talk shows because we were so fascinated by. it is the search for realness that i think that people are craving and want. that is what they see.

>> exactly what i was thinking. what i find fascinating about this is people have all been lying for such a long period of time. why are we interested in the show yeah put on for 40 years. we all have to live life. we have to figure out how other people did it. we really do not have a blueprint. the more authenticity, the more interest you have. with someone like trump, a throwback to an old team or something like that. everybody follow me. had their confidence. go ahead. the elite that he was talking against have always been trained to polish themselves.

>> right. he had succeeded and his father who was the biggest gangster in new york city, he did not want to antique with the mob in order to, you know, be with his family. it took me four years to do the interview. he sat down and did the interview became one of the most memorable of all time. it started off as two parts. you could watch it on youtube if you are interested. it was just something real and sincere about whether he was talking about -- he said he would follow his father no matter what the business was. my father was a butcher, just get me a smock. one of my favorite things, i got

a call from one of the former new york city police commissioners. i really liked him. [inaudible] he came off well. i just shook my head. >> people talk about how rich people can get out of their crimes and so on and so forth. people have that capacity to be genuine. they can also walk away because people are saying if not for the grace of god, i would be in those shoes or i would be in that situation so they feel for them. the cover-up is much worse than the crime you committed. >> that is exactly right. you talk about him and his father became the leader because he took out castellano.

i just thought that i would throw in one of our connections. i was working as a lawyer at that time in new york city. one of our clients was going to buy the steakhouse. it was really weird to, you know, have a deal destroyed. [inaudible] >> oh my god. before we get to some of the celebrities, you worked on some really important investigations that changed things. one of them was insider trading. also the epilogue. very disappointing about politicians. i think that that is great. >> i was working with peter

sweitzer who is an author that has written a few books. there was a chapter in his book that kind of caught my eye. it is legal for congress to trade stocks based on inside information that they have gotten from congressional hearings. closed hearings in many cases. they are trading stocks based on who may get a contract or who won't. one senator we focused on shorted stocks after getting a briefing from hank that the u.s. economy was about to crater. the way that i found that little bit of business out was looking at his book and he basically wrote it in diary form. i briefed the senator on this time that the u.s. economy was

going to crater. and then he posted his stock trades. you have time stamped when the stock trade was. i matched up when the meeting was. when the stock trade was and it was within 30 minutes. the senator cleared 30,000 in a very short period of time. it was a lot of money. 25% of what they make in a year or something at that time. and, so, at the time it was a corrective legislation to this a legal called the stock act. after we did the story, it got 185 sponsors within a week.

talking about it in the state of the union. within three or four months it ended up passing. i was in the white house, i was invited to watch the signing. that was enormously satisfying. however, a few months after 60 minutes leaves town and everything passed, they rescinded through a voice mode. there is no registered vote by any congressman or senators. they rescinded it. in the last go round, they got called out on the parking. business was as usual. i found over the years the

corruption in washington is breathtaking. in many ways, much worse and with far larger impact to people than anyone like the mafia may be doing in brooklyn. these guys, these guys and women , they are extraordinary. another story we did, i am incredibly proud, it was on the opioid epidemic. what congress did was they passed legislation that neutered the powers, that took away all of their powers of the enforcement ability. after they passed this legislation, they went to work for the drug administration. as lobbyists, as vice presidents

one person in particular, helping craft the legislation that neutered the agency that he used to work for and then he went to work for the drug industry. one of the congress that did this, congressman moreno, his people dead. he was the architect of the legislation. two days after, he was named to be donald trump's new drug czar. within two days of us doing the story, trump rescinds the offer, if you will. and then takes it away. we did that as a great collaboration with the washington post. it really affected change. those are the stories over the years i've gotten the most satisfaction from. >> not to mention, quite a few

awards. >> done well. >> very well. i think a good time to go back and tell the story about your father's childhood because it clearly must have affected your desire to have an effect on the community in which people live. >> there is really not a day or a week that goes by that i did not think about what he went through in poland. a town on the corner of poland and russia when the nazis came in. his mother secured a plus hundred place for him to be hidden. basically while the nazis were there and through the war. a family took him in. protected him for three years.

not even telling their kids except for their oldest daughter that they had my father hiding upstairs. he was 16 years old at the time. my father's mother and his twin sisters went back to town. basically what was said, for the next 48 hours, you could do anything to the jews. the jews were slaughtered all through the town. i often thought about that. on one hand, given permission, what would you do with that. given the opportunity to save another life, but it would risk putting your family at risk. so, my father faced, and that little town in poland, it was the best of humanity and the

worst of humanity coming out to play. as i wrote in my book, you know, i always keep one eye open looking out for the neighbors, if you will. the old reagan line of trust but verify. i think about that a lot. what decision, what i have the courage to take in somebody who is about to get murdered. it would be putting my family at risk. the story of the righteousness of those people has been told a little bit, but not told enough. certainly, spielberg did a version of that in schindler's list. i think about that quite a bit. >> it brings us right back to the big issues of the politicians and what they have

done and how they speak. i thought that it was a very good line that you had in the 60 minute show with the carter's during the reagan administration reagan was somebody who himself personally -- especially after he got shot, using his sense of humor. it really worked whether you like his policies are not. he was popular at different times. he did do something all different kinds of politicians deal. putting the needle on when she made her comment. >> i think that it was one of the first, the first interview after he left the white house. mike wallace was the correspondent. mike was friendly with the reagan's. i knew that this was not going to go very well.

we are doing the interview and prodding mike about reagan. and i said, you asked about human rights under ronald reagan i said, mike, ask about human rights. he said, no. will you tell him to ask this. this is also a little bit about what producing is about. president carter said to me, don't get me involved in your silly little impressions. [laughter] now you are embarrassing me. ask them about human rights. he swipes the camera and says this is how you ask a question. this was like a set up. he said the first thing this president did was snuggling up and that sent a message that

human rights -- >> mike looks pretty good. like that. [laughter] mike calls me a name. front page new york times the day after it appears. later in the day, i go out to rosalynn carter. he is really friendly with nancy reagan. i want you to come out with your guns blazing. she sits down and says align. this makes is comfortable with our prejudices. a kind of blew me away. mike did not know how to react. that's not a very nice thing to say. [laughter] it was a fantastic line. one of her most quoted lines she

has ever spoken. in the car ride back to atlanta, mike was all worried about what nancy reagan would have to say. to mike's credit, all of it stayed in. it was a very tough piece and we all move forward from there. it was a line that always stuck with me. >> both of them were very media savvy. i thought that it was a great part of the story. he played both sides in order to get his point and. there may have been a story that i heard out here of how politicians get their way. one of the political reporters for the abc san francisco affiliate. he said when people come to town during elections, they all line up. there are five rooms. everyone has their own room.

nobody knows anybody. in order to get on air, the politicians are always using your name. every time they answer you, bob this, bob this. the smartest of them all was bill clinton. he only said your name once. he knew that that increased the chances of the soundbite he wanted to get on. >> actually told him that these on-air people have such vanity. if you use their name, they will use the bite. he did an interview with 60 minutes during that time. whenever he wanted the answer. he just left his name out. >> very, very clever.

that is the thing that put him up above the other politicians. >> his mistake was in revealing that. what he starts doing is saying that is the one answer i am not going to use. >> telling a lot of stories about how we got things done. that kind of shifted the way the presidency actually operated. they had done the same things, but never told anybody. that sort of gave away about being a politician. i thought that it was very funny. you gave it away, but still at the same time figured out ways to make it better. >> it was another one. it reminded me because i just read something the other day.

with all of this money being spread around by the government right now, they said it was like $11 billion in california alone under the new money going out. tell little bit about the medicare situation. >> it was remarkable how easy it was. we focus on southern florida. we focus on a clinic. we ordered all of this material through medicare. and then they would just ship it . and, so, the amount of money that they could make is extraordinary. they got a hold of people's medicare numbers. they ordered two prosthetic arms for him. he said, you could see that my arms are fine.

the cut out made a lot of money on it. i love doing stories where you just sort of say at the end of it, no, that cannot be real. that is not real. another one was tax refund. these scam artists get a hold of your refund checks. they have it sent to a mailbox. guys said, you know, 10, 20 forms and i can make $10,000, $20,000 in the course of a day or two. without working very hard. they just paid it. there is an extraordinary amount of money that just goes out the door without checks and balances they need much more of an enforcement effort. i think that that is where i came out on it. many carriers at that time

before we did the story did not really have a strong enforcement effort to go after these people. after i did the story i think they gave an extra 100 million to try to stop it from going out the door. >> having done all of those investigations, what is your take on something like the single-payer system for national healthcare and letting the government system take over. have you developed a philosophy about that kind of thing? >> again, this is my opinion. i am not speaking for anyone else. the more the government involved themselves in our personal lives , the worse it is. they do not make things better through the systems that they set up. they make things worse. i would love to debate somebody on that in terms of what they have actually done that has been great.

having said that, the great society programs under johnson have been enormously successful. have done incredible stuff. i think journalists in the future will be examining how it happened. friends of mine who are in the medical community are telling me horror story after horror story about this. it is still playing itself out. i think the private industry and private companies have more incentives to do it right and in a more cost-efficient way. here is the thing. you don't even get paid whether something works or not. it's not like you incentivize saving the government $100 million. you are still getting the same paycheck. that is not the way that it

works in private industry. people are incentivized to improve mechanisms. obviously, i am speaking broadly. generally, you are credited. people that get bonuses or whatever. that does not really happen in government. i think that that is one of the big problems in that regard. i know under the trump administration they were talking about private in the army. that has its own set of issues and problems. we don't really want to do that. >> what the government does about what can be monetized and cannot be monetized. it is absolutely crucial. we won't go into that discussion. too many fun stories to do.

you are a young man and you come out of cornell with this one story and so forth. you are a good tennis player. >> thank you for asking me. i got an e-mail from the person's life. i am playing tennis. peter mosk was a writer and, you know, i just admired him so much i learned so much from him. he let me hang out with him in the hamptons. i had to play tennis with him on the weekends. one day i get to the court and it is kurt. it is old man tennis the way old

man tennis is supposed to be played. she sent me an e-mail. she loved the story so much. she passed it around and called the wife. they smoked cigarettes constantly. between games they would smoke a cigarette and play a game and then smoke a cigarette. both of them are smoking cigarettes. [laughter] and peter maas his words soft. it was so delightful and talking and relaxed. it was sort of a different place than a bar. it was a place to banter and talk. it was really one of the most

memorable matches i have ever played. >> that was such a beautiful image. you have so many of them. if you read the book, there are hundreds of these things. i don't want to miss the one with marlon brando. i think almost everybody would have skipped that date. >> it is appropriate that i'm doing this from a bookstore. i just finished a story and i wanted to use a little bit of the godfather. normally, it is a very simple request for the studio. one day he quotes is he okay with using this? yeah, he is fine. a long, long conversation over

weeks and months. i called to wish him happy birthday. both of us report on the same date. animals don't celebrate birthdays. trees don't celebrate birthdays. i'm just calling to wish you a happy birthday. [laughter] other times, calling me up, i don't know if it is a generational thing, but they don't say hello how are you, they just talk. one day brando calls up and he says people who have these great representations, i have to go, i am meeting somebody. he ignores it. charlie, great reputation. repuo then, he starts raving lisa ryan .... ....

mike says he's low nervous i say i'm a little nervous yes this is going so well. the drive down the drive, marlins running every single light. i said what you doing are going to get us killed. he said you can let a machine tell you what to do, be a man.

we finally get to this restaurant, we sit down and marlon starts by saying, like i have admired your acting abilities for lung typos and what you're talking about, the raised eyebrows look of astonishment your ingenious actor. i'm a journalist i'm not an active part of stopping your incredible actor. i was like what's going on here? how then might decide to hit back. sit how did you get so fat? brenda says well, i go to baskin-robbins, i cannot decide what flavor i want so i order a court of everything they've got. and i take it home and end up eating at all. at this point mike says you know i am 66 years old. i do not need to make my reputation by showing america what kind of person aren't so i'm going crazy really wanted the interview. anyway, brenda with that point the calls became very, very infrequent. i got one final call from them for says to me, you play the market? i said a little but i don't have much money. he said but you should. let me give you a stock tip

and i said with that? he said it's a company called apple. that i haven't heard of it he said you will, trust me but all your money into it. i said okay fine i tell mike about this. and mike says are you going to best the company question i said you crazy what i take a stocked it from a guy who can't decide flavor ice attorney once. [laughter] [laughter] >> he got the tip direct from steve jobs, right? so back yes. at the time, the company had gone public i guess a year or two before. but charles wanted brando anything commercials or something. and i wasn't really, i am stupid, just call me stupid. i was just not sensitized to the whole computer revolution that was about to take place at that time. i was a year late on that one. >> still very hard to look back and see who's going to make it anyway. he didn't mark did not envelop

in the telephone the typesetter failed. in the foam crazy birds we have a lot of questions print going to ask a couple of them first and the go back to a couple things i want to cover before. just for the audience, if you like some of those stories about marlon brando in everything, they are so many stories about 70 famous people. especially the media people the 60 minute tours. seems to be a little nostalgic for the old-fashioned office kind of chaos that was going on. it's warning everything the inhibiting rules that have come into the whole play have cut down on creativity, or hurt things or, i don't think it's partially a good thing but is it a partially bad thing to but the creativity is inhibited?

>> i think the most important thing is that an office framework is to feel safe. respected and to feel safe. whether you are a man or a woman. harassment sometimes goes both ways. so i think it's the most important thing. i think the crazy chaos that had existed back then was something that should have been corrected back then. they should've addressed it back then. the creativeness really had to do, i wrote about some of this in this book. it had to do with the fact they were life are to than life characters. what mike wallace, what he tried to do was try to get people angry. he tried to get a reaction to everybody. of course he went too far in a lot of cases. there was this rivalry that

existed, there offices with us far apart yet mike would steal a story and they would not talk for a year. by the way, it's not just men who are fighting. i went to abc with diane sawyer and barbara walters. they were to extraordinary talents. to top best people in the business. they had an enormous rivalry. we did primetime live at the very beginning in our debut show, diane had booked a major figure a major character with the barbara literally before the broadcasters tried to steal the interview. so they had these rivalries and this energy and stuff. so i think that was what i was really referring to, it is the competition that existed with the chaos and the fighting that existed.

but that fighting in some ways, and again i'm not excusing the reprehensible behavior which a lot of it was, some of that fighting was creative fighting. they were sparking each other to make the best peace. and they did not treat each other so nicely during those periods in time. it's interesting we would never do something like that now, back then it's like nobody knew about this you get back to the 70s, of course it was a very big issue with feminist revolts. everybody knew that it was a bad boy behavior was not acceptable in the office and

so on and so forth. it's been known for a long, long time. >> it's humorous people go back ten or 15 years we can excuse their behavior then nobody knew anything about it. >> they knew about it they just turn their backs. they did not address it. and you know, they talk about the topic when i talk about sometimes as there were no grown-ups in the room. if barbara was stealing the story is involved in one situation there feeling something from diane. and his response back then was, will she outsmarted you. >> outsmarted us? it wasn't outsmarting his thievery. [laughter] so you know, the rules have changed. people really understand that. think it made for much better

work environment. for men and for women for women and for men. you know it is a two-way street. you need to feel safe in the work environment. think that's a very important thing. >> absolutely praise let's go to question. you're in a perfect position. he is in a perfect position to make that comment. so we have several questions and author you mentioned in your book quotes from the gangster regarding the jfk assassination. you want to tell that story? it's two places in one place your site might just be mafia talk. >> there actually two things joe said pretty finish the interview with mike wallace is on his way to the airport. joe and i having a cognac in the back porch. i said to joe, i first started by saying joe, who killed

kennedy? he said when the kennedy assassination happened, he called down who's the head of the mafia in miami and said what you going on? he said listen he said this is what joe says, says to him, miami and new orleans run by carlos will take the heat for it. new york is absolving. new york had five crime families. they tried to kill kennedy in miami with cuban exiles but failed. and then they basically took care of the deed in dallas. now, the next thing joe told me, it's a joke growing up in new york i was fascinated. and i said was he that good with investing your money? invest our money question ricky had the picture. so what picture question he had a picture what joe said of

jake edgar hoover the fbi director and his number two having with each other. we need that picture to blackmail them to basically say there is no such thing as a mafia. and for one time as you know, hoover said there's no such thing. as in 57 his denying a thing like organized crime. they said that's because he had the picture. the problem is you pointed out with this sort of thing is you can't just run to the press and say kennedy assassination solved here it goes. because a lot of these guys like to talk. they like to tell stories. what another gangster i know said it was johnny rosselli who was shooting from a sewer and shot to kennedy. now, when i mentioned this, he said to me johnny had bad

eyesight he could never make the shot. [laughter] us is the kind of banter you kind of get when you're dealing with some of these guys. it's great. fold a congressional hearing on. >> so, we don't take it is the only reason white j edgar hoover and robert kennedy did not get along when he was attorney general. >> that sounds like it could be the basis she did not with the information out did not at the mafia attack. probably not the only basis i am sure. >> again i cover a lot of this in my book. giving a very short version to the stores. give the auto dealer sure

favorite profile oh boy, you are going to be surprised by what i'm about to say. my favorite story that i did, why had the most fun, was trouble hunting in italy. where i was able to go out with the dogs and hunt for truffles. and of course, me being who i am i'm made it into an investigative story where i found out the chinese were flooding the truffle market with phony truffles. a handful of truffles, the black truffle could cause 1000 white truffles much more expensive. they figured out a cheaper version a knockoff version of the truffle they were selling for $20 a pound. so they then started flooding the market.

when cheating the delightful fun story in the hills of italy. then having an italian chef regrading truffles audits. both of us regarded as one of her all-time favorites. >> really have that story nicely in the book. >> you say the most expensive show ever done was about the tibetan monks. >> such a funny side story. >> and bradley, short language i could use. will clean it up a little bit. ed bradley did a story with his producer bill mccoy. they went to tibet.

the producer was a former cameraman, he kept shooting sunrise and sunset sort of the most expensive stories at 60 minutes ever did. so he was shooting the story that months walked to the left the months walked to the white the monks off to the left again what kind of stories that? [laughter] said they've never made air. but is extraordinarily expensive. it gave you a sense of what the laws a fair kind of attitude was their 60 at the time. we do stories about the orient express. we do the extraordinary story where he traveled and in a

time when we are going through pandemics, the divisiveness of the last election, i kind of miss some of those stories where you could just sit back, sit back and be entertained the genius of the writing. harry did a story about the end of casablanca for example moving down that movie set of casablanca they were selling it off to spare parts. and looking and now, here's looking at you kid just as a fan of the show come as much as a participant of the show i really miss it. so back okay. we have one more question from kalina gregory. it's just a joke you know you're going to have a bad day when you wake up and see dan rather walking up your driveway.

>> it's actually negative about date when you see mike wallace walking up your driveway. [laughter] the way people regarded it you tell story about dan rather after he had the story about george w. bush and so on. he asked one of the secretaries was the soup of the day. he had enough self-awareness to realize here i was the great anchor of cbs and not mess with the soup of the day

was. one of things in my book i point out it's amazing the extraordinary career that mike had at the end of the day that we do not have the memory of having worked on the show. back yes. you tell such personal and moving details about them both, the stuff that's irritating and the stuff that obviously the details are in the book. have the big overarching theme you have in a book for a lot of people is do you know when to quit? do you know when to retire? the same people discuss about basically tom brady or sport stars that have equipment

earlier if they're going to go out. i think we should talk a little bit about that. i think that's an interesting thing for everybody whatever the situation because it's not just financial. there's something much more than that. why don't you talk about that. so back these people will have more money than they will ever spend in their lifetime. what they inevitably did in his last conversations would tell his people, spend more time with the family. he would end up retiring i think within a week or a month of the time we'd end up dying. mickey renews the same way ed bradley he could barely voiceover the stories he was doing.

we realize what i was started, i was covering the new age movement. one of the people had great admiration for head, he said to me, he gave me darshan and he said change your career every seven years. and what you become the ruler of your career and your career does not become the ruler of view. needless to say i disregarded that spiritual directive. still have a chance. in my case if you will, i felt as of the top of my game. i run a peabody, and other things for the opioid series.

and try different things out. it's very clear that you watched and you learned. >> your new age journal it's what you pointed out. and what was it you had done major go to work as a writer first for the new age lots of people did that. it's still an unusual choice. >> for a period of time, there's vegetarian, i got to know yogi bosch on. who was running the movement at the time.

and, that was the direction that i was pursuing at that point in time. it was part of the journey of self-discovery. and so that got me into that. i did that for a short period of time. spin back that must've been very happy with the high level of writing ability they got from you, from those journals. the topics are very interesting. don't get top writers that often. although at the time, that was a really big push for time in the early 70s for alternative attitudes towards what's going on in life. maybe we finish up with one last thing pretty did a larry flynt interview he gave you the three things jfk, of such

a weird conclusion. other people in the magazine i have a way life works is very, very simple, you just takes people's normal desires daily desires and dress them up every month in a slightly different dress. and flynt was going legit and created a magazine called ohio magazine. hiring legitimate newspaper people, he won me to it be the washington bureau chief of it. so, i was working he was paying meet more than i would ever make a think it was $20000. and he said, i've got the story feud investigator said what's that? they are making human beings

in massachusetts without belly buttons and without souls but i said who? and he said the cia. i looked at him and said okay i get right on it. [laughter] it was strange. i write about a lot of that in the book. thank you so much for doing this respect i went to finish or something more substantive. that's the innocence projects. until he did his pro bono work for i'm for my with the projects. this really saves people's lives. you did a 60 minute thing on it. >> i have known darian a very, very long time. he has really done such extraordinary noble work. i am a huge fan of his. over the decades i had one of the first dna stories with barry. and we have done other

stories. there is nothing more noble you can do as a journalist than to get somebody who is wrongfully convicted out of jail. and i think that is certainly the work we have done over the years. once i worked with his partner, peter neufeld. and innocence in chicago where these kids were wrongfully convicted in chicago. then i did something 30 years on death row for somebody was railroaded by a prosecutor who went on camera with us or talked about how he railroaded. to this day, it is bill whitaker's and mine favorite story that we ever did. you've got to read it. i write about a lot of it in there. it's an unending job to next generation take over keep

working on this. because despite the fact it's not very many people who do these kind of things, there's always some pressures like he said at the beginning, fear of failure it by going to become unimportant that kind of thing that makes bill want to close the case and not play by the rules and somebody totally innocence is in jail. often times it's a powerless person to begin with. >> really is a shame they keep doing that. we keep getting better at it. everybody should keep in mind it's been very useful, very fun book thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you, thank you so much for having me. >> so another event one better h year, thanks again for coming in joining us, thank you for joining us. >> thank you bye-bye.

>> you're watching book tv on cspan2, every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. book tv on c-span2 crated by america's cable television company. today were brought to by these television companies who provide book tv to viewers as a public service. a look now at some books or been published this week. the late justice ruth bader ginsburg and her former clerk and berkeley law professor amanda chronicled her career injustice, justice, thou shall pursue. lady bird johnson, looks of the first latest relationship with president johnson. and in this is the fire, cnn don lemon offices thoughts on how to address racism in america. also been published this week,

or public as alec michaelis looks at the economic impact of amazon and fulfillment. columbia law professor jamaal green argues the cost additional rights should be mediated by legislatures and juries. not by judges and how rights went wrong. and an already toast, kate washington describes her experience caring for her ill husband and the other unpaid caregivers predefined these titles this coming week wherever books are sold. watch for many of the authors the near future on book tv, on cspan2. during a virtual program hosted by the reagan presidential library, former appellate judge douglas ginsburg discusses his book on the court and the constitution. here he provides his thoughts on partisanship throughout american history. >> we are still united around that set of ideas because that's all we argue about. what is it mean and how should be applied? should it be changed? that intensive partisanship

and division that you are talking about, was with us right from the beginning. we taught history if i recall for the early american republic was if not more partisan and divided that we are right now. at least as much so. the newspapers ran objectives against one candidate because we were in secret correspondence with the other candidates. their outrageous claims by each side against the other personal addictions and so on. it's been that way pretty much about every year but off and on throughout our history. it's nothing new. certainly i live through it before watergate era. just as recently as a year ago

attempt to impeach president trump who was a real spectacle of civics at work. what would people in the senate and house arguing about? remaining of the impeachment clause. what could be in impeachable offense in 1789? that was the question they were arguing about. they don't have to agree, as long as they're both arguing about that the republic is safe. [laughter] the argument should we disregard that, overthrow it then we would be in real trouble. smacking by the rest of this program on a website booktv.org. he is the search function to look for douglas ginsburg of the title of his book, voices of our republic. up next on book tv,