and the first news conference with the new prime minister of japan. and following that another chance to see former president jimmy carter discussing racism and politics. ... >> neil sheehan, it was 21 years

ago that you started this network on its trek look at books every sunday night at 8:00 p.m. and 11 pm. i want to show you a moment from 21 years ago. >> what you want to do? >> i do not really know. , to help promote the book because that is a necessity. what i like to do is to go back to vietnam to see what has happened and what about it. then, what i will do, i do not know. i might go back to daily journalism. i have stayed busy all of my life. what i have been taught is that if you want to work, you will find plenty to do. i am sure i will find something to do. you learn that you go from story to story. i will move on and do something else. >> that was your book 21 years

ago. the book i have in my hand is called "a fiery peace in a cold war: bernard schriever and the ultimate weapon." 21 years later, wanted to decide to spend your time on this subject? >> i decided i wanted to write another book rather than go back to newspapering. i did a short retrospective book on vietnam. then i had to find another topic. it's time to move on. someone ask why i don't do a book on the cold war. i wanted to do something with a narrative. i started researching in 1994. i was over at the air force association in arlington, right near washington. i was in their library and they

keep files on prominent air force figures. someone said that i should look up bernard schriever. i asked for the file and library and handed it to me and i opened it up -- i ask for the file and library and handed it to me and i opened it up. he was on a table with a bunch of missiles around him. i said that this guy looked interesting. when i got home, i asked some questions about him. he was well known within the air force but not outside. when i got home, i looked him up in the phone book and he turned out to be a box -- eight blocks from my house. i arranged for him to come over and talk. was the first of many interviews with him. i realized that this man had

stood at a pivotal point in the cold war. we look at the cold war as a long glacial period. there were changes. in the beginning, it was a very unstable business. we could have gone into nuclear war with the soviets. i realized after talking to this man that he had stood at the center of that pivotal. -- at that pivotal time. he had saved us from what could have been a nuclear war and you and i, but for him and those who worked with him, we may not be sitting here. we might well be irradiated dust. i have in my hand the new version of your other book. this is about 800 pages long.

do you remember how many original copies sold? >> the hardcover sold about 165,000 copies. paperback, i do not know, a lot more. >> in our interview, for those who were with us 21 years ago, we sat down in a studio across the hallway for 2.5 hours and ran 530 minute programs over five nights -- and ran five 30 minute programs. we did not started until the beginning of 1989. -- started until the beginning of 1989. -- start it until the beginning of 1989. let's look at what you said about him. >> i realized that if i wrote a book about this extraordinary man, i could tell the story of the war through him. he was such a compelling figure.

he summed up the american adventure, there. there was this enormous drive and this analytical mind and this incredible energy, sleeping four hours a night. he had an extraordinary metabolism. all of these things that we admired in ourselves as a people. he had devoted himself to vietnam and he had died there. if i wrote a story about him, i could also write a history of the war. i was trapped and it was too early to go back. >> 15 years you spent on the book. how much time have you spent on this book? >> it probably about 14 years. >> did he turn out to be what

john paul vann was? >> there was a time where we got the bomb and we fell into this time of hostilities with the soviet union the. they acquired their bomb. it was an unstable time. we had this possession of the bombed by both sides and you needed stability. there was no stability because we were dependent on the aircraft under a figure dr. strange love. we were depending on the strategic air command. the soviets decided not to go down that road. they were going down the road of intercontinental ballistic

missiles. they were working their way toward building one. you only got 15 minutes morning of a missile in those years because of the limitation of radars. if they had acquired a flea icbms, they would have destroyed the credibility of the airplane as a deterrent and you would have had the time of instability which would have led to a nuclear war which would have destroyed the whole northern hemisphere you would have radioactive dust coming down every time it rained. so you had to bring stability to this time. trhe saw this. he saw what was happening.

we had to build our own fleet of missiles in order to create a nuclear stalemate which is what he did. they created a situation where neither country could pull off what was called a first strike against the other and escape destruction itself. eisenhower had lived in fear of a nuclear pearl harbor, which was a surprise attack by one of the soviets. it was called a first strike in nuclear strategy. by building our own set of weapons, we created this nuclear stalemate which neither company could pull off a first strike and you got stability. it lasted -- once this suntan,

he was a status quo type of wanted to enjoy the perks of power. he had a collection of foreign cars. these were men that were not interested in destroying their own country by attempting to destroy hours. these men saved us from the possibility of a nuclear war. they are genuine american heroes and he personified it. >> this is a 1955 and up to this day. you can correct me if my figures are wrong, but there are at least 5500 intercontinental ballistic missiles active today with all the armed forces. >> that is probably too large of

the no. 4 icbms but in total. you have 450 minuteman missiles which are intercommunal missiles on alert. the army has tactical missiles. >> all of that happened when you started this book? >> that is right. the general in command of strategic air command believed in the bomber. it was -- he had been the great bomber leader in world war two. i do not know if you ever saw a movie called "wall clock time." it is about the bombing of germany when these men were going into germany to bomb the

industries. he lost 40 bombers in the raid on the first raid in germany. the bombers got through. he believed in the bomber. he was opposed to the program. schriever knew this would destroy the idea of the aircraft. they had major opposition against this. >> , firepower is there on the tip of one of those icbms today? >> the minuteman has a -- has enough to destroy several cities. >> compared to hiroshima or nagasaki? >> a vastly more. two or 3 megatons. >> let me go back to benin schriever. he died in 2005 at 94 years old.

you did 52 interviews with this man. what words the environment and how long did you talk to him? >> we would meet -- he was in between marriages when i met him. he would meet at saturday -- on saturday mornings at his house that was before he went to lunch at his golf club. i would pick up where i left off the last time and that would take him through the story. he was a very thoughtful man. he wanted to make sure that you were the person to tell his story. at first, he was a bit standoffish with me, then he

decided i was the person to tell his story. >> call old was he when you first met him? >> he was in his 80s. he was in excellent health. he had all of his mental faculties fully intact. i asked him for his entire military record from the very beginning, from 1932 and all of his efficiency reports, good or bad. he did not have that. he needed to ask for it and he said he would get it for me. he withheld nothing. he told all the people to talk to me and to tell me the truth. and they lead to others. i was racing the grim repreaper and their lives were in the

twilight years. i had to work fast and hard. i did 120 interviews to get the interviews i needed to tell the story. i believe that in onriding history, i believe in catching that segment of history which is in men's minds. if you do not catch it while they are still alive, it is gone forever. >> the sidebar is the woman he married, joni james. issues still alive? >> she is still alive and she still lives in the home where they lived together. >> she was 20 years younger than he was. >> yes. they met down in palm beach. he was 87 when they married.

he was happy to have married her. he was a lucky guy. he never -- he joined the air corps when the planes were unsafe and flew through the crisis in snowstorms and hailstorms. he flew constantly in world war two and never had a crash. >> you were at the funeral. >> yes. but i am going to dip into the narrative and the to to explain a couple of things. you wrote --

both of those, the last statement from you, before that, explain that butyral and tell me one common problems felt was their -- one don runs fmsfeld ws there. >> the general shrechriever was a technological mind of the air force. he was a technological visionary, like the founder of the modern air force who was his first command officer. he was his disciple and his descendants. the air force was deeply grateful for this man for what he had accomplished.

the general jumper decided that he was not going to be buried as just a four-star general, he does want to be buried as a chief of staff, so they gave him all the honors that would have given a chief of staff. the flyover of the planes with the three aircraft with a space for the missing co-pilot. rumsfeld felt that he had to pay tribute, too. at the last minute, just before the ceremony ended, rumsfeld showed up from the wings. joni said that he look like an actor coming in from the wing. he said some words of condolence to him and then he disappeared. >> how well did you get to know

him from a personal standpoint? was it tough when he died? >> it was in a sense that he was 94 years old and he was declining and had been declining for several years. it was tough in a sense that i hated to see this man that i had befriended. he helped me -- he said to me during one of the reunions, they had a reunion every year. i want to everyone of them. he said to me at one of them that he wanted me to do this right. he said he will not be here when it is finished and he wanted me to do it right. i have enormous respect for him. he died in the fullness of life.

in that sense, one could not regret it because he had a really full life and a good life. he had accomplished what he had set out to accomplish. he helped me to tell the story through people. witches what i believe, writing history well and you have to be careful. you have to -- it is tough to do it that way. you have to make sure you do not distort the truth. by using him, he was my landensn this story. >> i want to talk about the vietnam thing. let's go back. we did a series on writers. when were down on the mall.

we talked for three hours about your book and his book. here is david. let's watch this. >> will there ever be coverage of any future endeavour like there was in vietnam? >> i do not think so because i do not think we will get into a long, grinding war like that. in the gulf war, it was high technology and you have four days of armored combat. in afghanistan, there are very elite units where you cannot send reporters camping out with them. part of it is the nature of the technology, laser-guided missiles and stuff like that. it is designed to control the reporting. you really cannot control the reporting of things not working. if it does not work, people will know.

>> david was killed in a hot automobile in california -- in an automobile in california. what was your reaction to that? >> it was devastating. he and i were partners in vietnam. he worked for "the new york times." we partnered up and we would would share an office in the front room of my apartment. he typed on one side of the dining room table and i typed on the other. we kept the french ship from 1963, on. we did not see each other as often as i blight. he lived in new york and i lived down here. we talked on the phone frequently. the phone would ring and i would hear david say, "how are you doing, old buddy?" it was a close friendship.

it was so sudden, his death in that automobile accident, and susan said that david was gone. she was horribly broken over it. i broke down. i could not help it. he meant so much. he was a wonderful journalist and a great guy. >> we have some video. >> we have been pals ever since we met. we worked together and i felt i was so lucky to have a younger brother that i had never had out there. to work with someone so fearless and so optimistic and so talented was one of the gifts of my life. >> did you see him much over the 10 years since we did that? >> yes.

we would talk on the phone. he came down for my daughter's wedding. he was the godfather of our older daughter. we kept up the relationship. >> you are still controversial, years later. if you are responsible for the pentagon papers being published in the newspaper. you still have this profile and people still get upset about what they think that you did to the whole vietnam war. what is your take on at all these years later? were you right? >> i think we were right. >> what does that mean, being right? >> we've told what was happening in vietnam. the command during those years were convinced they were winning the war. they believed the regime was respected by the population. it was a myth. it was a total meth. they were losing the war.

there were despised by the population. he was not respected by his own people and he would come down for a speech at the national assembly and you would see the civil servants lie down and go to sleep in the street. it was incredible. we would go out to the countryside and the advisers in the countryside anwould tell us that the war was lost. we would see it ourselves and go back to saigon and write the story. all hell would break loose from the military headquarters. i later discovered that these advisers in the field that were telling us the truth were also telling the truth to the general.

he just ignored them. he said that we have terrible problems here. bernard would not do that sort of thing. the reason he succeeded in a very difficult task was because he was willing to listen. he would always listen. he would tell his people -- he would not hold progress briefings. there was no retro briefing undermost army generals. it was always progress. bernard was the opposite. he would tell his people to give him the bad news. he could stand the bad news. he would not fire a 14 giving him bad news but he would fire them for not giving him the bad news.

you talked about your problems. his attitude was that you solve the problem, success will take care of itself. >> come to the statement you make in this book. why did you say that the george bush iraq war was doomed to a resignation in disgrace. why do you say that? >> because it has gone on for all these years without any resolution whatsoever. we have spent god knows how much money in the process and we have lost a helluva lot of lives. we killed a helluva lot of the rocky people for no good end. -- iraqi people for no good end. we have no idea of what will happen in the future except for

more chaos. if george bush had really been involved in the war in vietnam, which she wasn't. he escaped. cheney was differed. they were not involved in vietnam. if they had been, you might have known that you do not fight and unnecessary war. you do not fight a war of choice because want to fire the first shot, you do not know what will happen after that. -- once you fire the first shot, you do not know what will happen after that. the looting started in the museum in baghdad and this thing was out of control and these people did not know what they were doing. >> back to the two books.

was one or the other easier or more difficult to write? >> they were both very difficult for me. >> let me show you what you said. i will then ask you something about waters block back in our first interview. >> did you ever find yourself blocked when you were writing? >> knott blocked, but i would spend days battering away at a problem. it covers an enormous span of years and events and it is very telescoped in its writing. i would spend days -- i would spend a day and not finish what i had started out to do that day. i would not write the pages that i wanted to write that day because i had not solved the problem. i would not be able to sleep that night.

i might not solve the organization problem of putting those pages together until the end of the day and then i would go out and take a walk and come back and write down and out line and then i would sleep. >> can you apply any of that to this book? >> i was able to sleep this time. but i got a really exhausted in the process. it was the same problem. taking a vast amount of material on telescoping it into a narrative, which told the truth, but was moved fast, which in ordinary reader, not a specialist, would want to read. the amount of reading i had to do was enormous. then you pick up the nuggets.

it is like paying for gold -- panning for gold. the same thing was true -- i wrote a profile of the general, who was a great opponent of this program, and the profile was much too long. i spent a long time researching and writing it. i had to tell the same thing in nine pages, but you do not just cut. you have to say the same thing in nine pages that you set in 36 pages. all this took enormous amounts of time. i have been very lucky. my editor is a great editor. he helps you to shape a book.

he has a great sense of pace and a narrative. when you have gone off the track, he has a wonderful way to pull you back. he does not edit -- he is not a line editor. he will suggest changes in tone, but he makes you do it yourself. >> i am going to go to page 287 of your book. i do not know how much we can do but i will read back to you and stop periodically to ask questions about what we are reading to get a sense of your narrative this is chapter 46 let me briefly ask you what you call this "dazzling the monarch?" >> of the bureaucracy was built up so great that it was impossible to get the thing moving. he had to go to 42 different

people to get clearances for what he wanted. it was a hassle just to buy an air conditioning unit to protect the computers for this company that they hired for scientific expertise which became another entity. they had to get clearance of the type that the manhattan project had had. plus, they needed funding, which no one else could interfere with and only the president can give you that. >> let me read you this back to you.

>> retriever had been informed that it would take place on the 28 and this was most intensely after benny arrived from california. it had been decided that he would wrap up at the end. gardner, who was he? >> he was seized secretary of the air force for science and technology and was a visionary. bernard had recruited him. he was just a colonel on the list for brigadier. that is pretty low in the pecking order. he needed somebody higher to get

the thing going. gardner was another immigrant, like schiever. he had gone to cal tech and was an electrical engineer. he could see the possibilities of technology and bernard recruited him. >> you said that he was a german center -- citizen. >> bernard came here when he was 6 years old from germany. that was two months before we declared war on germany in world war one. trevor gardner was a boiler maker in south america. he came here when he was a young man and went through cal tech and got educated here.

there was also a brilliant mathematician with a mind that was second only to einstein. he developed the first electronic computer and develop stored programming for the computer. he came here as a refugee from nazism. he had enormous prestige from world war ii. he developed the explosive wrapper around the plutonium bomb. he played a critical part in building the atomic bomb in the manhattan project. bernard recruited him for the program. >> let me read ahead. they had been told by the national security staff that they were restricted to half an hour for the three presentations.

who was he? >> he was the head of the air force. he had been the deputy at the strategic air command. he was the guy that flew over tokyo during the famous firebombing. he was the deputy commander of the sac. he was a protege. he was not locked in. bernard had recruited him. >> you also mentioned charlie wilson. >> he was the secretary of defense and was opposed to the program. they have enormous obstacles to overcome. they had to increase their way into this briefing. they knew they had to get to see

the president. and they had to get the president to approve this to get the job done. you just do not call to president. -- call the president. they leaked classified reports to senator henry jackson. he held hearings at the atomic energy committee. they fed him information for these hearings. they were closed, secret hearings. then jackson and another senator wrote president eisenhower and said that you have to look into this thing. it is terribly important and you are not looking at it. eisenhower told the head of the department to schedule a

briefing, not knowing that these were the men that drafted the letter that jackson had signed. the head of the national security council, before the briefing when he is giving instructions on how they have to keep this thing to have fun our, told them that they were not to refer to this letter that had been sent to the president by scoop jackson. they were the guys that drafted the letter. >> this still goes on today? >> it was very shrewdly done. the briefing was on july 28 and eisenhower had some bureaucratic paperwork to go through. eisenhower signed off on on september 13 and then had a heart attack 10 days letter and was not able to hold a cabinet meeting to months.

>> the pentagon papers -- i remember when robert mcnamara was here, i asked if he had ever read the pentagon papers and he told me they were in his garage and he said he had never read them. >> that may be true. i think his conscience may have drawn him to read parts of it. he knew we were to publish it. >> yet you were -- you admitted to leaking those papers? >> belzberg -- dan salzberg copy the papers. > >> as i am reading this, i am

wondering who told you this stuff. >> this is another thing. then separate together a more -- prevents more -- vince moore had put together a a memoir which she let me have. >> never published? >> never published. it never will be published. it is well over 1000 pubs -- 1000 pages. >> did you read the whole thing? >> i read the whole thing. >> as a matter of fact, there is a quote. you said that he wrote this in his diary. "termites in the woodwork."

>> yes. they were restricted to half an hour and were not to mention the letter was sent to the president to pressure him. bernard realized that this man was not in favor of the program. his term for that was, "termites in the woodwork." >> , to the diary did he keep? what's his diary was very sporadic. it was a daily diary, but it was a working diaries. he would write down appointments and remarks. except when something big occurred. then he would write a memorandum as he did for this briefing, which she gave me. his memorandum and what vince

ford added to it is [unintelligible] >> is he alive? >> no, he is dead. >> and his job was? >> he was assistant to gardner but his job was really interesting. he was a behind-the-scenes man. >> how much were you able to talk to him? >> i interviewed him at great length. >> is all this on tape? >> yes, it is all on tape. it is on my computer, the transcripts of the interview. i am not online. i do not have e-mail. i have been warned by the computer gurus that if i did get it, sooner or later, i would get a book on the computer and lose the book. >> as long as we're talking about it i have my hands on these papers and we had some video on your collection.

where is this? >> i will eventually give these papers to the library as well. these are the papers that i gathered in the course of writing this book. my personal papers went over to the library to be put be with vann's papers. >> can the public see this? >> yes. does go to the library of congress. >> are there audio tapes? >> yes. 285 from the vietnam war. >> how many will you have for this book? >> i would say maybe 150. >> can people record them? but i do not know if they can record them. they will have to ask the

library that. but they will be available to listen to, just as my vietnam tapes are available. the library of congress does a wonderful job of preserving. there is wonderful security in the manuscript reading room. you have to agree to be searched. >> back to the narrative, you say -- [unintelligible] >> i do not know. the white house keeps changing, constantly. >> did to try to go in and see it? >> i did, but i was told that no one really understood if it still existed. it is still there, it is in

another room. >> you say it was often used for breeding sows -iefings -- why did she put that in there? >> he was the monarchs. after world war two, after roosevelt, who was a towering figure, the american presidency acquired enormous prestige. until the war in vietnam changed matters and kept things the other way. the president was -- the presidency was far outweighed any influence. the president was treated as a monarchs. .

john f. kennedy did a real atmosphere. eisenhower had also. he really was the markemonarch. he said they had not waited long and then eisenhower was walking down the corridor and seemed angry about something. whatever it was concerned secretary wilson. secretary wilson used to run general motors? >> yes. >> the two men and swept past -- swept -- the two men swept past. what happened? >> the president sat down and nodded to the head of the in a

nac. he gave a brief introduction and the first guy to get up was gardner. gardner scared the bejesus out of everybody in the room. at your talking about the whole of the government establishment. the joint chiefs of staff and other members of the joint chiefs, the cabinet secretaries, and he proceeded to tell them just how dangerous the situation this was. the soviets were in the process of building these things. we were not doing it seriously because of the impediments to it and it was 15 minutes to doomsday. that is the only warning you got. he passed to someone else that scared the living but jesus of these people -- the living the jesubejesus out of everyone.

they wrapped it up and said what was needed to correct this very dangerous situation. >> you have one line that i want to read. >> it was a tragic thing. he is not well remembered now. he died at the age of 53. he had testicular cancer and they just discovered -- they had not yet discovered it just before the briefing. they discovered a month later. he died 19 months later at walter reed. >> there is a lot more that we are not going to be getting to because of the long narrative,

but what did the president say after this briefing and how long did the briefing go? >> the briefing last about an hour and a half. van norman ran way over his time. they could see from the beginning that they have the attention of the president and the audience. then bernard got up to give the final briefing and they had in 8 minute film of rocket launch testing in california where they were testing the first engines. these fiery things would be lashed down on a concrete stands and that would test fire them. they had a eight minute film to show the president if he wanted to see it. bernard knew how much they were running over their time, so he started his briefing. it was very impressive.

with the uniform and striking good looks, he started his breathing and then he stopped. he said, "mr. president, we have a eight minute film that we would like to show you if you would wish to see it." eisenhower nodded as if to say you have all the time you want. ford noticed that eisenhower had moved forward and he was sitting on the edge of his chair. he was no longer sitting back in the easy chair, he was on the edge of it, sitting like this as bernard was briefing him on what they needed to do to get this thing working. >> you said that eisenhower got up to the podium and said that this has been most impressive.

was that an accurate statement? >> it is a bit broad, but it is true in the sense that it kept the peace. >> on the next page, you bring in the vice president of the united states, richard nixon, and what you " is him saying, " why haven't we started this sooner. what has been the hold up? the reason i bring it up, five years later, in 1960, missile gap was a charge of the kennedy canada to the eisenhower

administration. fill us in on that one. >> there was a missile gap. the gap was on the soviet side. they had surpassed the soviets in the race to build icbm and to create a nuclear stalemate, but politics being what it was, and remember we just had the u2, we did not have spy satellites. there was no missile gap. they did not have a usable force of icbms. eisenhower did not want to admit what he was getting from the u2. he helping close to his chest -- he held up paying as close to his chest.

-- he held things close to his chest. this country had been filled with fear mongers, beginning with that erroneous long telegram of kennedy's. then make snixon's announcement that the russians were coming. they are stronger than we are. they will be in paris in the morning kind of business. kennedy was taking advantage of this to charges that there was a missile gap. he was briefed on it, given a secret briefing and he stopped talking about it himself. he did not tell his other campaign supporters to stop talking about it. >> let me ask you, back then,

you talked a lot about thompson and will rid others. it did they end up benefiting from building a missile? >> the scientific bernard realized that we did not have an aerospace industry in this country. we had an aircraft industry but not an aerospace industry. the aircraft companies were not capable of providing the expertise needed to overcome the technological problems. they had to create an aerospace industry. they had to get the expertise to do it. he was a product of caltech and then started his own company after building the first air-to-

air missile for the air force at hughes aircraft. they spotted him and realized that he not only had the expertise to overcome these technological obstacles, but he would gather the talent was necessary to do it. -- that was necessary to do it. he would get high class talha recruited. high-technology talent. bthe reputation that they built was the basis for trw. >> 21 years ago, you sent us on this mission in this time slot. i want to show the audience what you said 21 years ago about the

impact of the book that you wrote on your family. let's watch this. >> the book was a very difficult time for the family for all those years. although, actually, it made us closer as a family. >> to kids? >> to kids, two daughters. i think the kids are happy with what happened. daddies' book is finally done. >> how old are they? >> our youngest is 19 and through most of her life, it was daddies' book. daddies' book was finally done. >> those spotters are called? >> what is 42 and the other is 39. >> where are they? >> what is a special assistant to the general counsel of the

fbi. she is married and has given us one grandson and is pregnant with another boy. the other daughter has been disabled after cervical surgery on her neck. she is active in that she is able to drive the move around, but she cannot work anymore. we have a very close relationship with both of them. >> your wife, susan? >> she is still writing. they have all been very patient with the book. >> we are out of time. this looks a lot like the last book that you wrote. "a fiery peace in a cold war: bernard schriever and the ultimate weapon." we thank you for joining us.

>> for a dvd copy of this program, called 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org q&a is also available as a cease ben podcast -- cs and podcast. -- c-span podcast. >> this is c-span, public affairs programming, courtesy of america's cable companies. up next, the japanese prime minister in his first news conference. then jimmy carter and his