>> [indiscernible] >> while the president visited victims of the shooting, the justice department announced today it will review the law enforcement response to the event that a left 19 students

and two teachers dead. this comes as questions mounted about information on the shooting and how the police responded. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> we are back with john o'neill and sarah winnie, co-authors of the new book, dances with the devil. we are happy to have you with us this morning. apparel, home decor and accessories. every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. shop now or anytime at c-span shop.org. >> washington journal continues. host: we are back with john o'neill and sarah wynne. co-authors of the new book, the dancer and the devil. we are so happy to have you with us this morning. can you tell us how this book

came about? why did you write this book and why now? guest: on this memorial day, i would like to remember my friends at the naval academy and a lot of other friends who gave their life in service of our country. we wrote this book for three reasons. we wanted to commemorate the people whom stalin, putin and xi tried to obliterate from history. pavlova. china's first nobel prize winner who died in prison in china and a slew of people that putin has killed. the second reason we wrote the book is to tell people about two wolves that are loose in the world. that is prudent and xi jinping. -- putin and xi jinping. my father told me many times how

they had tried so hard in the 1930's to tell people about stalin and how they could have avoided the slaughter that occurred in europe but nobody listened. we wrote the book in the hope that people will listen to who they really are and how they regard to human life and to alert people to the weapons they actually have, which are bioweapon's and creative diseases. these pose as most of the -- as much of a threat to all of us as nuclear weapons. those are the three primary reasons we wrote the book. host: in the book you talk about laboratory one. can you tell us where that is and why stalin established it? guest: it was created in 1921 by stalin to execute poisonings.

it was really the first by war lab. went on to kill in a pavlova, the short story writer maxim gorky, the ambassador and many other people we reference in the book. guest: stalin killed perhaps 20 million and people would disappear, but there people who can't simply disappear. they are too prominent. at the same time, you don't want the public dislike for having killed them. so you stage what are called natural deaths or stage suicides. you get them and simulate a natural disease like respiratory disease. stalin used anthrax or heart failure. stalin used potassium. or a stage suicide.

recently in the ukraine seven different oligarchs have supposedly committed suicide, the last three with their entire families. those weren't suicides. those were murderers. those were people who were dissenting against putin so they murdered them in a way that was deniable. host: we are talking about bioweapon's. i want to be sure everyone knows what we are talking about. can you tell us what a bioweapon is? guest: a bioweapon is simply an organic as opposed to an inorganic poison in the case of stalin, anthrax was a bioweapon that he favored. also smallpox and a variety of other diseases. with anthrax, you took a little breath of it.

these are bacterial spores that would get in your lungs and stimulate pneumonia. people would take a breath of them from a napkin as likely happened to pavlova. you were diagnosed as having pneumonia. you actually had anthrax in your lungs. but the pathology of the time was not sufficient to show the difference. likewise karate is an almost indestructible poison that was used to simulate heart failure. stalin had an entire massive set of biolab's beginning at a place called serotonin and in a project called the anthrax anti-plague project. in 1939, he summoned the head of that project, abram berlin into moscow. berlin began coughing at the hotel.

the doctor said you've got pneumonic plague. you have a disease we haven't seen in moscow in years. everyone that saw him died because in that case it was not only communicable but untreatable. a bioweapon is simply engineering a disease to hurt people on a retail level. mostly in the past these have always been traditional diseases like smallpox, plague, anthrax. now the harbor with crispin is you can manufacture viruses. so you can take a virus and adapt or change that. the covid-19 virus, 96.2% was for my bat, 3.8% of it has never

been found naturally in nature. claims have been made that it in evolution. no one has ever found that natural virus anywhere in nature at all. you have the horror of bioweapon's as stalin had them. manufactured by the horror that you can actually adapt genes. mankind now has the capacity to kill itself. guest: as we discussed, this stalinist marxist ideology has spread to north korea and china. it poses an incredible threat. we spent four years researching this book. the russian army spends one of every five days in full hazmat suits. the only reason they would do that would be to be prepared for a chemical or biological attack

they would release. we think it's important that the threat of biological weapons is equally as important. host: some of our viewers may not know who and a pavlova was and how she died. can you tell us who she was? what did you find out about how she died? >> we fell in love with her in the course of researching her. she was the world's most beautiful gifted ballerina and she traveled the world astoundingly 400,000 miles in the days before air travel. she went to 44 different countries. she was most famous for dying swan. she traveled 44 countries, often introducing ballet for the first time. she was killed in paris by a gang that stalin created, a

poison lab. she ate her food at the ritz in paris and set i've been poisoned by the food i ate in paris. it would be another 60 plus years before the game was discovered. people thought she couldn't have been poisoned. they even alleged that she had stood in the rain briefly or something like that. so they treated her symptoms instead of poisoning and she did died. 37 biographies have written about her and no one has alleged that we were killed by his talent -- she was killed by stalin. host: you have conclusive evidence that she was killed by stalin? guest: the evidence we have is that in 1927, stalin caused an article to be written in the soviet press that alleged that she was an enemy of the soviet people. he invited her to return to

russia before that. she refused to return. he confiscated her entire trust she had set up to eight orphans in russia. -- traveled throughout europe trying to get european countries not to allow in a pavlova to perform there. they laughed at her and they did that directly at stalin's request. in late 1930, and a pavlova told everyone she was under a sword of damocles. she asked her friends to pray for her. we have many different instances in the book of other people being poisoned with anthrax by the group set up in paris by stalin. stalin sent to paris the greatest poison are in the world

. he sent him to paris specifically for the purpose of wiping people out. he pretended to be a fishmonger, but his job was to poison people. so many people died exactly as pavlova did. pavlova boarded a train after eating at the ritz hotel. the first thing she said was that i have been poisoned in paris. her lungs slowly filled up with water. she kept telling people she was poison. but who on earth would poison the most loved ballerina in the world. as she died, she called for swan costume. her group went forward the next night defying stalin in the hague. they danced, putting a light on each place on the stage where she was to dance because no one

in the world. take her place. i could try that case 100 times. i wouldn't lose a single time. i would win every single time on the case of whether stalin directed the poisoning of pavlova. stalin was consumed with ballet. he had a box in the bolshoi that overlooked the stage. in 1924 a composer showed the old ballets of russia, the nutcracker and swan lake. he immediately was consigned by stalin to an insane asylum and then killed. stalin regarded ballet as integral to his total control of message and history. guest: who in the world would want to kill a beautiful ballerina that inspired millions.

stalin believed in a doctrine called cultural hegemony. to control man, he believed you had to control everything about man. even the words that were used. he said by 1939 -- 19 35, the lord god will not be used in russia. he believed you had to control the theater and the arts. ballet was the ultimate symbol of artistic freedom and stalin couldn't stand for. host: we are going to open up regional lines. if you are in the eastern or central time zone, (202) 748-8000. mountain or pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always on social media on twitter and facebook.

we have now talked about the past. i want you to draw a line to the present and how current russian president vladimir putin is developing and possibly getting ready to use bioweapon's. guest: it's very important. putin's grandfather was stalin's cook and taster. stalin was himself poisoned as the book goes into in 1953. putin's father was an actual exterminator. his job was to shoot people in the back of the head who were politically unreliable. so when putin talks about denazification of the ukraine, he's a clip -- chip off the old kgb blog.

his ideology is human life has no value. he says stalin is a great man who was simply misunderstood and the dissolution of the soviet union was history's greatest tragedy. that explains exactly why he has pursued the ukraine. it also explains why the ukraine versus so fiercely. they lost four to 8 million people to stalin. all of their musicians were killed in 1931. they were all executed and thrown in a mass grave. likewise in china, xi jinping has said that stalin is a great man. but you can't be a good communist if you don't believe in stalin. he believes the total control over human life is important. so the methodology of boast -- of both of them is very little value for human life. the purge of the chinese communist party which has lost a third of its members in the past

nine years. it was exactly the same methodology stalin used the consolidate power. host: are you concerned that putin will use bioweapon's if the war in ukraine drags on? guest: i think it's a very real threat. in a presidential debate in 2012. his army was being criticized but he said you know nothing about our biological capabilities. we hear about the threat of nuclear war. someone can cough in kansas and all of a sudden there is smallpox in kansas. the russians have been vaccinated against smallpox. we saw how covid-19 took down the world. as we discussed, there are bio war labs in russia and china are working on much more dangerous

things than covid-19. so i believe it's a very real threat and it's one of the reasons we wrote the book, to educate people. guest: in 1977, the chinese had preserved a flu from 1955 called the chinese flew at that time. it went all over the world and in 77, exactly the same fluke showed up again and killed over a million people in the world. i got it. you may have gotten it. it was in 1970 seven. many virologists said this can't be, it's impossible because the flu bug from 77 was exactly the same as the flu bug and 55. the chinese have to have preserved this in a lab. they said not us, we don't know anything about it. what are you talking about. in 1944, citing the exact sources, the head of the chinese

virology program said yes, i'm sorry. the truth is we were conducting vaccine tests with our army and it just got loose and that's how the 1977 virus went all over the world. so it's happened before over and over again. there are journals in russia where the people who worked on the bioweapon's program life about what's called the bioweapon's chernobyl in 1979. which killed over a thousand people from a leak of anthrax. they laugh about how they were required to shoot stray dogs and how people tried to pretend it wasn't a leak out of their own bioweapon's lab. it's a great danger to the world and there is a chance of these people using it. these are people who don't regard to life is important. it's the ideology that's important and the state is important and we are all just

servants of the state. guest: putin is definitely a son of stalin. his mentor actually when he took power was asked who is prudent in his response -- prudent -- prudent -- putin. he died of heart attack when he didn't have any prior coronary problems. host: since you just mentioned the asian flu of 1977, do you think that covid-19 was developed as a biological weapon knowing what you know? guest: i do. i don't think it was intentionally released. i think the release of covid-19 was an accident. but covid-19 is rather clearly manufactured virus to me.

the evidence for it is almost overwhelming. the covid virus comes from a bad location 1100 miles from wuhan china in the himalayas. that's the only place in the world that anything like covid has been discovered. we went to wuhan and was taken to the wuhan virology lab in 2015. we know that because their articles but recites that it was taken there. the horseshoe bat with a particular virus. when the virus appeared in 2019, it was in slightly different form. about 3.8% of it was different. wuhan is a huge military bioweapon's lab. my opinion is that the bat virus that was taken in 2015 to wuhan from 1100 miles away that wasn't

somebody munching in a laboratory, it was ridiculous that a bat flew 1100 miles. that virus was altered and inadvertently released probably in the course of vaccine tests. host: before you respond, i want to read this from the office of the director of national intelligence. this is the statement from them about what they said in 2020 one. we the intelligence community judge the virus was not developed as a biological weapon. most agencies also assess with low confidence that sars covid who probably was not genetically engineered. two agencies believe there was not significant -- sufficient evidence either way. chinese officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of covid-19 emerged. are they wrong? guest: they are wrong. guest: they are partly wrong.

we think the release of the virus was inadvertent. we don't believe they intentionally released the virus. guest: john and i are both lawyers and we wrote the last part of the book much like we would be arguing a legal brief. i think it's a pretty slamdunk case. knowing they were doing research on this bat that carries the virus, we know that dr. lee who was the whistleblower who said there is this strange virus showing up in wuhan. he was killed shortly thereafter. he died of covid-19 at the age of 35 in wonderful health. all of the initial evidence was destroyed. the who was not allowed to

research it until a year after the release. everyone on the board was elected by the chinese government. and they still have not been allowed to research this secret military lab that worked in conjunction with the wuhan virology lab that we discussed. the evidence is quite overwhelming that it was manufactured in a lab. guest: all the early blood samples were immediately destroyed. so you're never going to find those. they were all destroyed. my experience as a lawyer is when people destroy evidence, there's only one reason to destroy evidence. and that's because the evidence is so much worse than the fact of destruction. you have the appearance of this

in the military lab and then you have them destroying stuff, the doctor who discovers it is charged with releasing state secrets and then dies very quickly. i'm happy to try it to any jury. of course the government will not allow it to ever be tried anywhere. host: david is calling from glasgow, kentucky. good morning. caller: this is really amazing that they have worked to get all of this history. evidently john mccain was right. he said you look into the eyes of a killer when you look at putin. from all this, he's the most dangerous man in the world. we have had a u.s. president that has held up a front still does to some extent. i wonder, can prudent kill anyone at any time, any place --

putin kill anyone at anytime, anyplace in the world? doesn't putin tell the church what to believe and do over there? guest: that's what he does. the russian orthodox church lost everybody in soviet times. there were 127,000 priests killed 1926 to 1928. it has been thrown out of the international orthodox church because it's a kgb front. they give services on how wonderful it is to be killing the ukrainians. it's a kgb church. it's not a christian church. putin is a guy who said that stalin and lenin should be

canonized as christian saints. this is stalin who killed 127,000 priests and stalin who said the very words of god will be gone -- word god will be gone from the soviet union. in terms of his ability to kill people, he has a unit called 29155. it first got exposed in 2018. when a videotape of them -- they poisoned two people in england and a videotape happened to catch who they are amazingly. people found them on facebook where they idiotically were posting. the british secret police were able to track them back and they killed 14 people in england alone. so he kills people all over the

world. host: it is calling from danbury, connecticut. caller: thanks for taking my call. given the new threats are either enhanced versions of old viruses or possibly even completely new, have you taken a look at what we should do -- are we actually pursuing avenues to ward off this threat? guest: we were terribly prepared as the covid virus shows up. we were losing hundreds of people a day. we are very badly prepared.

we had done a few things. we prohibited enhancing experiences by our own pharmaceutical companies. pharma was insanely enhancing viruses to make them more communicable in laboratories on the theory they would never escape. we have at least prohibited that but we were terribly unprepared. we went through four years of agony of writing the book precisely because it all begins with people knowing the truth. these are not people whose eyes you can look in who are nice guys. the bioweapon's present a terrible threat to humanity. guest: it's also been difficult

to get this story out. we spoke with several big houses in new york who said we are interested in the stalin and pavlova story, but we don't want to talk about prudent -- putin and xi jinping. we thought this is the full story, it needs to be told. also surprisingly in the course of researching it, i operated at different website unrelated to the book and i noticed i was getting hits from wuhan and shanghai while i was doing this research. we have six and 50 endnotes and my ip address must have been flagged. i opened the manuscript to work on it and i noticed it had been opened at 4:00 a.m.. i was asleep and i was the only one with access to it. they turned my computer over to a forensic expert.

gave him my password. then shortly thereafter i opened the manuscript to work on it and all previous versions had been deleted. and i would save them by date. the last years of manuscripts were gone. our expert was able to determine that the breach happened in the cloud, not in my wi-fi system. i think that's a real threat. they clearly were trying to suppress this message and it's a message the world needs to know about. guest: the book is heavily annotated with 650 footnotes. if you buy it on kindle, you can actually flash and it will take you right to the source. and it's heavily documented. some of the information that led us along the way were from

people in russia and china. i didn't find it because none of it is in any computer anywhere. guest: i saved the manuscript on a flash drive. otherwise we would have lost a year's work. guest: i think the u.s. government, and particularly the nih has the early emails say if people learn about this, they will be antiscience or they will hate china. i don't hate china. i think it's one of the great civilizations on earth. i'm certainly not antiscience. but science is about truth. i think we got committed to tell a story and pretend as we did with hitler's. pretending he was going to make the trains run on time. host: charlie is calling from roslyn heights, new york.

caller: i'm enjoying this conversation. i found out the truth is very complex. i feel like these two people are really bashing stalin and if what they are saying is true, they should be bashing him. at the same time, stalin played a very important part in getting rid of nazism and hitler's. as a patriotic american, i'm happy for that. how did they feel about that? guest: i think you are right. first of all, i do think stalin's role is a little overplayed. remember, stalin signed a treaty with hitler's dividing poland. stalin initially accommodated hitler's invasion and destruction of friends. -- france. then he had the soviet union completely unprepared in the early days of the second world war when the soviet union lost millions of troops and almost

lost the war. i do think stalin's order to hold fast was integral to being able to hold off hitler's in time that with other aid, hitler's could be beaten. so i think stalin deserves credit for that. there is good and bad as you say in everybody. it wasn't necessary to kill 20 million russians to accomplish that. it wasn't necessary to purge all the people, all the early bolsheviks in order to accomplish that. or to purge his own army, which left him unprepared. so there is some good, but there is a great deal of bad i'm afraid with stalin. more than with almost anyone in the 20th century. guest: there is a campaign underway in russia to rehabilitate stalin and make him more like a hero. putin believes he is a great man who just ran into some difficulties. i have a hard time finding

anything great about stalin. after researching this book, i think he would have a hard time finding a more evil man. guest: it's interesting because stalin started in a seminary. his mother was a wonderful woman by all accounts. his father was a terrible abusive drunk. she got him into a seminary. he will have to look at the dancer and the devil for the whole story, but he went south bad. became a police informer. he killed his bolshevik comrades. he had birthday parties where they would stage the death of his closest friends, i mean imitate them how they had died. make fun of them as they died. it's very hard to have this as a guy you would really love. his daughter tells the story of his death when he was poisoned in 1953. we have learned only in later years through molotov's

biography and work by professor jonathan brent of yale that stalin was poisoned with warfare and. stomach poison that caused him to bleed out on his stomach. so as he died he suddenly became conscious and began waving his hands and screaming. his daughter says it was as if the angel of death was coming to collect him. i have >> if you would like to see photographs or other information is collected, i invite you to >> president biden in the first lady are in uvalde, texas, today, paying their respects to the victims of the mass shooting. they visited the memorial site at robb elementary school where 19 students and two teachers were killed on tuesday.