>> garrett: welcome back to "face the nation." i'm major garrett filling in for bob schieffer. we turn to the news from overseas. to talk about year when isis became household name. north korea threaten add the least one of our holiday movies i'm joined by robin wright, and woodrow wilson center and david rohde for woods. great to have you with us. >> great to be with you. >> garrett: give me sense both of us, start with you robin where is the battle against

isis, where is it going and what to make of reports that isis can't do anything to meet the needs of those it intends to. >> isis made huge freethrow then been contained. the problem is we can't either iraqis, united states or syrian rebels break through the territory they hold. i was there a few weeks ago the united states has launched about 350 airstrikes yet isis still controls part of very small town. meanwhile the largest town in syria is under threat and we could lose that but bigger stakes are inside syria. that is where the next year will probably focus. >> garrett: where is this heading? >> we have story coming out tomorrow about iraq fracturing. a similar problem that robin was talking about the ground forces in iraq, army not coming back together quickly. there is huge divisions and real

fear that this country will not come back together again even with the small american effort that's going on. the airstrikes help, advisors help but the differences are not fading. >> garrett: iran is a significant player in all of our geopolitical conversations against isis, we don't acknowledge it they're there. we're also working on nuclear arms agreement. what are the prospects with that and how do you think iran will factor in to all of the foreign policy conversation in the new year? >> first time in 35 years iran and united states are on the same page at the same time. both countries really do want to deal. the question whether the conservative ayatollah in iran could buy in to a deal with the united states. i think it is possible, is it probable, hard to tell. it is clear that the united states and iran also share lot of interests in the middle east today. particularly in iraq. where they both are concerned

about the spread of isis. and in broader way disintegration of the borders defined century ago. will the middle east implode. it's not just the threat of isis, it's the threat that the conflict will have rippling repercussion across the middle east affect everything from demographics of the country to the price of oil. and affect whole region for not just years to come but decades. >> garrett: if there is no agreement but continuation of the status quo that is not a bad deal. how do you view it? >> there's big question mark about it. the question is, how is congress going to view it and how will israel view it. critical elections coming up. if israelis start lobbying against the deal that is going to be a problem. new sanction, enacted by u.s. congress that sort of makes it harder for iranians. they don't want to lose face. this is a huge issue for the obama administration in 2015 if they can get this iran deal or

not f. they fail it's a dangerous situation iran helped push rebels there to take large parts of yes ma'am then is unstable. they have got very large influence in lebanon, i talked to senior state department official they said iranians are positioned to create havoc in many places including u.s. forces in iraq. watch this spring whether it will happen. it's huge issue. >> garrett: news fruit basket with kim jung un, how does this all figure as the president described, vandalism on the cybersecurity front or something that tells us something more about new frontier of warfare that we're all going to have to get better, familiarized with and more capable in defending. >> cyber-terrorism cyber-attacks are a big issue. in many ways movie was just tiny microcosm of the broader challenge. the costs to sony will be

greater for the arrangements than it will in terms of the future of the interview. it is interesting that "the interview" not only movie that is being criticized as creating a problem. "exodus" now been banned in morocco and egypt. pakistan is in fewer or over showtime sear homeland because it depicts pakistan as a hell whole. whole american culture that is out there in more amorphous way. >> something david knows well i want to get to pakistan going to be a part of our conversation in 2015 in ways we may not be familiar with. i'll let you use that. >> what frightened everyone this american-run school over hundred children killed. pakistan's army is playing double game, let's be honest we did this in the '80s we used

jihaddists to attacks soviet troops. 9/11 showed us you can't control those jihaddists, pakistan's army continued that policy. increasing signs that they can't control these jihaddists they couldn't protect the school with children in it for the first time i had former senior administration official say they're worried about pakistan's nuclear weapons. that is the army can't control school children, are these weapons secure? we've talked about that scenario for years but things are not going women in pakistan, jihaddist, i getting stronger and stronger. >> garrett: david rohde investigative reporter robin wright, foreign policy experts real estate cross the continuum. very happy new year. we'll be right back with bob schieffer's interview with the author of laura hillenbrand. thank you very much. e can last 12 hours. and aleve is proven to work better on pain than tylenol arthritis. so why am i still thinking about this?

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written this amazing story about louis zamperini and how he over came the odds, but to me your story battling this disease that you have and then being able to write this story is, to me, is as compelling austerer as his story is. i understand more than a million americans have this disease but it is so mysterious, tell me about it. >> the formerly called chronic fatigue syndrome. now known as miauling encephalitis, it causes profound exhaustion. exhaustion in the lines of you can end up completely bed ridden. you you can have trouble speaking you're so tired. also causes lot of other symptoms problem with your balance, sensitivity to light night sweats, chills, fevers, all sorts of things.

it's a devastating disease. >> schieffer: it has cost to you have to work in a very different way. >> yeah. >> schieffer: tell me a little about that. >> well, in the years in which i've been exhausted it's been something where i've had to drag myself to my computer or to my telephone to do interviews. it just takes great deal out of me to do the work. my principle problem these days is vertigo is balance disorder. that makes reading and writing extremely difficult. i have to kind of work around the room spinning and tipping and i have to work in small increments of time i would get more and more dizzy as i work. it's very difficult to work. >> schieffer: do you almost never leave the house? >> much more now than i used to. while i was working on the book i was a lot sicker. there was a span of time of two years i was unable to leave the house a single time, i wasn't strong enough to walk to the car to get out of the house.

i was in it. brought did i keep working. i worked every way one way or another to get it done. >> schieffer: what i find so interesting about this, the way your work habits had to change because of this disease i love the way you found the story and first came to know about louis zamperini. how did that happen? >> i was working on my first book which is "race towards seabiscuit" i go through the newspapers, i want to immersion myself in the history and time. i was looking at an article on seabiscuit, i believe 1938 newspaper. directly on the other side of the page was an article on this running phenomenon named louis zamperini, i read that, i was fascinated by him. i wrote his name down. later while i was working out

about that i saw the story on war story. i said i got to look this guy up when i'm done. when i was finished with the book i wrote him a letter, he wrote me back. we had a phone call, he told me his whole story i have to write this book. >> schieffer: i think it also underlines great thing about newspapers. if you are looking for something online you go directly to that until you find it. when you are reading a newspaper you find all these other stories that you weren't particularly looking for. and in this case look what that did for you. >> if you look something up online it's like you're wearing blinkers. if you look it up in old newspaper you have peripheral vision all of a sudden seeing things that you wouldn't have come across. i love to look at the house ads and advertisements for hats on 5th avenue you start to learn the time. and you can stumble on a book subject in my case.

>> schieffer: in this case, how did you go about doing this? you can't go interview people. you never met louis until after the book was finished. >> i made lots and lots of phone calls. and did whole lot of interviews on the telephone. all my interviews with louis many of them, probably hundreds of hours were all on the phone. and it actually in way was advantage. i wasn't looking at a 90-year-old man telling me the story about the 18-year-old runner. i was looking at the 18-year-old runner. whatever he was telling me about i was able to put myself there. in my imagination because he wasn't right in front of me. and i think it enabled me toe visualize the story better and to ask better questions. because when i really felt like i was on the journey with him i could think about the details that he experienced i could ask him.

i don't know that i would have done that if we would have been sitting in the same room. >> schieffer: how did he react to all this? >> he had a lot of fun. he was a very social man. he and i clicked right away. he became my surrogate grandfather right away. he enjoyed really exploring his story, i think maybe the funnest part of it for him was i'm kind of fanatic for research. i would talk to him then go off to corroborate everything he told me. and to find out new things, interview new people. find out things about his story that he didn't know. this was thrilling for him because many decades earlier and these things would fascinate him. one of the things that he enjoyed the most is when he was out on a raft he went through this terrible storm the night before he was captured by the japanese. and he didn't know what kind of storm it was. it was just a bad storm to him. i went through all these old newspapers trying to find

evidence of this storm i wanted to corroborate every fact that he gave me. there weren't weather records the way they are today. but i found in the newspaper mention of a huge typhoon that hit the coast of china. i called a couple of weather experts who talked to me about the paths of typhoons in that part of the world by the day it hit china it would have meant that it it right over the place louis was. i was able to come up say you know what, you went through a huge typhoon that wasn't just a thunderstorm. that threw him. >> schieffer: do you think you could have written this book had you not gone through your own challenges? >> i would have written this book, but i think it was actually better for my having gone through what i had gone through. i have been in very, very dark places in my life. largely because of this disease. it has given me an understanding of suffering that i think you

could only get firsthand. and louis and i talked about what i had been through he read an article that i wrote for "the new yorker" about what i had gone through, he understood that i knew what he was talking about, when he was talking about really suffering i knew something about what that felt like. i think it enabled him to open up. >> schieffer: i think that your style of writing which i very much admire is that you don't let the quote writing, stand in the way of telling the story. >> i think it's important for the writer to get out of the way of the story. that you are trying to communicate the story, you are not trying to show yourself off. and if you have really succeeded you are envisionible to your reader they're just seeing the story in front of them. it's clarity that matters. when i'm working, i like to read my sentences aloud to myself to see if the rhythm right if i'm

conveying the story well. that i think is the truest test of the language. >> schieffer: tell me about louis when you finally met him what was that like, where was that? >> in 2011 after i put the book out he came to the east coast and he came to see me finally. we had never met in all those years. it was so wonderful to meet him. one of the best experiences of my life. it was fantastic watch him get out of the car and come over to me. you have certain idea of what a 90-something man is going to move like. he came speeding up my hill and was moving like a young man threw his arms around me. first thing i did was take his hand and look at it closely because i wanted to see the scars on it. he had a scar on his finger from where his ring got caught in the wreckage of the green horn net as it was dragging him under the ocean. he had a series of other scars from the albatross that he

killed on the raft that pecked at his hand. scars were still there when i helena man's hand looked at that, i was looking at the last marks of the green hornet and evidence of the story this man really lived this. that was -- it was moving to me. it was extraordinary. when we parted, i knew i wasn't go together see him again. i think he knew that, too i walked him to his car he put his arms around me he said "laura i know why i've lived this long and it's to see you write this book" and i feel that my life has come to its crescendo. i was fighting back tears as i said goodbye walked back to my front porch and cried for awhile. >> schieffer: have you seen the movie? >> yes, i have. >> what do you think? >> the actor does extraordinary job of capturing louis. this was really on the screen. it was him in all of his

soulfulness all of his defines. o'connell is electrifying. he has this elaborate to him that is exactly what louis was. i thought angelina did a magical job in conveying this story on the screen. it was very satisfying for me. >> schieffer: you haven't written much in the last four years. your book has been on the best seller list for four years now coming out in paperback here it is back at the top of the list again. you have another project in mind? >> i do. it's actually another story that i found in a newspaper while working on louis' story. something i stumbled across by accident. i'm not telling people what it is. but it is another story from early in the 20th century it was at the time the biggest story in the world but it is completely forgotten. it's fantastic. >> schieffer: well, i hope you have very happy holiday. >> thank you. >> schieffer: congratulations. >> thank you so much.

>> garrett: bob will be back next week. but before we go we want to take a final look back at 60 years of news here on "face the nation." and here again is bob schieffer. >> schieffer: "face the nation" is actually changed very little over the years. >> "face the nation."

>> schieffer: finding key players on big story of the week sitting them down and asking them questions. >> a committee examined my finances for 18 months, they find no evidence of wrongdoing. >> through the eyes of cbs news film cameras located inside these walls of the kremlin. >> i can say that your grandchildren in america will live under socialism. >> schieffer: you are about to see fidel castro. >> i will never be against -- >> schieffer: "face the nation" like much of the media was late to the civil rights story. >> forces of darkness are much more active and conscientious than determined. >> schieffer: it's a conversation we are still having. >> almost unreal, unbelievable dr. king there was that 150 years as emancipation proclamation. 50 years to make the speech on the steps. look what you have done.

in the process of becoming real. >> schieffer: covered the vietnam war from the very beginning. >> the vietnamese minister of defense said that american combat troops would be necessary in the near future. do you think that is a real possibility? >> , no i really do not. >> at the height of the war more than 500,000 american troops would be deployed to vietnam. years later we were still questioning why. >> lessons are many. primarily we must understand limitations as well as capability of u.s. military power. >> i'm wondering how -- you say you won the war if you -- >> no. mr. nixon said we won the war. >> you don't agree with that? >> we achieved -- today two charming ladies, big news that women were actually going to be questioned on television.

>> i think quite simple that israel acted in self defense. >> lesley stahl was the first woman to moderate "face the nation." and may well have been the single toughest questioner of all of us. >> you didn't really answer the question. well why? >> in a hundred different ways still get the same answer. >> schieffer: it was the event that no one thought could ever happen. an attack on the homeland. >> that you don't know what you've gotten yourself in to. >> 9/11 would lead to two of the longest wars in our history afghanistan and iraq. "face the nation" has never more primed than during campaign. >> the newest of the democratic candidates for president. governor, thank you. >> speaking of flexible. governor romney is pretty

flexible guy in his poe glick are those real bodies do you think? have you ever seen newt gingrich without his shirt. >> whatever the president says is news. >> any president in my position try to use patronage or -- had just about as much luck as the wax cat trying to go across hot places. >> schieffer: i want to get back to foreign policy but also want to ask you about what happened on tuesday. i don't know what instrument it will be delivered on 60 years from now but i believe there will still be a "face the nation." and the reason why is you cannot have the kind of democracy that we have unless citizens have access to independently gathered information.

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