it has moved it to my lungs. it is stage four. the thing to know about stage four is that there is no stage five.

that concentrates the mind a bit. i have some wonderful oncologist working with me -- oncologists working with me. i am sorry, but my voice is a bit husky today. that is the situation. i have to practice staying alive and preparing to die at the same time. as my memoir says, that is what one has to do will the time. you are never more than a breath away. it is a bit more vivid to me. doctors in the morning and lawyers in the afternoon. >> why did you decide to take us through that journey in your riding in "then the fair?" i was wondering -- of "vanity fair." >> i was pressed by my editor.

i tried to do it in such a way in that it was not a parade of my feelings or a yellow ribbon tied journalism. i have been told that some people have been comforted by it to a degree. if you have a lemon, make lemonade. it is better than staring at the wall. it is a great subject. everyone has to do this at one point or another. either survive or die off. it is what one is certainly born to do. as an extension, when i was hit with it, i thought i should keep up the narrative because it is a part of my life. i should add that i have had my genomes sequenced.

i am able to write about exciting new developments in the field of oncology that i hope will become available to more people. it is a tantalizing time to have cancer for me. there are treatments that i can see that are just out of my reach. there are others that are traub but probably just beginning -- that are probably just beginning. my blood pressure is excellent. if i can hang on, i can, and intend to try. >> you just had your gall bladder out. that had nothing to do with it? >> i have a very bad episode a couple of years ago. my doctors said i crashed.

i have a meltdown in my bone marrow. my gall bladder and rancid and i had was in terrible pain. i was really flat out. i got a blood transfusion. i've lost the gal bladder. i am back. i am hanging on. >> what has this done to the old head? >> the worst of the treatments was what is called "chemo brain." you feel fought in the head and -- you feel fogged in the head and you do not want to read, let alone write. if i could not do that, i wouldn't have a reason to live. i did not want to get into this now. -- despair. it turns out that the

chemotransitionary. i could write a column today if i was lucky and had some strong coffee. i can sit and read. i can converse. if anything was to spread in that direction, that i probably would feel that that was the end. >> what has been the reaction from other people about your condition? >> i know quite a number of people now. because i had to cancel a book tour just as it was beginning, a rather lavish book tour, back in the summer, i could not just to go into treatment. i had to make a statement as if i was some kind of public figure as to what i could not keep these appointments. -- what i could not keep those appointments. -- why i could not keep those appointments. it became a news item. i guess it was a slow week.

i have my opinions about the supernatural and religious life. people thought that now would be the time for me to make a reconsideration and withdraw from the principles of a lifetime and make my peace with some church or other. there was a lot of public talk of that. there was a national day of prayer for me. that was in my favor. other people law lead in the other direction -- lobbied in the other direction. some people can't help but do that. i get the mills in my office -- id e-mail in my office. -- i get handwritten ones and emails to my office in new york. they say the nicest things.

they try to assure me that my life has not been a waste of time. i am 62 and april if i make it that far. -- in april if i may get that far. -- make it that far. these things are already known to me. i never put off writing a letter to someone in distress. it is always very much appreciated. i am not asking for more people to write to me, but if they have someone in mind, i would do it. it has been a particular help to me. i am not usually stirred. this is very moving for me and very confirming. >> has any of your professional enemies come to you during this time? >> rivals or people that take the opposite view, they have been very nice.

i have had newspaper columns written about me. there was an editorial in the times of london. i felt like i was reading my obituary. i thought it was nice, but it gave me a creepy feeling of being premature. i do not know how many personal enemies i have. the number of people that have written to me saying that they hope that i suffer now and forever after i had died, i would say that was small. >> go back for a moment. it was quite a series of events. i have your more in my hands. -- your memoir in my hands.

did you have any premonition at all about death? >> no, i had a free gift from a gallery in london that publishes a magazine for subscribers about its upcoming tax -- exhibitions. there was a photograph that included me. and they put the word "late" next to my name. the late christopher hitchens. they probably thought i was going to sue. they said that they would withdraw. i told them to send as many as they have. it makes a wonderful small

introduction to my memoir is called a prologue of premonitions. at that stage, i had no idea. >> but you went on the daily show with john stuart right around the time that you found out. >> i went on that show the day that i was diagnosed. >> did you know at the time? >> yes, i was told that morning. i was feeling very ill. i had to be taken to the hospital. i thought i was having a heart attack. they said that it was not my heart. they said that i could discharge myself if i wanted, but they recommended i stayed for observation. they said that the next stop should be the oncologist because there was probably a tumor in my esophagus but it had spread. i decided to discharge myself because i wanted to do the jon stewart show.

i managed to do both of the shows. i have just had the sentence read to me. i did both of these with no ille l effects. >> let's was just a little bit of the show so that people can see. when they see this, you know that you have a real problem. >> yes, i have never seen it. >> i have a bloody mary to start the day to ward off depression. it worked for 10 years. >> i was going to say. it concentrated my mind. there will one day be -- that unsealed the memory a bit. i'm not late, mate. screw you. it dealt with that comment.

isn't it a bit soon? there is no choice of leaving now, is there? >> i do not think that people should be able to decide for you. i am very impressed that someone that has lived it, you have not taken it easy on this body. but you do not look like [beep], but you should. [laughter] >> there is crying inside. [laughter] b, there is an oil painting in my attic. it is looking seedy. that.s starting to get >> as i saw it, you look like you had a sense of creamer and you work fairly normal. what was your head telling you? >> i did what it took to do the show.

it was only the dinner after that that i felt that i could not carry on any more -- anymore. i was violently sick. >> due to have any indication that something was going wrong? >> no, i had nothing but very good annual checkups. >> your father died of esophageal cancer. >> he did. >> did that penetrate? was it -- >> it was in the book. but i used to smoke very heavily. i was afraid it was going to be in the lung. the thing about esophageal cancer is you can have it for quite a while. it is very hard to detect. unless you have an upper gi

almost every month and you are looking for it, you are likely to miss it. you do not see it until metastasizes. you could feel it in the lymph node on my neck. that is not a good song. >> he began what kind of treatment? >> treatment of chemotherapy, which made me lose all my hair. it is growing back with the new chemical i am trying, slightly. it made me lose a lot of weight and may be very tired. it was immeasurably reduced. >> where did you have this done? >> in bethesda. >> that started what month last year? >> july. >> and it ended when? >> it is still going on. thanks to a wonderful doctor, he did the human genome project.

it was a marvelous scientific achievement. we became friends that way. we became friendly debaters and he took an interest in my case and he was trying to look for a more perfect identifiable match. for any mutated gene that can be targeted. today is friday the 14th. on monday, i hope to try that. if my bone marrow is recovered enough, that involves 6 million -- 6 billion dna matches.

that is set up against 6 billion dna matches of my blood. it is actually the -- absolutely amazing that is worthy project is for finding out where the genome will be applied to individuals and their predicaments. it will be commonplace. there is a terrible lack of funding. people can write their congressman. in there last budget, there were terrible cuts. there is the attempt to do this. embryonic cells can be used for this. i would like to become more than

i am. an advocate for overcoming these ience obstacles. >> you touch your chemical treatment at nia? >> no, i had tests there. that was in bethesda. like-minded experts. they work out a protocol for me and adjust it every few weeks. >> you wrote about a woman that came up to you when you were signing books. she starts off -- >> shall i tell? >> yes. >> i was signing books and there was a long line and a woman at the front comes to me. she does not have a book.

has cancer and i said that i was sorry. -- sys a cousin of hers haid cancer. i said i am sorry. she said that it was in the liver and i said that it was awful. she said he got better. she said that it got much worse. she din said that he was a homosexual and i was not going to say, "of course." she said he was in great pain and had incontinence. agony. piercing pain. humiliation. indescribable horror. things to say. i told her i knew exactly what it she was going through.

i asked if she would treat me like that if i was well. i think that, as patients, we need to reciprocate. i have a badge i'm not wearing. i won't tell. and parade of their condition. i tried to write about it in other contexts. i wrote about the national day of prayer. i have written about treatments. write my ownto diaries. your book, "hitch 22," i personally want to do death in

the active and passive in to be there to look it in the eye and be doing something when it comeswhat does that mean? it. making a speech about it. friends. or to conceivably try to be with people gathered around and try to make a decent fare well. i have had cause to reconsider that. unpleasant way to die.

>> why? >> well, it is like choking in your own puke. it can be preceded by a lot of humiliations. the sentence includes that you be tortured before you die. i would still, if it were possible, like to be awake and looking at people, and if i'm lucky, talking to them. but i'm not so sure i would insist on it. it might be as well to sort of slip away in a narcotic stupor. it might be. but still there's something about that -- it may sound very old fashioned and you can say it

strikes me as a bit ignoble. as i say, its part of life, i want to -- i want to get as much out of it as i can. >> how much of -- during this period, have you talked about this kind of thing with carol blue, your wife? >> well, a lot. because she's been a great prop and stay for me. she's -- she does things i don't like to do. going on the internet, looking up every conceivable ramification of treatment and possibility, tirelessly looking for new doctors and new avenues and things like that. so we talk a lot about it. about losing. about what would happen when i've gone? actually barely have talked about that. my determination is that i'm not going to die of it -- well, i'm not going to die of it now. i might die with it, perhaps some years from now. but that is a possibility and i'm certainly going to do everything i can to be an experimental subject for other treatments, even if they don't

work for me. that would be -- i say in the book, i quote the great american scholar horace mann who said until you've done something for humanity you should be ashamed to die. so, it's quite a high standard to reach -- well, that would be doing something for humanity at a fairly small cost to myself, even if it involved protracting the treatment unnecessarily, i'd be willing to do it. >> in the middle of all this, a couple of weeks ago you debated tony blair -- >> yes. >> in toronto. >> i've carried on debating on this and other questions -- >> but we covered it and i want to run just a clip of you making some points. he's sitting on the stage there with you. let's watch that and we'll come back and ask you about it . >> as long as you don't want this religioun brought to my school, imposed on me by violence, you are fine by me. [applause] i would prefer -- i would prefer not even to know what it is that

you do in that church of yours. if you force it on my attention, this.y it is a breach of have your own bloody christams. do your slaughtering in an abattoirr and don't mutilate the genitals of your children. hast you think that is -- this pact haever been honored? it is a mystery to me. if i believe there is a savior sent or a prophet, sent by a god who loved me and wanted teh hadhe best for me and if i the means of grace and glory, i

thought i might be happy. why doesn't it make them happy? [laughter] isn't it a decent question. because they won't be happy until you believe it. that is what their holy books tell them. >> why did you do that debate? when was it actually? >> it was at thanksgiving. >> and what condition were you in then? >> well, i sort of timed my treatments so that it would come -- because i had a lot of notice of the event. so that it would come at the end of the testament, when i'm much -- usually much stronger. because it would have been very irresponsible -- it was a huge event. a lot of trouble, money went into fixing it up and getting blair and getting security and all this stuff. so it wasn't -- well, i never like to cancel anyway, but i couldn't do that.

so i was feeling ok. very tired, but physically all right and mentally quite alert and it was the first time blair had had a public debate since he stopped being prime minister, on any subject. >> and then you wrote about it in vanity fair. >> yes. >> and what was your take from all that? i mean you were taking the -- well, you tell us your position and his position. >> well, i debate with religious people all the time, mentioned terry gramant , rabbi schmooli , all kinds of people i have debated since i became sick. blair is of course a new convert to roman catholicism so i wanted to question a bit about that. and then, one can only do one thing at a time, usually in these debates, and the point i wanted him to concede was that the evils that people like myself speak about when we talk about religion, he will always -- and his co-thinkers will always acknowledge and they'll say this was done in the name of religion.

and i said, you must drop that. there is scriptural warrant and authority very clearly in the holy books, which are supposed to be the word of god, for these evils. so it's a cop-out to use a vulgarity to say it's in the name of. its -- you can just say it's a parody of, you have to face the responsibility. well, in fact, when we were asked by one questioner to say what had been the strongest point made by the other, he said that he agreed that i was right. that the problem is that there is scriptural authority for a great deal of atrocity and cruelty and stupidity in the holy books. so that's my best memory of the evening i suppose. when i asked him -- i opened with a long quotation from cardinal newman , whose beautification he'd just recommended to the pope and supported, a very wicked, in my view, quotation from newman's apologie . and then, i wanted to know whether he thought the pope was the vicar of christ on earth, whether the catholic church was the one true church and it was

quite strange, he didn't come up to the scratch to fight me on that. you could not have told him anything he said that he was a roman catholic at all. he could have been a very weak sort of christian socialist liberal. basically, says that christianity is ok because it makes people do good works and give money to charity, which it -- no one denies its true, but has nothing to do with the relevance or the truth of the matter. so -- but he's a man with whom i sympathize in other ways. i've known little bit for quite a long time. so it was an unusual interesting debate. excuse me. sorry, brian. just have a sip here. my medicine. >> you and i've -- first interview i ever conducted with you was on november the 7, 1983. >> i remember it was the winter of '83.

yes. >> the call in show. >> yes. >> and i want to just run -- it's a minute, 24 seconds. and then we'll talk about this. >> all right. >> when journalists lose their credibility, and i think they have, based on past performance, the american people are speaking out. with no checks and balances, they do what this gentleman is doing. bringing a foreign news agent, reporting the fault, but not taking a look at the positive aspects of what a free press is. >> 30 miles from northern philadelphia, how do you know this?

what is the extent you can speak for them? you can only know this in the free press and free tv. the papers are reporting the facts. he admits its' true, public opinion is on reagan's side. but if you want this to be treated like the britihsh press, you -- if that's what you want, don't read the papers. >> well, you can see how times have changed from that clip. there you were on our set smoking. >> yes. i was doing that until quite late on. i forget when it stopped. >> i can't remember when we >> it's incredible now when i see -- as one often does, that shot of walter cronkite announcing the president's death in dallas in '63, the whole studio looks like chernobyl. ashtrays stretching as far as the eye can see.

>> and i also appreciated you calling me david on that show. it kind of was humbling. >> well it's the name -- was then the name of a very distinguished los angeles times africa correspondent. >> that was the reason. >> david lamb, yes. >> anyway -- >> sorry all the same. i think it's very important to get people's names. >> oh that was -- it was -- its fun to see this for both of us go back at that time. but you know in those days you were fairly -- there's a lot of bravado about smoking and drinking. and i -- for the first book notes book we did, i went with you to a bar. >> i remember. >> and you had your computer and a glass of something and a cigarette. >> yes, i used to write my columns in timberlake's bar on connecticut avenue. >> do you ever think that this -- all this wouldn't have happened without that? and did your father smoke? is that where he got >> yes, my father was a pipe smoker and a reasonably consistent drinker too. and i can't but think that that's what contributed to it.

we didn't learn much from his death, my brother and i, because he was diagnosed and died almost right away. we didn't find out much about. i know it was lower down than where mine is and it -- probably inoperable then. but it wasn't a teaching moment. >> is yours -- by the way, is yours inoperable? >> well, it couldn't -- yes, it can't be cut out. no, it's spread. >> metastasized. >> yes, its spread, it can't be cut out. and it's too near my lungs and my heart to be properly radiated. so it has to be chemo and or targeted gene therapy. >> but over those years, when you were smoking >> so to answer your question, of course, i always knew that there's a risk in the bohemian lifestyle and i decided to take it because whether its an illusion or not, i don't think it is, it helped my concentration, it stopped me being bored, stopped other people being boring, to some extent, it would keep me awake, it would make me want the evening to go on longer, to prolong the conversation, to enhance the moment.

if i was asked, would i do it again, the answer is probably yes, i'd have quit earlier, possibly, hoping to get away with the whole thing. easy for me to say, not very nice for my children to hear. it sounds irresponsible if i say yes, i'd do all that again to you. but the truth is it would be hypocritical of me to say no, i'd never touch the stuff if i'd known, because i did know, everyone knows. and i decided all of life is a wager, i'm going to wager on this bit. and i can't make it come out any other way. it's strange, i almost don't even regret it, though i should. because it's just impossible for me to picture life without wine and other things fueling the company. and keeping me reading and traveling and energizing me. it worked for me. it really did.

>> what over the years has bored you? you use that word more than once in your writing. >> yes, well, it's a vice, of course. acedia, i think it's actually one of the deadly sins. boredom was the anteroom to despair. sort of the feeling that anime , that nothings interesting, nothings worth -- i am too prone to it. i get easily tired of -- i don't know, committee meetings or -- not that i have to do many of those. or waiting in line. i'm a very, very impatient person. so, i'm very happy by myself, i'm lucky in that way. if i've got enough to read and something to write about and a bit of alcohol for me to add an edge, not to dull it. it's been a formula.

>> during this time of your illness, how have you passed the time when -- and have you had a lot of pain during this time? >> yes. well, i -- especially before i found it was the gall bladder and not the side effects, i was becoming worried that i was some -- overdoing the pain killers. it should have been the other way around, but i said to the doctors look i'm living -- i'm in danger, living from pill to pill. i surely shouldn't be taking this much morphine or codeine based stuff. i was beginning to feel woozy. but i'd like to think that the gall bladder was the cause of that because before then the pain hadn't been all that acute. it was quite dealable with, quite manageable. >> you had -- >> it became unbearable. >> when we're talking, how many days ago did you have your gall bladder out? >> ten, i think. eight or 10. >> and did you have the laparoscopic? >> yes. it was all over very quickly. once they found it. >> and do you feel better because of it?

>> not yet. because the general anesthetic takes a long time to wear off. at least it has with me, given how weak i was already and how much weight i've lost and how little food i've been taking. i couldn't have done this yesterday for example. >> really? >> no absolutely not. i could hardly get out of bed. >> about 30 some years ago, 36 years go or seven years ago a man named stewart alsop, a columnist for newsweek. >> right. >> had leukemia, the aml acute difficult leukemia and wrote about it. i don't know -- did you -- have you gone back and looked at any of his columns? >> i have not, no. >> and he told a story. he was at nih and i think he might have had bone marrow transplant, i can't remember for sure, but i remember i was glued to it and he took us all the way through his process. how much more are we going to hear from you about your situation -- >> i hope a lot. i mean i don't say that just

for my own sake -- >> and what kind of thinks are you thinking about telling us now? >> well, i think the main thing is to emphasize the extraordinary innovations in this kind of -- this [inaudible] medicine that are becoming available base on our new knowledge of our genetic makeup. and so in so far as these treatments are applicable to me, which they -- some of them are. i'm hoping to write in some detail and alert people to possibilities that they may not yet know about that exist, even for quite hard cases, quite advanced cases. >> any thought of writing a book? i mean you mentioned earlier -- >> yes, yes. i thought i'd write a book that was both about facing death and about the struggle for life and how one motivation for the latter in my case, apart from the obvious ones is precisely to see if i can participate in

pushing those boundaries back and enlarging the area of scientific knowledge. >> have you lost interest in certain things in the world? >> no. >> not at all? >> no, not in the least. >> and as you sit here today, what would be your number one interest of things going on in the world? >> right now? >> right now. >> well, the -- looking at today's paper, which is the first thing i do every day still, i suppose it would -- it would have to be one version or another of the confrontation with islamic jihad. in particular the appallingly serious news from pakistan in the last few weeks where the whole -- the whole threat seems to me to be amped up noticeably in a way we haven't quite internalized. where the chief minister of the country's most important state, mr. samantasier is murdered in

cold blood by someone pretending to be his body guard on the ground that he opposes an existing blaspheme law, not even that he's committed blaspheme. and so that anyone claiming to be a muslim is entitled to kill him and that this got the endorsement of all the religious authorities, of all the [inaudilbe] in pakistan. so it used to be bad enough on conviction by a court of the charge of blaspheme you could face a death sentence but you'd have been through a jury and appeals process [inaudible]. bad enough in all conscience, but warranted by the quran if you care, which i don't. but now, permission to anybody to appoint himself an executioner on the spot and be the agent of the religion in murdering anyone they like. this is fantastically dangerous

and we decide to invest ourselves completely in the idea that there are moderates to be found, if we can pay them, who will fend this off. i don't think there's a prayer of that, to coin a phrase. especially if we appear to be their patrons. >> how do you -- i mean -- >> i think we're totally fooling ourselves. >> what about this process of having to face this illness are you surprised about? and the reason i ask you about -- i mean you went off on some substance there and some people just give all that up when they are faced with this kind of situation. i mean what's changed, what about this process surprised you? >> my internal process? >> your process of becoming ill and they tell you you've got stage four -- >> yes. >> esophageal cancer and all that i mean are you surprised about any of this the last six months? because you've obviously thought about it. you wrote seven pages about death [inaudilbe] >> yes. well, i think a memoir of a

person who just past 60 has to face that. so i thought i owed that much to the readers. no, it hasn't been all that surprising. i don't know. it's a commonplace thing. i mean i don't -- i wrote this somewhere. i mean i don't sit around asking myself why me, and if i did the cosmos wouldn't bother to favor me with a reply. wouldn't even say why not. it's a commonplace thing that's not in my age and previous habits, it's almost laughably predictable. the only interesting thing about it is its possible amenability to treatments that were unknown until very recently. the outcome of brilliant work by devoted people, some of whom i'm very lucky to count as friends. >> you know there are many examples we hear from friends and people we've known over the

years where a doctor will say some very straight forward and crude things and -- >> yes. >> make life very uncomfortable. i remember there was a reporter in this town with the washington post you told me one day he's no longer with us. the doctor called him after he'd had tests and he says, guess what, you got the big c. and i mean i couldn't believe that he actually, you know happened. but the reason i bring this up is -- >> that is a big crass, i must say. >> what marks would you give the medical professional and the way they've treated you and have they give you hope that this thing can be licked? >> they've given me more than a margin of hope it can be licked, yes. and they haven't pronounced on my chances unless i've asked them. which i decided not to do at first until it occurred to me that it would be very useful for -- if you like accounting purposes to have a rough idea. because one has to plan for ones loved ones and descendants.

i thought so for actuarial reasons i'd like to have a guess. they don't like being asked because they don't really know. and the best answer i got was the following. if you took 1000 people who were myself, in other words, my age, my state of health, my gender, i think, 1000 of us today, half of us would be dead within a year. of the remaining half, others might hope to live more than a year and of that number, quite a number. to live for a considerable number of years, they can't do better than that. that was from a very senior person at the nih who was expecting the question. >> what is your reaction to people like me? i mean we come to your apartment, we want to sit down and talk to -- you know why we're here. we want to hear this story and you've had a bunch here, you

know are you surprised at that? >> little bit, yes. i was. but a lot of it i know has been to do with my stance on religion. a very large number of people have asked me doesn't it change your attitude to the infinite, the eternal the supernatural and so forth. i've said that i really don't see why it should. i've never thought it as a particularly searching question. if i -- i spent a lot of my life deciding that there isn't any redemption, there is no salvation, that there's no afterlife. that there's no supervising boss. to -- if i was to tell you well now i've got a malignancy in my esophagus, that changes everything. main effect had been on my iq. it's a complete logical non sequitur. it's nothing to do with it. so, i've enjoyed taking part in that argument.

and there's a certain ghoulish element, even about the nice people who've been praying for me. because they are not just praying for my recovery, they're praying for my reconciliation with religion. and i -- i proposed a trade off the other day, i said, i tell you what, what if we secularists stop going to hospitals and walking around the wards and asking if people are religious when they are in extremeness and in their last days and saying look, you've still got a little time, why don't you live the last few days of it as a free person. you'll feel much better. all that nonsense they taught you. you know you could still have every chance to give it up. experience the life of a free thinking autonomous person. don't live in fear, don't believe in mythology. they -- i don't think they'd welcome it. and of course, we don't do that. but it seems to be considered the right of almost everybody to do it the other way around. i don't resent it at all, because i like every

opportunity for the argument, but it -- a lot of it has been to do with that. i don't flatter myself as a public figure, i rate all that highly. >> the book notes show we did in '93. it's a short clip. i want to run this and get your reaction to it. >> their first love is what they always remember. for me, it's the first hate. the junkie energy gets you out of bed. it can be catayzelyzed, and peoe like to be non-judgmental. a lot of people -- they say it wouldn't be one's job.

>> so, is it still a good idea to hate people. >> well, since it's not really avoidable, i think the question is how to -- if you like, turn it to advantage. one of the things i don't like about christianity is the idea of compulsory love because i think it's bound to lead to hypocrisy. people pretending to love more than they do. and also since it's coupled with the injunction to love a god, you're also supposed to fear, there's every chance of that sort of curdling. there's something very honest by contrast, to finding someone completely unbearable. i mean someone like henry kissinger for example. it's bad to let it -- it's a bit like alcohol if you'd like. it's a good servant but it's a bad master. i mean i have a completely cold hatred and contempt for henry kissinger, but it doesn't waste much of my time. it s just that it enables me to penetrate, i think, the sort of fog of sentiment and bogus reputation in which he's shrouded and protected. and it doesn't eat away at me. it doesn't keep me awake at

night, doesn't poison me. doesn't fill me with bile. but i can't pretend that it's just a matter of political disagreement. i mean i think there is such a thing as evil in the world. and sometimes, personified. and i think was under no obligation to be ambivalent there. >> did you change your mind at all about mother theresa? >> what would change my mind about her? i didn't never -- one couldn't exactly hate her. because in a way she was a pathetic figure. but i detested the influence that she had. i could tell you why in a sentence if you want. well, the very reason is that she's so celebrated, we have this apparent concern for the poor of the world, or the poorest of the poor as she was always obliging us to say. well as it happens we know what the cure for poverty is -- or what a certain cure for poverty is and it goes under the name the empowerment of women. it works everywhere, bangladesh, bolivia, name it.

give women some control over their reproductive cycle. get them off the animal routine of breeding machine and the level of poverty will decline, sharply. it's never, never known to fail. it's a consistent finding. just for an example, this is my central point about, mother theresa spent her entire life opposing the only thing that works. opposing all forms of birth control, comparing them to abortion, which she called murder. i mean directly, in here nobel prize speech. said that was the main threat to peace in the world, which is a fanatical stupid thing to say. that's basically it. that plus the reputation for sanctity that she got for preaching this nonsense. but one could add, her friendship was the worst of the richest of the rich. people like charles keating of the savings and loan who was a great friend of hers. she took sterling money from him, refused when the court asked to return it. took money from the devaluated dictatorship in haiti which treated the poor like pigs, worse.

blessed them in return, gave them divine sanction. goes on. her whole effect was entirely retrograde and no one ever wrote any but one story about her until i wrote my critique. and in that book, it's very short, i make five or six other direct accusations against her, backed up by fact and that books been reviewed by ever newspaper in the world, including all the religious press. and no one's ever pointed out a mistake in it. not one. and if half of what i say is true about her, then none of what is commonly believed about her is true. but i'm used to this now. people need, every now and then a complete illusion. and this was one. >> what would you do if henry kissinger decided to call you and bury the hatchet after all these years? >> i would be extremely interesting. but one of the reasons i detest him is i sort of know that couldn't happen. he wouldn't even agree, when i was writing my book about him, to have questions submitted in writing. let alone to meet me.

he's made it a condition when he appears on television programs that he not be asked about the book. i know this from the producers, several of them. he made it a condition of his appearance at the national press club, which i don't think should have agreed that he not be asked about the book. never mind his attitude to me. there's no reason to like me, but i mean i would have pretended i -- if i was him i would have pretended who's this guy hitchens, i don't care. but i know i needled him. but more important. if you think of the things he's been found out as having done, lying about vietnam, lying about chile, bangladesh [inaudilbe], the deaths of so many people needlessly for the vanity of himself and his criminal president. we have other people from that period in our history, robert mcnamara, the bundy brothers, others, william colby who in their books, in their memoirs, tried to make some kind of restitution. they said actually this was pretty bad policy and we sort of suspected at the time that it was bad, maybe worse.

we're sort of sorry and actually we have some evidence we feel we should share with you, some disclosures that you should have had at the time. make so much up . kissingers never said a word of self criticism. not one. and he gets very petulant and angry and spoiled and ugly when he's criticized. so the -- as jeeves says in another context verti , the contingency sir, is a remote one. but if he was to try it, i'd be fascinated to meet him. of course. >> we don't have much time. >> look, don't say that. i'll be the judge of that. >> if you knew that there was a certain amount of time left, i have no idea six months, a year, whatever. if things you want to do? maybe gone through that process? >> yes, but what they don't tell you, you see, is what kind of months these will be. that's the other reason they don't like being asked. >> what have you not done [inaudilbe] >> i mean if i was in -- you probably remember stephen

solarz. the late congressman. >> sure. >> very interesting man. had the same thing as me. died recently. but before he died, he'd had about four or five cancer for years and he'd done a lot of traveling, he kept up his interest in human rights and international policy and then he got word that it was back and probably that that was it and he made fairly short work of dying. this was a few weeks ago. that's what i'd need to know. i mean the great loss to me in the last few months is the inability to travel. i got to toronto for thanksgiving. that wasn't that hard. i've been to california. i've been to -- with a private plane, very kindly that was sent for me to do a speaking engagement in montana. i've finally got to see the little bighorn, which i've always wanted to. and the wonderful national park. so i've now only got three american states unvisited. >> which ones? >> the dakotas and nebraska. i've done all the others plus

puerto rico. >> any plan to go back to your home country? you're an american citizen >> yes, i worried -- it's sentimental i know, but someone said to me randomly the other day, are you afraid of not seeing england again and i realized yes i was. i can't bear the idea of not going back. but i couldn't do it now. i might have to be told i was on what they call a chemo holiday. >> we are out of time and i think the best way to end it is to say i'll see you in a couple years. >> absolutely. >> and we'll do this again. >> you bet. >> thank you very much. >> my pleasure. it is, brian, isn't it? [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> for a dvd copy of this q-and-, call 1-87visit us at

a.org. this is also available as a c- span podcast. >> next, david cameron appears at the weekly question time in parlaiment. then road to the whitehouse" with michelle bachmann, followed by rick santorum at a republican southy meeting in carolina. then a look at college mental health services on "washington journal." :30on c-span 2, first at 9;3

am, a meeting on wartime contracting. a hearing on problems on u.s. funded reconstruction. including gen. arnold fields, the special general for afghan in 2008.uction on later, the house judiciary committee holds a hearing on the raines act, authorizing congress to vote for executive operations that could increase costs or prices for consumers. that is live tomorrow at 4:00 eastern. congress returns to session to

work on a number of items. they gavel in for legislative business on monday, to cut non- discretionary spending to fiscal 2008 levels. see the house live on c-span. the senate returns to session at 10:00 am. they will turn to a proposal to change rules on the fillibuster. it aims to limit how this will be used. live coverage can be seen on c- span 2. >> tuesday, president obama delivers the state of the union. we will have a preview then the speech at 9:00, then the

response from paul ryan of wisconsin. you can watch this on c-span 2, followed by reactions from members of congress. >> it is the same old story. you can't trust the tories on the nhs. the same old usual, feeble, pre- scripted line. practices them every week. i am sure they sound fantastic in the bathroom mirror. >> now, from london, "prime minister's questions." david cameron answered questions on the health service and

patient waiting times, as well as educational subsidies for students. >> >> this morning i had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. in addition to my duties in the house, i shall have further such meetings later today. >> the nhs is facing massive reorganization, while at the same time seeking the greatest savings in its 62-year history. respected professional medical bodies warn about the risks to public service of giving private companies the easy pickings. before pursuing that gamble will the prime minister reflect carefully, informed by clinicians and the coalition program that we agreed last may? >> we will listen very carefully to the professionals, but the