>> welcome. we begin with the attack that left 54 dead and many others injured. we start with mark urbin of the bbc. >> the police and intelligence are involved in a large-scale battle. there are very worrying signs not just in terms of the numbers of incidents many we're not seeing reported because they don't result in deaths but the numbers of incidents in violence and the possibility of extreme right-wing counterviolence. we know the arrest of a frenchman trying to buy weapons in the ukraine and was planning counterattacks on muslim. the whole picture in france is

very tense and combustible and the forces of law and order and the intelligence forces are struggling to keep a lid on it. >> and alexander marquardt of abc news. >> there's discussions of age and whether he was a french citizen. in the isis-inspired attacks in the past in paris and brussels you've seen them carried out by citizens of that country and often of north african origin in this case this 31-year-old man is from tunisia and nice in particular has been known as something of a jihadist hot bed. >> and john meacham's cover story on time magazine on donald

trump. >> he's unapologetically the most unqualified candidate so this is -- we've talked about this before using the word unprecedented tricky. he's pretty close to be unprecedented on all accounts. >> rose: we finish win john f. kennedy jr. and on his book on the murder michael skakel that did not commit. >> he was brought by toby bryant a cousin of the basketball star kobe bryant. his elder brother is an nba brother who played for the mavericks.

and he was a classmate of michael skakel for two years. >> rose: a look at the horrible story in nice. a conversation with john meacham and robert f. kennedy jr. when we continue. funding for charlie rose is provided by the following. >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: in france flags are at half staff where a french

into crowds celebrating bastille day and left a mile long of dead and wounded in his wake. >> let me begin with a question on many people's minds which is one, why is this happening and two what can be done about it? >> well, why is it happening clearly there's a type of radical islam which is inspiring attacks now. we know this has happened with the islamic state group and we know going back a couple year one of the key preachers in the al-qaeda group in yemen was trig to inspire individuals living in western countries in his words to take a car, a knife, anything and attack nonbelievers so we understand what inspiration in the broad sense. we don't know in the case of

mohamed lahouaiej-bouhlel whether there was contact with the islamic state group or al-qaeda and there was a plan to this thing or it was a general type of incitement call it what you will towards muderous violence from militant islamic preachers. for what can be done that's difficult looking back to the tragedy in paris where 130 people were killed this is a complex conspiracy involving if you talk about the support network anything up to a couple of dozen people. some of whom were already unlike the nice attacker, we believe, on the radar of the french and other european in intelligence services and even with all those factors they didn't detect that

before it was set into execution. so it is a difficult target but equally there is evidence of slips by the intelligence services in some european countries and concern there isn't still, if you like, there aren't still things being done to make the intelligence and counterterrorists picture better and more effective at heading people off. >> rose: maybe the event speaks to itself but do you know whether they have a particular piece of evidence that says this was an act of terrorism? >> i think while it's a very good question because we know that this man was a joint tunisian-french national. we know in many ways he fit the profile of militants who have been involved in the paris and brussels attack. he had a police record and had been involved in petty crime and

was not considered to be involved with militant islam. in that sense i think they're looking for the more precise clues. we know the islamic state group still hasn't claimed this. there hasn't been official response from their affiliated media outlets. i think there are open questions still about the degree to which they had real involvement in this or whether this was simply somebody for a combination of motivations, resentment of french authority and perhaps some religious motivation chose to this. >> rose: and the interesting thing to me too is that they do not -- our ci director here, john brennan has spoke to the issue, we're not being very successful in not only have the right intelligence but to be able to find a counternarrative that will prevent people from wanting to do what these people who have been engaged in these terrorists activities are doing. my question to you is this the

wave of the future where so-called lone wolfs are going out on their own without being directed other having the general sense we want you to go kill nonbelievers. >> it's a complex question and this is an emerging picture. i mean we don't know, for example that mohamed bouhlel went to syria to fight there where some key figures in the paris attacks in november and the people involved in brussels were people who were known to have gone and fought in syria. the more connections there are between individuals the more movement across frontiers the fewer the excuses in a way for not finding them and getting some kind of warning. what you really get a sense of in europe in the past year to 18 months certainly since the charlie hebdo attacks is work needs to be done to built up

local people who would have the contacts mosques and such if someone starts slowing an interest in interpretations of islam. can they tip somebody to wink and this doesn't seem to be there. in fact if you read into what's been going on in france in the past year or two there was a lot of concern about the disbanment of the regional police intelligence units and the ability to run informers at the local level to give warning. it's a complex picture. clearly the person who is networked in some way has been out to syria and part of the isil group, that sort of person should be easier to turn up than the so-called lone wolf. >> rose: there's also this question i'll conclude in france itself we have the prime minister saying we'll have to live with terrorism. we have the president saying the state of emergency will have to

be continued and declared three days of national mourning. give us a sense of what the impact is on the nation and the citizens. >> look, i spoke to a gentleman who is the french national intelligence coordinator a few months ago about the possibility of an attack during the euro 2016 soccer championships. he told me they had actual intelligence that such a thing was planned but they had to go with it in order to stand up for freedom and french values and not be intimidated and the attack didn't come but then happened during the bastille day. the french services and police feel they're involved now in a very large-scale battle. there are very worrying signs not just in terms of the number of instant many we're not seeing reported because they don't result in deaths but the number of incidents of violence taking place and the possibility of

extreme right-wing counterbalance. we know the arrested of a frenchman on charges of trig to buy weapons in ukraine a few weeks ago. he was allegedly planning counterattacks on muslims. so the whole picture in french society is very tense, very combustible and the forces of law and order and the security intelligence services are struggling i think to keep a lid on it. >> thank you so much for joining us. mark urban of the bbc. back in a moment. stay with us. also joining us from nice is abs news correspondent alex marquardt. thank you for doing this. tell me what we now know about the man who did this horrible act. >> we're learning a lot more about the attacker who for the time being appears to have carried out the attack single-handedly. he is mohamed lahouaiej-bouhlel

and a tunisian international and has been living here year and is a driver here and wasn't really known to authorities except for a conviction back in may for violence and got into an altercation with two other drivers and used wood as a weapon and that's the only interaction known win security forces. he certainly wasn't known to the intelligence services or known to have connections to extremists groups. as soon as the authorities had identified bouhlel they went to his apartment and carried out a raid there. they did not find any weapons or explosives. we understand they took away documents and a phone. they have also detained his wife but so far no more information about whether this plot could have gone beyond this young man or whether he just carried out himself as the a lone wolf. >> rose: and no one has taken credit?

>> no one has taken responsibility. the immediate assumption it's an isis attack or isis-inspired attack. after orlando isis was quick to claim credit but so far we have seen no claim of responsibility. >> there have been rumors and perhaps the rumors have been confirmed by now that he was having trouble at work and was having trouble in his marriage and he was an angry man. >> well, that's certainly something they'll be looking into. for now they're just rumors. what we do know is simply the concrete facts, his name, his age. there was some discussion early on whether he ways french citizen. in the past in these isis and isis-inspired attacks in paris and brussels you see them carried out commonly by northern

african origin this 31-year-old man is from tunisia. france has long ties with tunisia. there's a large french-tunisian population and it must be noted nice in particular has been known as something of a jihadist hotbed. they're believed to have sent 100 young men to fight in iraq and syria for isis. france sending hundreds of young men to fight for isis in iraq and syria and women to be isis wives. france leading the way with belgium in terms of the number of people who have been sent to the middle east to fight for isis. now, isis is feeling constrained. they are feeling they're losing territory. the u.s. said they lost 45% of their territory in iraq. 20% in syria so the thinking now is that isis is lashing out.

we have seen a spokesman for isis before the holy month of ramadan calling on supporters to carry on attacks around the world. we saw a huge explosion in baghdad a couple weeks ago. the attack against the istanbul airport in turkey and a siege iú believed to have been inspired by isis. so in this case that is going to be the main question is this young man a follower of isis, is he a supporter of isis, did he have contact with isis in the middle east. charlie. >> rose: on the night he did this with the large truck what were the accidents leading into that? by that i mean was he driving peacefully and all of a sudden sped up.

what do eyewitnesses say about describing the moment. >> this was no random date the 14th of july we know it as bastille day. it's the biggest hall here in france. the promenade englais was packed and this man rented a refrigerator truck and started several blocks that way and started this rampage driving from what we understand witnesses say in a zigzag fashion mowing people down. one person called it like a bowling ball crushing everything in its path and he was able to drive more than a mile, 1.2 miles all the way down there mowing people do before the police were able to shoot and kill him. >> rose: he rented a truck on july 11 in anticipation of

bastille day we assume. secondly he did at some point stop and fire on police. they then fired back and killed him i assume is what happened, yes? >> that's right. about halfway down here on the promenade there's a hotel negresco and fired on what we understand are three police officers who then returned fire. we caught a glimpse of the truck which has just been removed from the promenade. the windshield was full of bullet holes because we assume all the way down police officers had been firing on the cab and the windshield of the truck eventually able to kill him. there had been initial reports he had a lot of weapons and explosives and once authorities got access they found one small caliber pistol and two fake ak47s. it's not he had a real arsenal

between his truck and home. >> rose: i assume and you know many people in france french citizens must be asking why so many attacks against us. >> they are. this is the third biggest attack in france in the past year and a half starting with the charlie hebdo attacks last january and the isis attacks in november that left 130 people deed and now at least 84 people dead here. there are a number of reasons that this has become such a focal point for the attacks. foremost hundreds of french fighters who have gone to fight in iraq and syria. we can only assume some have come back home when the ring leader of the paris attacks in november spoke to someone who then spoke with the police, he claimed to have come from iraq and syria with 90 different people. then you have to look at the demographics of the country.

this is a country that has a large muslim population but many of those muslims feel disin franchised and aren't part of the french fabric of society so you have resentment and groups like isis and al-qaeda are able to prey on that resentment. france is a proudly secular country and that goes against the grain of everything isis stands for. we've seen the so-called burka ban banning women from banning the garment where you can only see their eyes. that also is going to anger groups like isis and al-qaeda. it's become a prime target. it's in the center of europe. europe a continent with very few borders. there's an agreement that allows people to cross between countries would showing any identification like crossing

between states in the united states. it's very easy and why we've seen a number of attacks both carried out by isis and inspired by isis over the past year and a half. >> rose: thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you for having me on. >> rose: we'll be right back. stay with us. >> this coming thursday donald trump will officially accept the nomination for the republican candidate of the united states. we have the cover story of time magazine and john joins me from nashville, tennessee. it's an interesting title, "gut check." what would it mean for the presidency and continuing in the piece and i want you to answer each question. what does a president need to

know to make america great again, number one. how does a candidate prepare to take up the virtually unimaginable burdens of the office, how do you prepare. number three, what kind of temperament is needed to lead the nation in the 21st century. tell me what you learned from donald trump on those important questions? >> he is unabashedly and unapo l unapologetically unprepared candidate in modern times. you mentioned this thursday, that would then first time a major party has nominated someone without significant governmental or military experience since wendell wilke76 year ago so using the word unprecedented is always tricky. trump is pretty close to be unprecedented on all accounts. usually when you have a

conversation like this about history, about preparation with someone who's about to be in the finals for the presidency you expect them to talk about how they're briefing, how many experts they're having in and how they're learning the issues inside and out. no. trump unabashedly believes he has good ideas but is fundamentally an intuitive players and he called nato obsolete back a few months ago and talking about the question of how much our allies were paying and i said well where did you get that? had you thought through nato before you commented on it and he said off-the-cuff. i'm an intuitive person. i don't read books about nato, you do, he said to me but i don't i just answer the question.

what you have here is arguably the starkest choice, leave a sight the merits of each candidate's views but hillary clinton is the most traditionally prepared candidate and donald trump is the least conventionally prepared candidate as i say in modern times. so if you're voting for trump you're voting for his gut and he doesn't mind that's the way the issue's framed. >> rose: when he said i wanted to talk tactics he said i have a number of advantages over somebody else even a traditional candidate. >> absolutely. he doesn't -- again he doesn't hide this at all. he believes his capacity to absorb coverage and dominate the conversation to be usually ahead in the polls though he's more even or down a little bit right now depending on the poll is how

he lives. one thing that struck me in talking to him is he's so much of this exact moment. whatever it is in the snowstorm of the information age he's so absorbed in what's happening right this second he takes almost no time to ask how the world came to be the way it is. i pressed him through the conversation and he said at one point not surprisingly he said i'm really, really very good at what i do. i go into a room and i get things other people can't whether it's a dealer zoning issue or whatever it was. he said i can do what other people can't and i interrupted him and asked why is that? he said i don't know why did babe ruth hit more home runs than anyone in the american league. babe ruth was once asked, this

is trump talking, saying babe ruth was asked how he hits and he said he just does and asked about a female golf and she was asked what do you think when you swing the club and she said she just swings at it. >> rose: how can the nation discern what trump knows and what trump might do. that seems to me a fundamental question of this election in terms of deciding someone it may be there's a better experience than government. it may be his experience is uniquely capable but we want to know how that experience will translate and you can't simply believe not having -- not having known and being president is enough.

>> i absolutely agree. before i did the piece i looked back at what presidents said about being press. harry truman dictated a lot of notes in his retirement and he said you never really know what a man is going to be like when he comes to a position of great responsibility whether it's running the country or running a farm. you just have to judge his views on present experiences, present events and if you judge trump by that it's not reassuring. you need to know the difference between hezbollah and other locations. >> and in areas in his kvrd confidence that maybe he was right did he negotiate or simply

high the highest dollar. >> right. so you need case studies, right. you need to understand the deals. he's selling himself as a deal maker. i said at one point what do you say to people who say you're a salesman who will just say anything to close the deal he said the country needs a salesman. that's the great risk here and i'm not being ferociously partisan but from a clinical, historical view a vote for trump is a risky proposition because we simply don't know the answers to the questions i posed and that you're asking. is it enough to be an intuitive person who can deal with information coming in and make a decision? i'd argue no because if you don't have some base of policy literacy. if you don't know history and what's worked and what hasn't then you can't assess the

validity of the advice and you can't subcontract the presidency even to the best advisors. >> rose: and every president has to sit and choose advisors one recommending yes and one recommending no. president obama is now covering on every question about syria people were on one side and people on the other side. >> exactly. and continuing with the presidents talking about what's it's like being president. ice eisenhower eisenhower talked about at the end of the day you have to make the decision alone. j.f.k. wrote an introduction to a book before the assassination where he said there's this idea the presidency's a lonely job and he wrote no one has more clamorous council than a president but in the end the decision is entirely the

president's. so if you don't have some basic foundation by which to assess what you're hearing then your handicapped in that job. >> rose: and intuition is part of an overall decision-making process. you can't simply base it on the past. you have to be able to absorb and you to have some sense of what an instinct is in terms of your own experience in terms of the experience of those advising you. and here's another interesting story historians come out against trump. why are they doing that? what is it they see about him that has called on them to come together and say donald trump is not the right person to be president? >> i believe that -- and i've seen several of those, ken

burns, david mccullough and others and they're views is given the presidents they've written about and studied and created brilliant documentaries about, trump lacks -- my interpretation is he lacks the fundamental knowledge and temperament to be president and to some extent the rhetoric of the trump candidacy which is that there are walls to be built, there are doors to be closed, there are tariffs to be imposed leads to a closed america when in fact history tells us we've always become stronger the wider we've opened our arms, the more we've enlarged the mainstream the more powerful we've become and if we're trig to perfect our union the right way to do that is by expanding the definition of what it means to be an american not narrowing it. >> rose: then there's the question of understanding

america and its values. what is it that all the presidents and the constitution and american belief is about? it is not about some of the things that he has said he has come out for, is it? i'm thinking about the ban on muslims and the freedom of religion and all that. >> that's right. my own view, again, is that we are stronger historically you look back the stronger the more engaged we are in the world and the more accepting we are of different peoples. we're one of the only nations on earth and certainly the most powerful nation on earth not objects of their love.

the common objects of their love. the common object of americans when we're at our best is we're all created equal and there should be equality of opportunity if not equality of outcome. if you look at the 1920s and protectionism and you look at closing the door on immigrants that exacerbated the situation that led to the crisis of the 1930s and ultimately the cataclysm and victory of the 1940s. there's a real pattern to beware repeating. >> rose: and you do get a sense that some people -- and these are trump supporters saying i'm willing to roll the dice. i'm willing to try something new because i'm that dissatisfied with what's been going on not just this year but for a number of year republican and democrat in american politics. >> the populist argument in what we've been talking about is if

credentialed expertise is so great why is the world the shape it's in right now and trump's argument implicitly is if experience is so wonderful why does i just dismatch with senators and tap into this? the other thing quickly is temperament is a hugely important thing here and trump says to me, he says i think i have a great temperament well, of course he would but we have to watch the bullying. you have to worry about the vi vindictiveness and you have to worry about presidents that throw out nicknames and have thin skin don't do as as well as presidents who -- all presidents have thin skin it's part of the

a ambient reality but how much you show that and the great question about trump and what is largely unknownable is how much of what he says does he really mean? as you know you talk to people who have known him for a long time and they're scratching their heads to some extent at some of the statements. that's the test. >> he is not the same in private conversation as he is but the temperament is different. >> it's different. >> because it's such a good piece i want to quote harry truman i don't think you go wrong quoting harry truman he said you can never tell what's going to happen to a man until he gets a place of responsibility. you can't tell in advance whether you're talking about a gentlemen in a military situation or the manager of a large firm, office or president. you have to pick the man you think is best on the basis of the past history and expressed

views on situations. it's a job you do not appreciate and do not understand in full or have any sense of what it's like. i mean, there was a quote from someone that's a friend of mine who said he had heard this from president obama that the president said i didn't realize how much killing a president has to do. >> right. and they almost all talk about it. president bush 41 told his diary here's a man who had been congressman and cia director, chairman of party, ambassador to the u.n. and vice president for eight year and after his first

briefing after the election about his responsibilities in a nuclear exchange he talks about how the starkness of the job was finally sinking in. he'd been vice president for eight years and suddenly he alone was being told about the amount of power he had and that's part of what's so important about the conversation i think and about character because i think the greeks had it right. character is destiny. ultimately we don't know what's going to happen. the person behind the desk, the person in the situation room is going to react based on that character to different situations and given the stakes it's the most important decision we collectively make and again i'm not reflexively saying donald trump is not qualified to be president but viewed historically this is an enormous

risk. >> and you have republicans taking that position whether it's people who have been in positions of leadership for the republican party. >> no it's not a minority position by any means. the other thing to maybe keep in mind also and to try to figure out in the coming months how well trump in his life learns on the job. the great example of this is the journey of john kennedy from the bay of pigs in april 1961 to the cuban missile crisis in october of 1962. one a disaster, one a great success. it was after the disaster in the spring of 1961 that kennedy quite bravely in many ways reached out to his predecessor

and invited him up to camp david and the question posed was did you have everyone in the room to hear the pluses then minuses and kennedy admitted he had not. so cut to 1962 when missiles go to cuba kennedy convenes one of the world's longest committee meeting 13 days so he always has those people in the room. there's a line between kennedy's willing to listen and learn and former senior president, eisenhower made that possible. he learned. one of the things i think we have to look carefully at trump about is what is his capacity to learn on the run. >> rose: there's also this, donald trump's favorite form of president is not david eisenhower it is ronald reagan and thinks of himself he has a bit of reagan in him.

>> he does. make america great again is a poster of reagan with that slogan. when he met with the great james baker recently he actually didn't ask baker about syria or proliferation he asked him what were ronald and nancy reagan really like which tells you something, right. so he sees himself as a citizen politician in the way president reagan was. think the analogy is strange because he thought out being a hemophiliac liberal to be the icon of the conservative movement and spent the eight year of governor and governed from the center when you look at his record, had run for president three times and got it in 1980.

so i think it's stretching it a good bit but republicans now everybody -- it used to be everyone wanted to be truman and now everyone want to be reagan. >> rose: it's a pleasure having you on the program. back in a moment. stay with us. robert kennedy jr. is here and is a journalist and co-hosts radio show ring of fire and argues his cousin was in correctly spend timing in prison for a murder he did not commit. i'm pleased to have robert kennedy jr. back at the table. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: so tell me -- your mother was a skakel. >> and one of the chapters in the book the early chapters is

entitled kennedys and skakels because michael was really convicted because mark furman, disgraced l.a. >> rose: involved in the o.j. simpson trial. >> was able to brand him as a kennedy cousin. he never thought of himself as a kennedy cousin and i didn't meet him until eight year after the murder. i never even heard of the murder or knew any of the skakels. >> rose: none of your mother's relatives ever said -- >> i never met them. the skakels were carbon republicans and very wealthy as kennedys and had made their money in coal and oil. they were extremely conservative republicans and they were

estrange from my family for that reason and strongly supported richard nixon in 1960 against my uncle and i have a story in the book my mother retained top shelf tickets for the inauguration for the family members. >> rose: president kennedy's inauguration in 1960. >> george skakel was the patriarch of the family and had a group of inebriated hobos and gave the tickets to them so they'd be sitting at the front of the inauguration. they were funny people the skakel. they had a sense of humor but they didn't like democrats and they were against my father in 1964 and his senate run with kenneth keating and when he ran

in 1968. my mother loved her family but she didn't have any contact with them and the skakels were friends of ronald reagan and they ran with the crowd that would have considered any kind of relationship with the kennedy family a social demotion. to brand michael skakel a cousin -- >> rose: it's a demotion. >> it was a contriving of mark furman but it stuck because it was to see seductive and there were reporters covering the story a mile wide and quarter inch deep. >> rose: what happened to martha moxley and what did you know about it at the time? >> i didn't know anything about it until eight year later.

>> rose: never heard about the murder or trial? >> the first time i heard about it was when tommy skakel his eldest brother came to our house in 1983 and somebody said he was a suspect in the murder case and that's the first i'd ever heard of it and what i do in the book is michael himself was never a suspect uetil mark furman made him a suspect after the crime. >> rose: what happened to martha moxley. >> she was killed by two men in new york city who were brought to greenwich by a boy name toby bryant. a cousin bof the basketball sta kobe bryant and his elder brother played for the mavericks and was a classmate of michael skakel and in 1975 he moved back to he city and his mother was an

oscar-winning producer. the first african-american woman to win oscar for a production and first african-american. she and -- when he went back to new york city and moved to a public high school in new york and made friends with these two young men who were big guys. they were a year older than their classmates one was african-american the other was caucasian. they were both 6'3", )@ capable of the crime. 42 he brought them to greenwich on several occasion as and one game obsessed with her and they planned the assault at a point and planned to go caveman on a girl in greenwich which according to tony knocked her

over the headway club and dragged her to the bushes and sexually assaulted her. when they got to greenwich they smoked pot and hid in the bushes and picked up golf clubs from the skakel property including tony. they planned their assault, tony got nervous and said good-bye 20 minutes before the killing and he left and took a train back to the city. that was on friday. on monday those boys told him they committed the murder and accomplished the caveman and they had murdered martha. another boy who is a friend of tony's from greenwich was a boy where an 11-year-old boy. the two killers stayed at his house and cleaned the blood -- >> rose: was the evidence presented? how do you know it was true? >> i wrote an article after michael was convicted that

shocked everybody and i wrote an article for the atlantic monthly in 2003 an award-winning article and on that show that laid out how michael couldn't have possibly committed the crime. he was 11 miles away with six eyewitnesses. >> rose: he was a friend of martha moxley. >> yes. >> >> rose: were they lovers? >> no, he was a virgin and she so was she. they had a romance that had begun that night. >> rose: his brother was with her that night. >> his brother was the last one to see her alive before the murder. after i wrote my article somebody sent me a letter saying the jury got it wrong. i know who really killed her and i followed up. >> rose: a letter to you? >> that path led me to tony bryant. >> rose: not from someone you

knew but just arrived? >> the kid who wrote it was a classmate of michael skakel as and tony bryant's and knew martha very well and tony bryant had told him about the murder. he told me about who really killed them. he said the skakel didn't do this it was the work of my friends. i called tony bryant after the murder. his trends told him about it and he told his mother. his mother was a very prominent woman said you are a black kid, greenwich is a notoriously racist police department if you talk about this you'll go to jail and keep your mouth shut and end your relationship with those two boys and he did those things. i said to him i'm john f. kennedy jr. i'm michael skakel's cousin. i want to talk to you about the moxley murder and there was a long pause and he said i've been

waiting for this phone call for 27 year and in the six phone calls that followed he laid out this detailed scenario -- >> rose: and you believed it? >> i did believe it but it's like reagan said, it hasn't been verified. so then i did an investigation. he didn't know the last names of these two kids and i was able to find those using a high school year book. charles evans high school and tracked one to bridgeport, connecticut. the other to portland, oregon and called them and talked to them and told me yes, they'd been there on the murder night and they knew all the people and they described the inside of the house where they had stayed that night which was jeffery burns house and knew it with intricate

detail. >> rose: so you knew all this and went to officials. >> and there were two hairs found on martha's body. one was african-american and no one had been able to explain the other was part caucasian and part either asian or american-indian and the other hair on her was described of asian characteristics. nothing linked michael's to the crime. >> rose: his conviction was overturned on 2013 on what grounds? >> an incompetent lawyer. he had the worse lawyer and in fact he went to jail after michael's conviction because he had taken the money he was supposed to spend on defending michael and spent it on himself and went to jail for tax fraud. >> rose: prosecutors said skakel was convicted on admission of

guilt three times. >> there were two confessions not three. one confession that was withdrawn by a woman who described herself as a part-time model and confessed she had made up the whole thing based on a national inquirer articles and had never met michael and there was no physical evidence against michael. there was no blood, fingerprints or dna. >> rose: but the confession is part of what convicted him. >> what i show in the book is i show how he was framed at the location in greenwich and offering $100,000 rewards if they would testify against michael and i have the transcript. it's the first time in the book of those private secret meetings

between the witnesses where the police officer is committing perjury. >> rose: and there's a person that claims the most likely killer was not your scenario but in fact michael skakel's older brother. >> he said that in the last hearing before the court and i believe -- i've not talked to him about why he said that and what he said i don't agree with. >> rose: it changes the theory of the case. >> it's not really a theory. the evidence -- first of all the evidence against tommy skakel did not commit this crime and that was a key part of the trial where the prosecutor said it would have been impossible for tommy skakel to have committed the crime. he also had an air-tight alab

and there was a connection with the other suspect kenny littleton that testified tommy was in the same clothes they'd eaten dinner in and not roughed up in the bit and he was a 17-year-old boy and couldn't have washed his clothes, hidden the body and washed his clothe and appeared in the tv room and sat there calmly for an hour watching tv. nobody believes this. >> rose: why is he saying this? >> i think for tactical reasons.

>> rose: he want people to think it's somebody other than michael because michael skakel new knew her. >> he was a suspect but michael skakel was never a suspect. kenny littleton was the tutor. tommy skakel was the suspect because he was the last person to see her alive but there's no evidence he did this. >> rose: what's happened to michael skakel? >> michael was released two and a half years ago. he's living in bedford, new york with an elderly aunt who he cares for. he wears a gps bracelet. the state has appealed his release. it's now about a six-judge panel in the supreme court of the state of connecticut. if the court reversed the lower

court decision he'll go back to jail and serve his 25 to years sentence and if the court upholds it they'll have to decide to reprosecute skakel or the people who did the crime. >> rose: when will they make that decision? >> they won't make it until after the supreme court makes its determination of whether or not the lower court was correct. >> rose: great it see you. robert kennedy jr. thank you for joining us. see you next time. for more about the program and early episodes visit online at pps.org and charlierose.com.

captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

larriva: it's like holy mother of comfort food.ion. woman: throw it down. it's noodle crack. patel: you have to be ready for the heart attack on a platter. crowell: okay, i'm the bacon guy. man: oh, i just did a jig every time i dipped into it. man #2: it just completely blew my mind. woman: it felt like i had a mouthful of raw vegetables and dry dough. sbrocco: oh, please. i want the dessert first! [ laughs ] i told him he had to wait.