>> jean edward smith, author of "bush." when did you first thing that it was worth doing a biography so close to his presidency? >> i had just finished the eisenhower biography. i was in new york having lunch with my editor at random house at the time, and he said what do you want to do next? this was in 2012. and i said, how about george bush? he said fine. so we started on "bush." >> why? >> i thought he needed to be treated -- i don't think any of the books out at the time -- this was in 2012 -- adequately treated him. >> i'm gonna jump in to chapter 12 and read the first paragraph. george w. bush was regarded by many of his classmates at harvard business school as dynamically ignorant. he was energetic but ill

informed, untutored and unread and he flaunted it. little had changed in his 2002 state of the union and the phrase access of evil reeked of arrogance. once again bush has spoken without weighing the consequences. >> i think that's right. i think someone has the right to say that. >> when did you start to feel this way about him? >> oh, when he was president. >> why? >> well, because it seemed to me that there was absolutely no reason to go into iraq. and his domestic -- or his response -- let's put it this way. his response to 9/11 seemed totally overdrawn. >> where were you during 9/11, when it happened? >> we were in huntington, west virginia. >> do you remember the day?

>> no i remember my wife seeing it on television and i can't -- it was a sunny day. i can't remember -- i was down at the university of marshall. >> when did you begin to react negatively to the way he handled 9/11? >> oh, i think when the -- i would say beginning with the treatment of prisoners guantanamo, which seemed totally out of the ordinary. and, of course, the domestic spying that took place. but, of course, those weren't really very well known until articles came out in "the new york times" and "the washington post" about two years later. >> his george w. bush when he was not in office in 1991 an interview that was done in

texas. >> unfortunately there's a bunch of these, i would call them minor leaguers who view themselves as major league writers who attack george bush in a personal way. do those kind of things hurt? >> not any more. i can't tell you if he's been personal or not. the thought of being called lap dog by a person of his stature, i'm not sure large stature or small stature, it bothers you particularly if you're a feisty texan i am. >> what's your reaction of that? >> that's george bush in 1991. he ran for governor in 1994. he was head of the texas rangers at that time. that's george bush. >> what do you see there? >> spontaneity and really a lack

of sustained judgment. a lack of intellectual insect. >> have you ever met him? >> no. dick cheney, whom i interviewed a number of times for the book, set up an interview with me with george bush. just before i was to go out i got a telephone call from one of his aides said the president doesn't want to see you decided not to see you because you wrote a book critical of his father, which is true. in 1992 i published a book which was critical of george herbert walker's decision to attack iraq at the time. the curious thing in some ways is that 1997 the university decided to give george herbert walker bush an honorary degree. the president said jean you're going to introduce him because

you wrote a book about him. i said, well, the book is critical. i introduced him. we had about 1500 numb,500 people protesting. the dot was giving him an award for ending the cold war. demonstrators outside 1,500 to 2,000 -- 1,000 to 1,500 was protesting being the head of the cia. >> are you a canadian citizen? >> i'm both. i was born in the united states. i'm an american citizen. but i went to toronto in the 1960s and 1970s, the supreme court, in a decision, made it possible to own dual citizenship so at that point i became a can canadian citizen as well. >> where do you vote? >> in mississippi. >> why? >> that's where my parents are from. we own property in mississippi.

i have always voted in mississippi. >> go back to your book on george herbert walker bush. why were you critical of his activities back in the first iraq war? >> bear in mind when bush went to congress and asked for permission to attack iraq, after hussein moved into kuwait, this was a close vote. bush only won by about ten votes in the house of representatives. maybe even less in the senate. so this was not a popular thing at the time. >> the comment by george w. bush about george will. george will has called you one of the finest biographers we have in the country. i don't think george is gonna like this book. >> why not? >> well, i think george is a republican. >> he just dropped out. >> i saw that. i don't know. maybe he will.

>> how would you describe your own politics? >> democrat. i'm from mississippi. at a time when people in mississippi voted democratic. >> how would you define your ideology or where you are on the spectrum? >> oh, on the left, on the left. >> always been there? >> yes, i think. i went to princeton as an under graduate in '50 to '54. paul spellings is classmate of mine. don rumsfeld is, too. he's a princeton graduate. yes. >> the best i could find i read in the back where you say where you got your material in the notes is that you had three

four, five interviews, two of them seemed to be the most important were don't rumsfeld and dick cheney. given what you said about herbert walker bush, why would dick cheney see you? how did you work that up? >> don rumsfeld set it up for me. >> why would he set it up for you? >> we were classmates. we lived in the same dorm freshman year. we've known each other since 1950. >> at what school? >> princeton. and we lived in the same dormitory and don is a very popular member of the class of 1954. >> how often did you talk to him for the book? >> maybe 20 times. >> what did you learn from him that you didn't know from -- i have seen a lot of sources in your book and other books that have been written about george

bush. >> yes. i felt that he was always frank and very honest. i mean we've known each other for a very long time. so there was no problem interviewing don. i know his wife. he knows my wife. we're friendly. >> what do you think his role was in the whole iraq war? and did you tell him what you thought about him? >> oh yes. oh yes. i believe that he thought owe and the military thought they were going in as liberators. they were going to get rid of hussein and leave within 90 day. that's what they planned for. they didn't plan to occupy iraq. frank's journal, frank's plan for that fell on rumsfeld's instructions. the military and the state

department believed they were going in to remove hussein, find weapons of pass destruction and get out very quickly. jay garner the general in charge of dealing with the iraqis, had a council ready to take charge. and then on may 1st when bush spoke on the flight deck of the abraham lincoln and said mission accomplished, bush changed the ground rules. bush said we are going to stay, occupy iraq and bring in democracy. they hadn't planned for that. they hadn't planned for that at all. they were taken totally by surprise when bush, on may 1st, on the flight deck of the abraham lincoln said we're going to bring democracy to iraq. the difference between liberators, which they thought they were going to be, and being occupiers, was profound.

liberators make a country free. occupiers impose their will. and the military had a plan for that. military planned to go, get out. so suddenly they're caught as being occupiers and they simply were not prepared for it. >> here george bush at west point june 1st, 2002 before the war started in march of -- >> it was his address at west point. >> for much of the -- in some cases those strategies still apply. but new threats also require new thinking. the war on terror will not be won on the defensive. we must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt its plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge.

>> bush did announce that at west point. on his own. the military were not prepared for that. he was absolutely wrong. i don't know whales you can say. >> at one point in your book you bring up gog and mcgog. why? and who were they? or what is it? >> maybe bush's worst fault is the fact that he is a born again christian who brings about ideology into the presidency. he believes that he was tkpwrod's agent here on earth to fight evil and aou mention gog and mcgog. just before the iraqi invasion, bush called president chiroc of france trying to get france to join in the attack.

during the course of that conversation, he told chiroc we're fighting gog and mcgog before the final judgment. gog and mcgog are creatures in the book of revelation in the new testament. that's the center of the universe for many fundamentalist christians. and bush generally believed that. bush generally believed that he was god's agent here on earth to fight evil. if you believe that, whether it's the domestic excesses or the war against iraq, if you believe you are god's agent fighting evil, all holes are removed. you're on a blank slate. and you can do whatever is necessary to fight evil. i might say chicor didn't know what he was talking about. his staff didn't know either. they finally got a professor to

clue him in to what it was. that convinced chiroc all the more that he didn't want part of this. >> you got that from the book "500 days secrets and lies terror wars." >> that's right. >> you use a lot of his quotes from his book. >> i don't know a lot, but some. >> noticeable. but there are others you did, too. how do you decide as a historian what to quote, what to trust, what book to trust? >> oh, i don't know. it seems to me that as i read it, if it seems reasonable and logical, i you it. there's a litmus test. >>? preparation for buying this particular biography, how much reading did you do before you started writing?

>> that's an interesting question. writers write in different ways. i research each chap tore as i go. i do not research the entire book before i begin. some writers do. but i research it chapter by chapter. and go from there. when i'm writing a book i do it seven days a week. i get up at 5:00 a.m. and work until noon. i do it seven days a week. but i do it chapter by chapter. karo, on the other hand, researchs for two, three years before he starts to write. i would say he and i are extremes, one side and the other. i have always found it helpful to do it that way. >> you've written a lot of

biographies. i'm going down the list and ask you to compare what you found out about these people and compare it with george w. bush. we'll start with the presidents. in 2001 you wrote "grant." >> that's right. >> one of the ways that you're defined in one of the reviews i read on that is that gory lee under rated president. is that how you feel about it? >> i think that's true. grant was not gonna read it at the time. when grant died, 1.5 million people went to his funeral in new york. grant was very popular at the time. but grant, as president genuinely believed in racial equality. and he kept the united states army in the south throughout his presidency to maintain equal rights for african-americans. for the next three generations that was not popular in the south.

southern historians for the next three generations treasured grant because of his determination to enforce racial equality. and so grant's reputation suffered enormously. improperly it seemed to me. so i spent the time trying to rehabilitate him. >> is there any comparison you can make between us grant and george w. bush? >> i don't think there's any similarity. grant was always very reflective. grant spent his time at west point, most of it in the library reading books. and then as you know, his own autobiography sets the standard pretty much for presidential biographies, autobiographies. i think you could say that the distinction is probably light

years apart. polar opposites. grant did not act on impulse, never. >> your book was 784 pages long. this is a big book. all of your books have been pretty big. what's your approach to this and why in this day and age when people are not reading as much did a publisher want a big book? >> you'll have to ask the publisher. but it seems to me if you're writing a biography you have to write a big book. i think that's why i say i don't research the entire book before i begin. i do it chapter by chapter. because if you're writing a book that's 700, 800 pages, you can't remember all that. >> the next one is your book on fdr in 2007. >> yes. >> that was 880 pages. one of the reviewers said "change the relationship between the american people and their government." >> yes, he did, in the sense

that beginning with the new deal roosevelt caused people to look to washington for support. which they hadn't done previously. and the government became a big supporter of the economy and of people. and i think in that sense roosevelt did change the approach. >> you say that george bush was the decider just like he used to say. what do you think of that? and was fdr a decider? and is there any comparison between those two? >> fdr occasionally -- when he did that, he usually made a mistake. the supreme court plan in 1937 to expand the size of the supreme court with some of his own. he consulted no one on that and

his attempt to increase the size of the court from 9 to 15 justices caught everyone by surprise. it was a terrible mistake. so when president roosevelt acted that way, they weren't sure it was fake. i would say the only other example i can think of when roosevelt acted on his own was when he overruled jerome marshall and secretary simpson in 1942 and ordered the invasion of north africa. they didn't want to do that. he ordered the invasion of north america. those are the only two examples i can think of. >> with grant and fdr, where did religion play out with them compared to george w. bush? >> most people don't realize it but dwight eisenhower is the only president elected who did not belong to a church. eisenhower was a cadet at west point, graduated in the class of

'15. west point cadets at the time were required to go to chapel every sunday. so when eisenhower graduated he decided he wasn't going back. someone once asked him in the 1930s when mcarthur was chief of staff and eisenhower was his assistant why he didn't go to church. eisenhower said, because i had to go every sunday at west point and i'm not going back. and he didn't go back. he finally joined the presbyterian church, but not until after he was elected president. so i think that that's a fundamental distinction. grant was not a true believer either. roosevelt was an elder in his church at hyde park. but i think all he was quite skeptical. >> and your book on george herbert walker bush, where do

you think religion played a part with him? >> i don't think it did. i mean, the book on george herbert walker bush is about the iraq war. so it's a narrow book. it's a come hundred pages. i don't think it did. george w. bush, bush 43, is a born again christian. he got to that position in the 1980s. >> and you talk about billy graham in here and his relationship to george w. bush. but you all give credit to anothered minister. >> yes. i think it was the other minister, the person who carried the cross around the world, so called, the year before, who really brought bush back, who made bush a born again christian. bush in both of his autobiographies, george w. bush, credits billy graham but i think that's because billy graham is known and the other fellow is not. >> in 2011 george bush talked

about being sustained by his faith. let's just watch a little bit of this. >> i was sustained by my faith during my presidency. and i did pray a lot. and i saw god's wonders in many occasion when i was president. i tell the story about the rainbow. i gave a speech, right before i got on the stage, someone pointed out this balcony that was lit. it was the place where the tyrant had given his last speech. this rain storm, a rainbow appears. entered right behind the balcony. people can describe anything they want. i described it as a message that said freedom is beautiful and universal and everybody desires to live a free life. >> what are you thinking as you

listen to that? >> i thought that's exactly right. i thought that bush received his marching instructions, he thought, from god. >> what if he's right? >> i don't think he was. do you? >> my question is how do we know? >> the excesses domestically and the attack on iraq, i don't think it can be argued that they were correct. >> i want to complete the comparisons with eisenhower. that was a 976-page book. that was in 2012. you said a canny politician and skilled decisive leader. how do you compare what eisenhower was to what george w. bush is? >> i think of eisenhower as a president making two mistakes. and one of them was when he gave the cia permission to talk to

the shaw in iran. the other was when he authorized the flight just before the paris summit in 1960. otherwise eisenhower, one of eisenhower's great strengths was his ability to conceal his hand. eisenhower was behind the move that ultimately defeated mcar think. eisenhower. it was eisenhower who picked joseph welsh to be the council there. eisenhower liked to conceal what he was doing. but i think he was incredibly efficient. interstate highway system, the st. lawrence freeway, ending the war in korea. eisenhower had been elected on a

platform. you thought he was going to win the war in rae. he immediately made peace. i think, i think two mistakes i think eisenhower made. he had an effectively good track record. >> all the books you've done so far, which of these individuals did you personally like the most? >> i liked grant the most. >> why? because i felt that grant had been totally underrated. had been systematically abused by some of the historians for three generations who resented grant's position on racial equality. and i might say that when i was a little boy of eight or nine

years old, my father was from mississippi, as i said earlier, took us to the battlefield in shilo. my cousins over there with us were saying well the south could have done this or done that. an my father said we should hush up because it's a good thing grant was in command that day because grant had saved the union. so i think from the time that i was 8 years old, i was on grant's side. >> the reviews that have come out have been pretty popular. peter vicar, you used peter vicar's book in yours. he said in his july 4 review, as a biographer mr. smith makes to comparisons with today's republican lead pweur cites unmistakably with those who see mr. bush's presidency in the darkest shades. if often for radically different

reasons. mr. smith abhors waterboarding terror suspects, for example. mr. trump wants it resumed. what did you think of his analysis of your book? >> well, i was certainly very flattered that peter baker wrote such a favorable review. because baker this is major work on the bush administration. it's not a biography. it's a book on the administration. it's extremely good. >> the headline on the reviews presidential biography as scathing indictment. fair? >> yes. yes, that's fair. and i think bush deserves a scathing indictment. >> do you feel as strong about george w. bush as you have any of the presidents that you've

known, you've written about, you've thought about? >> it's different for a biographer to write about someone whom you don't like. all these other people eisenhower, grant, roosevelt marshall were successful people who deserved praise. it's much more difficult to write about someone who you think is wrong. >> another review in "the washington post" david greenberg writes, from rutgers, written in snark free prose with an air of frontful attached authority the book is exceedingly damning about his judgment of george w. bush's time in office. it reminds us anew of bush's own arrogance, recklessness, strong

armed politics and scorn for ideas and for the apoplexy he provoked from liberals and democrats who felt powerless to defeat him. >> why do you think he was elected twice? >> from the beginning, i think al gore screwed it up. meetings here in the summer of 2000, all the political scientists who analyze elections and so forth unanimously picked gore to win. but he began by picking justice lieberman, like lieberman, the most conservative in the senate. he snubbed bill clinton throughout the campaign. he didn't invite clinton to be on the platform with him at the democratic convention when he was nominated. i think his treatment of clinton

and also both of those two factors paved the way for ralph nader to come in and pick up almost 3 million votes. when the votes were cast, gore lost ten states clinton carried. when you fail to carry ten states including his own state of texas including arkansas, west virginia, no republican carried west virginia since 1928. >> why was george w. bush re-elected in 2004 after the war? >> fair enough. kerry didn't run a good campaign either. kerry saluting at the democratic convention. and democrats ran a traditional campaign in 2004.

they were appealing to the voter in the middle which would serve fewer. and kerry did very well in the debates against bush. i think that he just didn't run an effective campaign. he wasn't as critical of bush as he could be. i think if he had been much more critical of bush, he would have been much more better. >> let's go back to your research on this book. you interviewed richard armitige, david from. you had an interesting meal with donald patreaus. that's already made news. there was a story from what was that, a foot note. let me ask you just about that. was it a lunch or dinner?

>> it was a dinner. >> how did that come about? >> i was here in washington at the time. i got an e-mail one day from general patreus inviting me to dinner. i had never met him before. so i went. just as i was leaving, my wife said don't talk about ike or kay summers. after the first course was over that's what he wanted to talk about. >> that was the reason he asked you to dinner? >> i would think. he didn't know me. >> when did this dinner come about? >> maybe -- well, it came about just after he was forced out as head of cia. it came just after he resigned as head of the cia. he was interested, i guess he was interested in how i handled

summersby. i wasn't particularly surprised by it. because i think one of the reasons for that, my princeton classmate s classmates pressure on the president of princeton to resign to greater vacancy. they wanted patreus to become president of princeton. and to seek the 2016 republican nomination as president of princeton as eisenhower had done in 1952 when he was president of columbia. if you look at the republican nominee maybe that wasn't a bad plan to begin with. but before that could be affected the whistle was blown on patreus. because of the affair and the

princeton search committee simply dismissed him. >> what did you tell him about kay summersby. did he ask you how he should handle his own problems? >> no. we didn't discuss that. we said we'd talk about ike and kay summersby. eisenhower told general marshall just after the v day in 1945 that he planned to marry kay summer ps by and divorce maime. general marshall said that's fine but if you do it, i'll relieve of you command of eisenhower did he couldn't do that but never told kay. and he continued to live with kay until he went home to washington in november of '45 when he was reassigned to become chief of stat in the army. leaving the command in europe. and kay thought she was going

with him. on the day she was to depart she got ordered to berlin where she was put on the staff of general clay. she didn't know she wasn't going with him. once he got back he wrote her a very crisp dear john letter. kay, after her tour in europe was over she came back to washington in the american army and visited ike in the pentagon. next day she received orders sending her to california. >> so general patreus wasn't very happy when he saw that story come out about the foot notes, was he? >> i don't think so. >> he was quoted. were there ground rules when you went in there? >> absolutely not. we were having a friendly

dinner. if he had said that, i wouldn't have written it. >> did you learn anything about the war and his relationship to the war? >> i didn't ask. >> he didn't talk about it at all? >> i didn't ask. no. i might say that the military passed him over for promotion from major to general and he was promoted to general by president bush on rumsfeld's recommendation and his career took off after that. i think patreus and bush worked well together. >> here's another gentle man that you talked to, dick cheney back in the year 2000 talking about bush's transition team. let's watch 40 seconds of this. i want to ask you about what you learned from dick cheney. >> tk fact of the matter is when you put together an administration, one of the things you look for are people with experience. we've had a number of republican

administrations over the 30 some years that i have been involved in national politics. and many of us have had prior experience in the bush administration but a great many other administrations as well. so the notion that somehow that makes us overreliant. you might as well say we were overreliant on the ford administration. we are looking for people for the team president bush wants to assemble. we welcome all people, regardless of their party affiliation. >> bear in mind, bush was governor of texas. had not been in washington. really didn't know the washington scene. and he relied on cheney. bush picked colin powell to be secretary of state. bush did that. he picked don rumsfeld to be secretary of defense. he did that. he picked his friend to be secretary of commerce. a friend from midland.

otherwise cheney ran the search, both for the cabinet officers and from the subcabinet officers. this is unusual. it's unconceiveable that he would have asked garner to pick his cabinet or subcabinet or eisenhower would have asked nixon to do that after the nixon scandal and speech. this was i think a first in american history where the president turned over the selection of most of the people to the vice president. >> was that a comment on john nance gardner or was that a comment on testify ability of dick cheney who served in a previous administration and knew a lot of people. >> no. i think it's a comment on roosevelt and bush. roosevelt knew what he wanted and knew the washington scene. don't forget roosevelt secretary of war under woodrow wilson.

he knew the washington scene. he knew the politicians in the democratic party. john nance gardner was on the ticket to balance it. not for what he was going to do. i think he once said vice president wasn't worth a bucket of warm pass which is right. at the time. no, but bush, on the other hand, did not know washington. cheney did. and i think all bush saw in cheney that he wasn't dealing with a possible political opponent. given cheney's age or health, he was not going to be a candidate for president. >> you interviewed him may 13th, 2013. where? >> i interviewed cheney both out

in wyoming. his house in jackson hole. a number of times at his house here in mcclain. and i can't -- i don't know the date. >> the tkeut isn't as important as how often did you interview him and what did you learn from him? >> well, i began by going out to wyoming to -- this is the one don set up for me. i went out to wyoming to see him. at his house out in jackson hole. we stayed there for several hours. it was very interesting interviewing cheney. the only ground rule we had was cheney said don't quote me unless you ask me. don't put anything in quote marks. you can use the information but don't put it in quote marks

unless you tell me. and i think there was one quote that i used from that meeting was where he said bush was feeling his way in foreign policy. this was before 9/11. and i'm not sure of that. but at his house in georgetown in mclane virginia, cheney's wife, who was also a writer, we got along very well. so i think cheney was quite receptive. but as i say, don set it up for me. and so it was fine. >> when did you finish writing this? >> i'm not sure how to answer that. i finished it about a year ago.

simon and shuster in their wisdom, held it. they did not want it to come out. they wanted it to come out just before the republican convention. i think. that's why they held it to this point. i have been finishing it for about a year. >> should we then suspect simon and shuster did it for political reasons or for economic reasons? >> i would say they did it for economic reasons. i think simon and shuster, there is a democratic publishing house. but i think they held it for economic reasons. >> owned by cbs -- >> whatever. i don't know. i don't know that. >> so go back to when george w. bush's office said to you he's not gonna sit and be interviewed by you. what was your reaction and what impact do you think you had on the way you felt about the rest of the book?

>> i was very close to being finished at that point. i don't think it affected the book in any way. that was okay. i could understand that he would take that position. it had no effect on the management. >> there's -- you quote from a fellow named russ baker, who has been a journalist for a number of years. you wrote a book called "family of secrets." george w. bush's record at harvard was uninspiring. quote. he had 50 job interviews said fellow harvard bill school graduate but no job offer. i assume that's the bill white of houston, former mayor of houston? >> i don't know. >> quote he is the only harvard business school graduate -- >> i know that. >> only harvard business school graduate that we know of who

left there without a gd job. >> it's a classmate of bush's but i don't think he was -- >> i'm more interested in how that quote defined george bush. that's on page 27. >> that's when he went back to harvard business school. well, i think -- let me quote one of his classmates. they considered him dynamically ignorant. he was very active. very energetic. but didn't know anything. >> anything good about him? >> well he was very energetic. >> besides that, in your book? i know you say positive things ab the way he handled the financial crisis. >> about the financial crisis. i think his leadership on combatting aids,

internationally. the new president has done that which he did. he led the fight against aids. and i think turned the corner on aids in africa. and i think he deserves to be kred it for that. look i'm 83. he added medicare -- added to medicare prescription drugs for seniors. and i think no child left behind is a valuable addition. i think he got along well with putin initially. the fact that he and putin agreed to reduce the number of nuclear weapons each country maintains is a remarkable achievement. i also think he improved relations with china. lot of people didn't want him to go to the beijing olympics. and he did. i think that helped him improve relations with china. and free trade. when bush became president, the united states had free trade agreements with israel, canada, mexico. when he left we had free trade agreements with 16 countries.

it's not that an administration without some success. and i think that's why i exclusively state in the book that he's not america's work t president. it's pretty hard for anyone to beat herbert hoover. that doesn't detract from the fact that his decision to attack iraq may be the worst foreign policy the president ever made. >> i want to ask you about that. the first sentence in your book and the last sentence in your book, i want to know frankly if you decided to do this on purpose and at what point. let me read the first sentence. rarely in the history of the united states has the nation been so ill served as during the presidency of george w. bush. how long did it take you to get to that sentence to start your book? >> probably the first sentence i wrote. as i said, i do a book from front to back chronologically.

i do the preface first. and i did the preface before i started reading the book. i put that sentence in the preface and then i wrote the conclusion without checking it. and i didn't know that they were so similar until i read the book reviews. >> really? >> yeah. i didn't look at it. >> let me read the last sentence then. whether george w. bush was the worst president in american history will be long debated but his decision to invade iraq is clearly the worst foreign policy decision ever made by an american president. how did you get to that point? >> well, you know about what presidents have done. i can't think of a decision that was any worse. maybe you could say harry truman's decision to drop the bomb on hiroshima. maybe that was a worst decision. but that's about the only

contender. >> what about woodrow wilson's decision to go into world war i? >> well t germans helped that a great deal when they sunk american ships at sea and wilson acted in response to the germans' military aggression. >> what about jfk and lbj's decision to go into the vietnam situation, 58,000 lives later and some people think it's had a dramatic impact over the last 50 years on us. >> oh, i don't think so. 58,000 lives are 58,000 lives. there's been no terrorist -- there was no terrorist activity after the vietnam war. it was a local war. >> so how much responsibility do you put on george w. bush for the terrorist at activity in the world today? >> i would say 100%. i would say if he had left

hussein in control of iraq, he would not have -- which was an secular state at the time. it wasn't a democracy. but it was an secular state. he kept a lid on isis extremists. there was no isis. al qaeda wasn't even in iraq. so i would say with the removal of hussein, that is behind the terrorists we have today. >> let me go to the acknowledgements in the back. i'm gonna ask you by a fellow. you say john in 1954 classmate of mine at princeton read the manuscript for every chapter of every book i have written beginning with the defense of berlin in 1963. he has died since then. >> he died. i think he died in 2013, i think. >> that's what you say in the book. >> yeah. >> so why did he read every

chapter of every book that you have ever written? >> well, we were roommates at princeton. we were good friends. and he just agreed to do it. >> "gang of 13." >> yes, the gang of 13. >> who are they? not by name. >> i do it chapter by chapter. whenever i finish a chapter i send it out to these 13 people. they read it. and they send me their comments on the chapter. i don't go back to them. they send the chapter to me and it's a one-shot deal. i read what their comments were. if i like it, i'll use it. if i don't, i don't. >> who are these folks? what kind of friends are they? >> they're people i have met over the years. take ellen feldman. i met her after she wrote a

book. she's a novelist. she reads them. john, i mentioned, my roommate at princeton. harry mall i mentioned. >> did you send a copy of your book before you published it to don rumsfeld? >> i think don knew what i was writing. >> did he try to change your mind? >> well, sure. oh, sure. if he thought i was wrong on something, he'd say i was wrong on something. >> what did you gather were the personal opinion from don rum felled and dick cheney about george bush? >> i never pressed them on their personal views about george bush. i thought that would be pushing the envelope a bit. and so i never pressed them ab their personal views on bush.

i think, like any politician, i think they had skepticism. >> show you some video of a fellow that you talk about, and i think you knew his father. this is only about 20 seconds. this was back in october the 18th 2002. his name is paul wolfowitz. >> hussein lends them both moral and material support. disarming hussein and fighting the war on terror are not merely related, they're part of the same struggle and if we can defeat terrorist regime in iraq, it will be a defeat for terrorists globally. >> what impact did he have on the iraq war? >> he encouraged it. but i don't think it was crucial. he was on the same side as bush.

and but i don't think -- i don't think he spawned it. i think he was perfectly happy to go along with it. >> did you know his father? >> i'm sorry? >> did you know his father? >> i did not know -- well, back in the 1960s when the campus unrest riots at columbia, berkeley and cornell, phil hart the editor of the reporter magazine asked me if i would go up to cornell and interview this particular professor of mathematics who had interesting insight into the nature of the student protests. so i did. it was professor wolfowitz in the mathematics department. professor wolfowitz told me that he was convinced that this was a communist plot. so i wrote the article. the reporter didn't use it. >> so are you gonna write another book?

>> i'm 83 years old. it's difficult. it's difficult to write. >> how have things changed as you've gotten older? >> i think more slowly and i write more slowly and it takes longer. and at 83 i'm not sure that i have another four, five years in which i could write a biography. i think simon and shuster wants me to do something else. and i thought i would write about the decision to save paris in world war ii. and i think that the german general, and eisenhower saved great credit from saving paris from destruction.

i'm not sure many people are aware of it. eisenhower lived for a bit in paris in the 1920s. when he lived there in paris he knew paris. and i think -- deserves great credit for refusing to carry out hitler's order. i think there's a book there but i'm not sure. >> have you started it, outlined it? >> no. i have read. i have read the background material. and i have read the background material. >> 32 years at the university. >> 33. >> but, yes. >> how many years at marshall? >> 12. >> do you consider yourself retired? >> well, yeah, i'm not in a classroom any more. after marshall i went to columbia for two years as a senior scholar and then georgetown for two years as a

visiting scholar. yeah, i guess. dartmouth for two years before i went to toronto. >> our guest has been jean edward smith. the book is called "bush." we thank you very much. >> thank you.

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