york who could tell you that i am remiss, talked about doing a book. i came back from iraq after quite a few years, iraq and afghanistan, to london a couple of years ago. i really did not relish the idea of the solitude of writing a book. i would have told you when i was in iraq and afghanistan that i was relishing the assignment. i hated leaving. what i had not anticipated is the difficulty of readjustment. partly coming off a very big story, partly is the loss of the camaraderie, the exhilaration. but partly i think it has to do with the fact that you have been in a place which is beyond, in

some respects, consciousness or imagining, not withstanding television and everything else. i think probably -- i'm talking now about the feeling that has receded and has receded as i have come to be exhilarating by this assignment here, which has turned out to be somewhat against the odds, one of the more important assignments that "the new york times" has. we generate an enormous amount of news from london. i think it is probably normal when you come back from an extraordinary spirits like that to have, one, a period of -- from an extraordinary experience like that, to have, 1, 8 period of reflection. agents are publishers coming to me and saying write a book, and i am going to have to do it. one of our editors said to me once, you will never be taken seriously as a writer unless you

do a book. the book not of the kind i have contributed to or been co- authors of, but a book about your own experiences. i think i do have a story to tell and i think i have to tell it, and if i want to continue to have a good income in my retirement, i am going to have to. >> where would you start? >> where would i start? well, i think i already know the subtitle of the book, which would be something that iraqi -- known in the united states at -- known here in england as comical ali rather than chemical ali. he said something to me that i think would be the subtitle of my book.

when american troops arrived at the heart of baghdad on, as i recall, the seventh of april, 2003, and we were -- we saw baghdad bob and comical ali at a news conference on the roof of the palestine hotel. he is standing with his back to the palace, which was 800 or 1,000 yards behind him across the river. he told us the american army had been defeated in the gates of baghdad and was in retreat and tens of thousands of soldiers had been killed appeared this very moment over his shoulder their work troops of the third infantry division of united states army who were dangling their feet off a pier, what came to be known as the green zone, cooling their feet. and i said to him, mr. minister,

i think if you look over your shoulder, you would see that the united states army is far from being defeated, and unblinking, and certainly without any regard over his shoulder, he looked at me and said, they always use my middle name. mr. fisher, i am here to tell you that you are too far from reality. i think my book would be about living beyond, for a very long time, beyond the bounds of western experience, the common western experience. the soviet union at the deaths of the cold war, north korea, afghanistan, who are the extraordinary people that you meet, the extraordinary evil that you encounter, but also of

the inspiriting goodness in the human soul, which is rather the largest thing for me. i'm not particularly religious. i hope i'm not particularly self righteous. but that would be a very major thing for me. -- a very major theme for me. how in the midst of darkness there is always liked? -- there is always light. >> for some of those who have never heard us talk before, what year is it in china? >> from 1971 to 1975, that was the last five years of mao tse- tung's life. the mid to late part of what was known as the cultural revolution, the great chaos, as mao occasioned. i went back to china when they opened to the world in the 1980's, an assignment that

ended with my imprisonment for spying, which i hated to say of which i was not guilty and the chinese ultimately themselves acknowledged two years or three years later. i was in the soviet union between those two. but i felt that i had season tickets to funerals. i was in south africa in the depths of apartheid. i was extraordinarily lucky in my assignments. i certainly did not set out to be a foreign correspondent and to have these assignments. i had a kind of angel on my shoulder that carried me to these places and at times of particular interest. and there was somebody there

prepared to pay me for it. for me, it is true, if i were a working man, which i am not, i would have done with my professional life exactly what i have done. >> we were talking in 2007. you were between iraq -- actually, you were going to london. how does iraq look to you from here? >> i have to say, i am apprehensive. i have a particular penchant for apprehension. my wife continues to work in baghdad, and now kabul. i have a personal interest of wood becomes in iraq. i have always felt and -- my wife is still in iraq. i have a personal interest in what happens in iraq. as the american military presence diminishes andit is now

at or below 50,000 and is set to go to zero or some negotiated number, much lower than 50,000 within the next 13 months. we would see a resurgence of violence and possibly even a naissance of civil war there -- a renaissance of civil war there because none of the fundamental problems have been solved. the problems that occasioned all the troubles that have enveloped the united states and europe and iraq and the iraqi people since 2003, all those problems remain. there has been no fundamental political reconciliation in iraq. i have fought for a very long -- i have felt for a very long time time, from the time that i was there, ever since then, that the keeper of the peace, to the extent that there has been peace, and there has been a lot when the last two years or three years than most of my time there, has been the united

states, for which there are reasons that are not to for to see. but i do not think that what the united states will leave behind in iraq will likely to grow stable. minds to the possibility that much of it will be washed away, that there could be an onset of something like a civil war, perhaps not immediately. it might take a year or two years or three years. if i had to put my money on a likely outcome, it would be that peace in iraq, and it might be a very harsh peace, is likely, ultimately, to be imposed once again by it an autopsy. -- once again by autocracy. we just have to hope that, if that does happen, the new ruler,

the new dictator, will be a lot more benign than saddam st.. -- than saddam hussein. >> canada, this morning, by the time this airs, it will not be quite the same number, but -- in 2000 in iraq american's loss 961 to death in afghanistan in 2007 we lost to with a 32 in 2008, 295 in 2009, 521 in 2010, 649. that has been a reversal. but the united kingdom has lost 344 in afghanistan and we have lost 1393 the whole time.

it is disproportionate to what it has been in iraq. and afghanistan. >> it is not much noted outside house of commons on 10 downing street. which are just over my shoulder here. it is not much noted that copper partially to the population, the armed forces, the size of deployment, 10,000 british troops in iraq compared to several hundred thousand americans, britain has taken heavier casualties than the united states. this is not to diminish. you just give a figure that i must say i find surprising, over 649 americans killed. >> so far in 2010. if you think about it, that is close to the number of americans who died in iraq in the first year in iraq. this is pretty discouraging.

i need to say becausemuch of my family lives in canada and i started my journalistic career in canada. every time i write about the high incidence of british casualties in afghanistan, i get quite a few e-mails from canada, from people saying, "why you never mentioned canada in this?" canada has lost between 150 soldiers to 200 soldiers in afghanistan. which proportional to their deployment, which i think i'm right in saying it never exceeded 3000 troops, over the last several years, proportionally the nation that has paid the highest price. they say they are coming out. their troops will end their combat mission at the end of 2011.

they deserve recognition for this because canada had developed a reputation andthey have not had their troops in combat in any serious conflict since korea. >> you once referenced, when your father was in the royal air force, he was born in south africa. >> he was. >> did he once command 60,000? >> used to say when he retired, referring to the time in the royal air force and germany, he said, "i went from running 60,000 men to running a lawn mower." he retired in his mid 50's. i understand now that i am well past their rage, what a -- well

past their age, and what a tremendous transition and it must be it for people to make. i am fortunate in being able to carry on. i crossed my 50th birthday 10 years before assigned to the war in iraq. i feel tremendously lucky to have been able to carry on a career in our business well past the point at which many people in public service certainly retire. there was some satisfaction in iraq when the united states congress increase to the retirement age for american general's. i forgot what it is, but senior generals, four stars, something on the nature of 64. it was a bit of a jarring thing to realize, in my time in iraq, to realize that i was older than all the success of american -- of the successive

american commanders there. i think the oldest of them in my time there was general casey who would have been at the end of his assignment about 58. he is now chief staff of the army. general petraeus is about 57 or 58. they can well do without a lecture from me about this. but it seems to me that, if we set aside the kind of things you commonly hear, who knows what about that. it seems to me that many people my age would say, you put the churlish to me and see if i can perform as you want. -- put the challenge to me and

see if you can perform as you want. i think that we see lots of evidence that people in their late 50's and 60's are able of performing just as high a level. they may not be as free, but you may think you could make up for that the little gray cells. >> the reason i mention your father is i wanted to know how long he spent in the service. >> 40. >> what kind of impact that have on you, being in a military family, as you began to be a reporter? >> i'm sure my harshest critics would say, as i see it, my time -- my attempt to see both the best and the worst in american military performance in these wars, he would not say that it was because his father was a senior officer in the british

armed forces. >> how high was his rank? >>he was a one-star general. at the height of the cold war. that was prior to the cold war. it is that it gave me my first encounter with americans, as it happens. i was playing golf with him in germany. there is a golf course, the 14th fairway, andwe passed this dome surrounded by concentric rings of razor wire and attended by these curious looking characters in army camouflage. he said, "do you know who they are? those are americans." something for which he probably could've been court-martialed. he said, "that is where we keep the nuclear weapons that we

would carry two or in british -- that we would carry to war in british aircraft if there was a war with the soviet union." at that time, i don't know if that installation still exists. the carried trident missiles. there was a joint key shed operation where weapons released to britain by the united states at the point of imminence of war and the british prime minister had his decision to make whether to deploy them. so that was my first sighting of americans. i was 14 years old. for reasons i pondered ever since, since my father has been gone now for 20 years, he said to me, "those are the people they keep the peace in the world." i am thinking now, from what i have learned about some of the conflicts in which he was

engaged, the internal conflicts, the reason he said that was that, in the aftermath of the second world war and still this digitally at least to some extent, a certain amount of unease in britain and the british military remained about with some people regarded as the use of power in the united states, which was the imperial power of the late 19th century and early 20th-century. witness the grand buildings that we see among us here. it would be the way david cameron said -- the relationship changed substantially. the1950's were a time of unease. it is a little-known fact that

on d-day, britain and its partners landed as many troops on the beaches of normandy as the united states. that was probably the last moment in the second world war at which there was that kind of a coincidence. ce.that kind of equivalen after general patton, britain became a much smaller component. he recognized a slight discomfort with the unease that some british officers had about american power. and, to his dying day, he was terribly proud of an encounter that he had in germany during military maneuvers with american forces. it was apparently a bitter winter day in what was east

germany. there were maneuvers. they lost their way. he was in a jeep with an american driver. the cam across some tanks across this open plain. the driver said, general, sir, somebody would like to meet you. he got out of the jeep and walked and this gi saluted him. he said, "sgt, elvis presley." he had an american identification card. he said thank you. it was a great pleasure to meet you. when my father had an opportunity to pull this out of his pocket, he had been a fighter pilot in the world war and commanded the army in -- the air force in germany, but that

was the more magical moment out of anything he had done. out of all this, i came to america and i came to my encounters with american military with a basically positive this position. -- it basically positive disposition. i still do believe in what my golf course in germany. in a turbulent world, it is america, more than any other power, overwhelmingly, that keeps the peace in the world. >> born here, moved to canada when you were 18? >> that is correct. >> you mentioned that your wife is still in afghanistan. in 2007, she was the bureau chief. how long will she be there? >> we will see. she is in a position similar to me. she does not go to war.

she does not embed. but she is living in and working in very dangerous places. now that i have been back from those places for some time, i understand much better when it -- what it is for those thousands of families who have their loved ones at war. you keep your fingers crossed. i think she will continue to do it. it is very unusual. as my wife, she accompanied me for 30 years ago to far-flung assignments. she had her job, not just the raising of their children, but helping to run the operations of "the new york times." it was not called a job, but it was. that became formalized with these wars. she left for pakistan and later to afghanistan within three weeks of 9/11.

she never really came back. she comes back on leave. she is, too, now in her 60's. to say she loves it, how can anybody love war? she finds it exhilarating. like any woman of her age, she finds its very engaging to be needed, to be able to do something useful. we just had a very jarring experience at "the new york times," that you may be aware of. once we deployed lots of people to these wars, we have been fortunate in one sense that we have not lost to this moment any of our expatriate, our new york-based reporters, photographers, or others. we have lost an afghan and two iraqis. two weeks or three weeks ago, this change for us when one of our photographers, one of the

great war photographers of our time and one of the nicest men you'll ever meet, rob silver, -- uriah silver, stepped on a taliban mine, ied, on an inbed with the united states military outside of kandahar. he was grievously wounded, i am afraid to say. he survived. he is now in the army hospital in washington. he has lost both his legs. he is a remarkable character, a truly remarkable. the first conscious words he spoke were "i am good." that is uriah silver for you. born in portugal, raised in south africa. we have been experiencing this and a tragic incident like this at a very close hand. we have seen it a thousand times occurring to others.

now it has happened to us. and it is a very educated experience. we must say that we're all extremely delighted that he has the generosity of the united states military and has been taken to walter reed where he is and will be amongst many soldiers and others who had similar experiences. greatest orthopedic rehabilitation center in the world. he will have the comfort to call it that along with others who say the same thing and fight their way back to health. i think we will see rob silver -- no braver man or more popular ever carried a camera into battle. i will put my money on him

being back there, carrying a camera back to battle before anybody can imagine it. >> there were about 100 people involved in the baghdad bureau. you're there in 2007. how big is it now? deal. i think to the disappointment of the people who have had to pay the bills --i think that our ambition -- our hope had been to do the same thing. there is a critical mass that you need because we have to provide our own security. that accounts for 50 or 60 of those 100 people, in addition to which, and this is another kind of bravery on the part of "the new york times" and the people that make the decisions. as you know, foreign coverage

by american newspapers and american television has shrunk considerably. it was already shrinking before the recession. it has shrunk further. "the new york times" has had financial battles to fight, as have all newspapers, because of the recession, but because also the internet. i think we are going to prevail in this. but it would have been understandable if the people who make these decisions had decided that we could no longer spend that kind of money. they did not. they committed themselves to continue to giving full spectrum covers to these wars. -- coverage to these wars. this war, i think, is a long way from over even if the american troops are drawn down. there will be a huge american interests there for some time. our editors have made it plain that we will continue to be

there as long as there is an american interest. >> let's go back over some of the places you were. did you ever think, when you were back in china, that they would own a trillion dollars of american debt to? >> they put me in a paddy wagon in 1986 and drove me to the airport, literally in shackles, deporting me over a spying incident. so i have watched with wonderment, china. they have invited me back many times. it just has not worked out. i am not avoiding them. i have some apprehension because it is a bit to glib. when the people of china, it is no doubt that this extraordinary creation of wealth and power -- it is not a surprise that the chinese people -- they have an extraordinary capability and resilience.

these were people who, given their chance, were always going to rebuild china to something like the greatness that it had when it it went into decline in the 19th century. if there is a threat of apprehension, it is because the china that i saw 40 years ago was a china that communism had changed very little in the previous 50 years. -- in the previous 150 years. i could get onto a bicycle and cycle into central china. in 3 minutes. that was an enchanting place. it was an enchanting kingdom. i loved it. during my second assignment in the 1980's, when they say that the door was open for foreign investment, the china that loved mao tse-tung was a far more agreeable place than the china that were shipped the dollar. -- that were shipped -- that

were shipped the dollar -- worshiped the dollare. better off than they were with the fact that they can afford to buy $1 trillion in american debt. that is very good for the people of china. it will present us with a whole manner of problems, certainly. but i am speaking only of the experience as a visitor. you have probably been to china in those years. i have not been. buti think i will have a strong nostalgia for the china of my youth. >> what kind of grade would you give mao tse-tung as a leader? >> as a guerrilla leader? >> why did they adore him, if they did? >> mao tse-tung wrote his own epitaph on the first of october 1949.

this was the moment when the communists took control of all of mainland china. and he ascended to the gates of heavenly peace on tiananmen square. he said something like those words of churchill spoke in 1940. it will resonate forever in chinese history. he said, "after centuries of oppression and humiliation, the chinese people have stood up." that had an enormously motivating power for the people of china. of course, in their enthusiasm, they allowed to be invested in mao tse-tung absolute power.

and as always happens,and that power was corrupted. by some estimates, 10 million people died. more than that died in the great leap forward that happened 10 years earlier than that. an awful lot of people in china died as a result of the dictatorship imposed by mao tse-tung. it will be history and history measured probably a long time for from now before social opinion can be reached about mao tse-tung. -- before a settled opinion can be reached about mao tse-tung. from what i have seen and experience from talking with chinese people, not only chinese officials, china is in a very conflicted state about mao tse-tung. they speak openly about the disasters that were brought upon the country, but they also recognized the 1949 marked a historic turning point of

enormous importance. i find him fascinating a figure. in my home, i have a wonderful porcelain bust of mao tse-tung. underneath it, on a little wooden stand, his little red book. remember how the millions of chinese walked through the streets waving the little red book? the little red book is actually quite a valuable little document, partly because it is a kind of boiled down synopsized version of chinese philosophy through the ages, confucius, sensitive, the military strategist -- and i have found many elements useful. in getting out of or avoiding getting into trouble, his

doctrine on guerrilla warfare -- i told my children about this. when there were almost knee high to a grasshopper, having to do with disputes during school. doctrine number one, do not engage the enemy of less victory is certain. no. 2, do not engage the enemy of less victory is essential to -- unless victory is essential to your cause. if you apply those two provisos too many incidents and live where there is a potential for conflict, it turns out that you can avoid about 80% of them. first of all, if you look realistically at it, in many such conflicts, potential conflicts with people who employ you, with a difficult officials in faraway countries, it is safe to assume that you will not win. if you will not win, do not

engage. some people would say that this is a formula for ducking problems. i think it is a formula for at least a modest degree of success in life. >> you mentioned kids. we talked about your son last time. that figure is about 28 now. >> yes. >> you mentioned he was born a pound. >> he was only 1.1 pounds. there are three of us in our family. we are the beneficiaries of high-technology in american medicine. i don't to be melodramatic about it, but all three of us would not be walking around now if it were not for that. >> we talked about you spending a year in hospital. >> they wanted to turn me around and pushed me back into the street. the relevance of that, the 700

billion pounds in england, about 700 billion pounds a year, it in the area of american dollars. something like 105 billion pounds is spent on the national health service. that figure has more or less tripled in the last 10 years or 13 years. it has become a huge financial burden. mr. cameron, the prime minister, is in the process of bringing in government expenditures. >> what does that mean? >>he will cut all other departments by an average of 20%. the health budget will not be

cut. >> we call that grandfathering. >> same thing. >> why does he do that? >> he did that because, in 1947 or 1948, a labor government, a reformist labor government after the second world war introduced the national health service with fierce opposition. from the conservative party and fierce opposition from the medical profession. it is now the jewel in the crown of his kingdom. no political party that came to be seen as likely to destroy or undermine the national health service could possibly survive. that reflects the live experience of the national health service if you live in this country. there are many things wrong with it. including long waiting lists, including occasional denial of life-saving drugs, and so forth, on the basis of cost. but there are many things right. principally, is what they call medical care free at the point of delivery. when you go to a clinic or

hospital, nobody asks about your ability to pay. you may get varying levels of treatment. the cancer hospital over here, one of the best in the world. if you get cancer somewhere else in this kingdom or more remote places, your chances of survival will be proportionally reduced. that is also true under the american system of medical practice. i ended up conflicted. on the one hand, i and my son, who was born 12 weeks premature, and my wife have all been beneficiaries of high- technology american medicine. in medicine, had we been in the u.k., we would have been unlikely to get. i had said once to joe

liliveld, who am sure you know, a former editor of "the new york times," who was hopeful when i had cancer and helped navigated through that difficult time, and for whom i shall be eternally grateful, i said to him at the end of the experience that i sat at patient meetings and saw a new york police officer weeping at patient meetings over the bills to is getting. he mortgaged his house, second mortgage his house, borrowed money from his brother-in-law. he thought was going to die. he did die. and he was going to ruin his family in the process. i think that is the dramatic version of what can happen. i know now that there are many things in the american medical system and even before president obama's reforms that mitigate that. i understand that. but i said i'm conflicted.

i come to america to the high- technology system of medicine which has saved my life and i see a new york city police officer weeping at patients meetings because of the cost, and then my native country that could not give me that kind of cancer care. nobody is going to ruin his family as he descends to the end of life through cancer or any other chronic disease. and joe said, and i have pondered this ever since, he said, "i do not think you need to ponder too hard over that. the way i see it, the u.k. has the only medical care system i want in my country and the united states has the medical care i want for my family." the national health service -- if i were to list the things i

find most admirable about this country, the national health service would be a the top and the bbc would be not far behind it. >> you have written that the united states has 11 active aircraft carriers. this country has one. >> has a 0. >> there are two that are supposedly to be built. explain all that. america looks over here and sees an 8% cut in four years and that these aircraft carriers will go away. >> it really expresses very sharply the dilemma that the cameron government face. they were the most indebted country in europe. there was a very serious threat -- of in solid the debt crisis. -- of a sovereign debt crisis. they decided to do something radical, cut something --there

was something in the nature of 80 billion pounds over four years from the 700 billion pounds per year budget. they grandfathered the national health service. the united kingdom eight overseas. -- united kingdom aided overseas, something that mr. cameron was strongly supportive of. all departments had to take this hit, including the defense apartment, probably the most controversial of all the cuts they made. it was not a 20% cut, but an 8% cut. in the course of that,they decided to scrap immediately britain's only aircraft carrier capable of carrying a fixed wing jets. a 25-year-old ship was scrapped. with another it probably 25 years of life in it. all the aircraft flown from that carrier were scrapped

immediately. two aircraft carriers are being built in scotland, i believe. it cost about something in the nature of $8 billion, $4 billion each. it is much more than an american aircraft carrier. they decided it would be more expensive to scrap them than to build them. but then they went a step further. they said we will build them, but one of those two would be put in service for three years before selling it. they are building them only knowing it will do three years' service. the other one will be put into operation, queen elizabeth it will be called, and we will get a new generation of the most expensive aircraft ever built.

they will not get those aircraft. they will not be deployable for another 10 years. so britain will be without aircraft carriers or aircraft that can fly from carriers. in a lot of people that -- think that britain is taking a big risk. they say that we had a much better air field in the falkland islands. the island itself is our aircraft carrier. the argentines would not again brave the fury of the united nations by invading the falkland islands. it is a bit of a risk. >> cynics would say that this is a gimmick. because they will build these two aircraft carriers, if the

economy comes back, the money will come back, and they will keep them deployed. >> that is true. obviously a decision to build and then deploy for only three years leaves open that possibility. mr. cameron is an optimist. he made a speech to nights or -- two nights or three nights ago, a foreign-policy speech, which is extraordinarily optimistic about britain's ability to climb out of this economic mess in terms of austerity now and in terms of britain's innate ability to get back up on its feet and punch its weight around the world. i think if you could sit with mr. cameron, that it would fire, he probably -- he was sick, he might say, we might be able to

say that, be able to keep the second carrier. i think they said, economically military perverse. -- they said that -- i think they said it was economically militarily perverse. so he is taking a bit of a risk, but this is only one of thousands of really tough decisions that he has made. it is a big gamble. who knows? it could be that the british public will not be able to stomach the types of austerity measures that mr. cameron is administering. in the last week or so, there were student demonstrations against rising college fees. americans would smile widely it does. -- would probably smile quietly at this. but students have gone to state colleges, 99% of them, and paying fees in the region of 3,000 pounds a year. that is about $4,500 a year.

the cameron government says that that will now rise to as high as 9,000 pounds, which is about $14,000 a year. with all kinds of offsets to scholarships and other ways of mitigating this, and low interest rates and deferred repayments, so on and so forth. that put into the streets 50,000 students who marched along the embankment in the government district. to the houses of parliament, which we can see the flag fluttering. as so often happens, there was a troublemaking element within those students, an anarchist group. many of them were from cambridge university who attended and somebody threw a fire extinguisher off the roof. it was a jarring incident because many can remember when mrs. thatcher was in power and impose a much less severe

regime of austerity and there was serious turbulence in the streets. we do not know if the cameron government can avoid it. so far, polls show that 60% of the british public, many more than who voted for mr. cameron and his partners in government, support it. -- support him. that is a good sign. but then, the medicine has not been administered. it has been announced, but it has not been taken. we will have to see. the government might fall over this. just as likely, it will get through this. people will look at what is happening in ireland, in greece, spain, portugal, and italy, and say was it not our good fortune that we got a government just-in-time to steer us away from a sovereign debt crisis? and the liberal democrats can march on for another 10 years or 15 years in power.

but at the moment is very finely balanced. >> you went to school if mcgill university in china. >> i did. >> you were born here and now you're back here in great britain. is your kit american? -- are your kids american? >> brit, and an american. -- i want you to define the difference between a canadian, a brick, and an american. -- a briti, and an american. >> the easiest way to address it is to say what it is that i admire most about the united states. tremendous optimism, a tremendous kind of get up and go, something that we have seen in both of the two wars, of fundamental importance, a tremendous ability to learn

lessons, to say "this is not working" and to go back to first principles and start again. david petraeus, in his two years in fort leavenworth, putting that into effect in iraq with the effects that we have seen and now in afghanistan, open the doors, open minds. britain has a rugged resilience. we have seen this year -- we saw -- winston churchill standing across the house of commons -- across the river from the house of commons, making his finest speech.

there is a tremendous resilience in this country, a tremendous base common sense, and a tremendous instincts for fairness, which, i must say, i find very engaging. canada, a country having to live alongside and on top of a country vastly more powerful than themselves, with remarkable success, they have constructed a kind of alternate society there. it is a society which has bridged the distance between europe and america. they have, for example, a system of medical care which is a hybrid between the american system and the british system. they fought with extraordinary valor in the two wars, the first and second world wars, and again in afghanistan. as anyone in the 49th parallel knows, canada it is an extraordinarily pleasant place. i did not choose it to be so.

i it, in some ways, have experienced the best in all three countries. >> i want to make sure that we have something to talk about in the future. because we are a network of books. what has to be done in order to get you to remember your life? >> i have to sit down, seriously consider my financial well- being, have a little bit more many say than i have. -- a little bit more money saved than i have. like many in my colleagues, i invested in the future, in the news system. , in my case, in the new york times. i am optimistic about that. i think we will make it through. i think "the new york times" could very well have one of its most profitable times in its history. i will have to listen to the

publishers and the agents. i will just have to get used to getting up at 5:00 a.m. or 6:00 a.m. and doing the work. it rosenthal, the first editor that employed me at "the new york times" was a controversial and brilliant man. i was a correspondent in australia. he asked me why i had not done a magazine article that i had pledged to do. he cut me off in midsentence pin he said, "you know what i have discovered in 40 years to 50 years in this business? when things do not get done, they do not get done because they do not get done." in other words, you can excuse anything. i can excuse why i have not written the book. the truth of the matter is that writing the book as an act of courage. -- is an act of courage, and i simply have to summon up the

courage to do it. >> of all the assignments you got, which one was the most exhilarating? >> exhilarating were the wars. these wars impose the quintessential questions of life in their darkest form because they bore so heavily on the interest of the united states and of my newspaper, an american newspaper. in terms of sheer fun, and exhilaration, i would say china during revolution. but do you know something? i used to say to colleagues of mine who were moving from very desirable assignments to those that were less desirable that some of those refused those assignments, there is no such thing as a bad foreign

assignment. all i know is that i worked very little in the united states. you could say that of domestic assignments, too. people would say, well, he would say that, would he not? but it is actually true. to be a correspondent in "the new york's times" is to have a front-row seat. i have had an enormous amount of fun in my life. i have had an ongoing paid education. honestly, had i won the lottery when i was 25, i would have wished to do exactly what i have done. i cannot think of anything else that i would have been well suited for. my father persuaded me not to go into the royal forces. -- into the royal air force as a pilot, which was my mission. many times on the golf course, he said, when i persuaded you not to do that, i was not thinking so much of your welfare. i said, what were you thinking about? he said i was thinking about the

royal air force. i said, i came to the conclusion by the time you're 13 or 14, you would have made the worst officer the royal air force ever had. i was sitting myself from -- he said i was saving myself from embarrassment. that was a turn well taken. i fell backwards into this business. i would not change a day of it. >> john fisher burns, "the new york times" here in london. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. it has been a pleasure. >> 48 tbd copy of this program, call 1-877-662-7726. for trees transcript -- for free transcript, visit us at q-and- a.org.

the redesigned book notes web site features 800 notable nonfiction authors, interviewed about their books. you can view all the programs, read transcripts, and use the searchable database, use the facebook pages and twitter feed. a helpful research tool and a great way to watch and enjoy the authors and their books. >> next, live at 7:00 a.m., your calls and comments on "washington journal." then, live at 1:00 p.m., the u.s. ninth circuit court of appeals hears arguments about the constitutionality of california's's ban on gay marriage. >> without the new start treaty be ratified by the senate, we do not have a verification mechanism to ensure that we know what the russians are doing, and

they do not know what we are doing. when you have uncertainty in the area of nuclear weapons, that is a much more dangerous world to live in. >> find out more about expired start nuclear arms treaty with russia, what it might accomplish, where it stands now, as well lets its history. online at the c-span video library. search, watch come and share, all free. this morning, lawrence yun has an update on the u.s. housing market. then first amendment lawyer floyd abrams examines the various legal issues surrounding the wikileaks case. later, erik milito talks about the american petroleum institute's opposition to the obama administration is a ban on offshore oil drilling. "washington journal" is next. "washington journal" is next.