graphic than what we've seen before, detailing cia detention and interrogation techniques. >> detainees were subjected to the more aggressive techniques immediately, stripped naked, diapered, physically struck and put in various painful stress positions for long periods of time. they were deprived of sleep for days. in one case, up to 180 hours. >> the committee says these techniques were ineffective but the two subcontractored psychologists who designed the techniques, they were paid $80 million by the federal government. the other big sticking point in this report claims the cia lied to congress about what they were doing. >> in all of these cases, other cia officers acknowledged internally, they acknowledged internally, that information the cia had provided was wrong. >> now, keep in mind, there were 17 congressional briefings for top intel committee members in

the three years after 9/11. those who were in charge say the committee never once bothered to interview them, any of these former spies have launched ciasavelives.com calling it a one-stop shopping place for the other side. the cia says, simply put, the study tells part of the story. the cia then goes on to address each of the 20 case studies. also missing from the study were interviews with the detainees who survived these techniques. regardless of where you stand on the motivation behind the report, the use of these techniques and who was responsible, our embassies and military bases around the persian gulf, mediterranean, remain on alert. >> i have ordered all of our combatant commanders to be on high alert everywhere in the world. we don't have any specific information or intelligence to show that there is anything out there that would lead us to do

anything beyond high alert right now. i'm satisfied that we were able to redact what we needed to redact. >> and we start with nbc's luke russert, who is on the hill. luke, if you would, run down some of these details for us. >> reporter: well, there are a lot here, krystal. as you mentioned, this is the culmination of a five-year report, 670 pages. in it a few things that jumped out to me, perhaps one number that is really striking, there were about 119 documented cases of enhanced interrogation techniques. at some point folks could be on their feet for up to 180 hours at times. you also have a number, krystal, 26 detainees, they believe in this report, were wrongly held due to what occurred. you see there, waterboarding, slammed into walls. we also learned about black sites in poland and thailand

where these sorts of things were going on. and i think perhaps what's most shocking is the degree to which, according to this report, the cia went to not only mislead policymakers but also the way in which certain operatives would try to mislead cia counsel. one specific moment where the senators object to these type of techniques and then the people who briefed them go back to cia counsel and say they had no problem with it, they were okay with it. so, there is a lot here to chew on. there's obviously heat political rhetoric on both sides, on the democratic side you're seeing harry reid, this is a culmination of what the bush administration had done so poorly for so many years. on the republican side, real outrage against -- essentially equating it to a witch hunt, saying it's on a false report. saxby chambliss and mitch mcconnell with a joint statement saying a lot is based upon things that just don't check

out. there were not key witnesses interviewed, that there was no accountability in terms of trying to change things the cia was factually -- the cia said was factually wrong within this report. so, a lot to chew on politically. i'll leave you with two things i found interesting. john mccain, himself a prisoner in vietnam war, going to the senate floor, which i truly believe will be the speech remembered after all this, talking about why this report was important, why it is a, quote, tough pill to swallow and what type of changes it will be mean for the future because he considered this a black stain on the american psyche. pushing back on what his colleagues had said today, saying the report is not holding up. the other thing that jumped out at me, jay rockefeller, a democrat, former chair of the senate intelligence committee, had some tough words for the obama administration, saying he was disappointed by how in the last few years of this report they deferred to the cia. and not, in my words, not his,

but effectively was hinting that they stonewalled congressional investigators at some point. kind of brings into question this whole idea of legislators, executives, we've been talking on a whole lot of issues but you see that relationship between executive branch and cia very, very close, even when there's a democratic president, too close for some in the senate here. >> luke russert, thank you for that. chief foreign correspondent richard engel. as luke just referenced, john mccain gave a very powerful, historic speech on the floor today. let's roll a bit of that. john mccain talking about why torture is ineffective. >> i know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. i know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. i know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it

will stop their suffering. most of all, i know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies. our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights which are protected by international conventions the united states not only joined, but for the most part, authored. >> to mccain's point, the report finds that torture did not produce useful intelligence. do you think that's accurate? >> well, the cia says that it's not accurate. i would not be in a position to know. i wasn't privy to the interrogations. but the way intelligence is gathered and the way intelligence is used, it's not always -- you interrogate a suspect, he tells us -- coughs up the name of, you know, of a bomb. maybe he gives you a tiny piece

of information that you use to validate another piece of information. and then you take another piece of the mosaic and eventually you get together and put a puzzle. so, was it totally valueless? it's hard to know. was it worth the compromising our moral position? probably not. and i think that's where -- what senator mccain said. after 9/11, and you have to remember the context of all of this, there was an atrocity and for many years the u.s. lost its way. and i think everyone can agree with that. and there was abuses not just by the cia. there was abu ghraib carried out by military police. there was a surveillance system that still plagues us to this day. it was started then. it was started because people at the time felt they didn't have information. and they were panicked. i know the intelligence community panicked. what's going on in this country? what's going on abroad? what do people know? dial it up.

and they dialed it up, big time. but this wasn't dialed up in a vacuum, and i think that's where the problem happens here. congress knew. the president knew. there were many briefings. >> but that's not -- >> it didn't happen -- >> but that's not -- that's not what the report says. what the report says, whether we agree with it or not, is not that everyone was fully briefed but that the briefings were full of lies. and so there is a question here, and it may be an interbranch question. it's certainly true that obama officials seem way more sympathetic to the intelligence community's version of it. but dianne feinstein is a hawk and she is widely respected by senate -- i mean, by intelligent sources. what she's saying is, yeah, we had these briefings. yeah the president talked about humane treatment and didn't know until the second term this was going on. and the cia hasn't really used evidence to rebutt that. >> the question is when they were briefed, what they knew, did they feel they were lied to, or are they trying to distance themselves from something? i don't know. and i don't know if i can know.

what happened in closed door briefings of the intelligence committee. did they feel they were given the full version of the truth? i've spoken to people who were involved in the program. they tell me, and believe sincerely, i think when they're telling me, that they were conveying this. that they were giving an accurate picture. and that the people, including the president and condi and many others and senior leaders, knew what was going on. and that they were acting, they thought, under the authority of the president. and that now they feel they are being publicly exposed and punished for something. whether they should be punished is a different question. whether this activity was immoral is a totally different question. and i think it probably was immoral. and i think there is no -- you don't get a lot of this. believing people standing up against the wall for seven days. if you read this report, there are horrific, disgusting, gut-churning details in this report. >> and i want to get to some of that, richard. stay with us. i want to bring in shane harris,

senior security correspondent at "the daily beast" and author of the book "at war" and david, author of "national insecurity: american leadership in an age of fear." shane on that point that richard was just talking about, i found the pushback from the cia very interesting because what they do want to talk about is this context of what the atmosphere was like after 9/11. they also want to talk about whether or not we actually got actionable intelligence from the techniques. but i don't see a lot of pushback on the actual specific, gruesome details that we get in this report. as an example, you know, "the wall street journal" published an op-ed from several former cia directors and the only pushback they have on those allegations to say there were another study to determine there were no prosecutable offenses committed. to me that seems weak. that's the part that i think is

most schoking to americans. one detainee in the report, the allegation is he froze to death because of the conditions he was kept in. as richard was mentioning, people forced to stand on broken legs. to me, are we seeing a lot of pushback on those specific, horrifying details here? >> no, you're not. and you're not going to. that was a strategic decision, i think, on the agency's part, to not try and defend the propriety or the morality of things like force-feeding people rectally, another thing we found out in the report today, which is pretty astonishing. what they've tried to do is especially to say, look, we gained valuable intelligence from detainees who were subjected to these techniques. would we have gained information from them using other techniques? we'll never know. so, they've tried to sort of form this very almost scientific kind of response. >> they said it's unknowable. >> it's interesting the democrats on the committee are also saying will is no particular way of knowing whether other techniques would have yielded this either. the cia wants to agree to

disagree on this and not try to defend any of the more repugnant techniques they used. >> but, david, you do have some key voices missing in this report. former heads of the cia and deputies during this period of time, say, they were never even contacted for this report. have you no torture victims interviewed as well. can you say that this is actually a thorough report when you have key voices that are absent? >> well, it's a 6,000-page report with a 500-page summary that took five or six years to prepare. seems pretty thorough to me. i'm more concerned with the fact that when these voices had the opportunity to be heard and stop what was going on, stop what was detailed by shane and by richard engel, they didn't do it. that's when those voices should have spoken up. this period, as described by senator mccain on the sfloor of the senate, is going to go down in history as one of the darkest in american history, because we set aside our values, we set aside international law, we set

aside constitutional values simply out of an overabundance of fear, out of an overabundance of paranoia about what might happen next. and nobody's denying that. nobody is denying that people were tortured. nobody is denying the horrific nature of the torture. there's a little debate about how effective it was. it wasn't as effective as we said it was. there's a little bit of debate about who said what. but all of that is extraneous. at the end of the day, we violated what america is about and this report is bringing that to the fore. and i think that's very, very important for the united states if it's going to heal from this really, really grim period in our recent history. >> i think that's well put. and i think one thing we forget in these conversations is people are not talking about the efficacy, then they're not talking about human rights and our rule of law. people should be ashamed if that's their approach. can you have a debate over whether chemical weapons or turning people by race is

effective, but you'd still be far afield of what we do as a nation, proud to be americans. i think that's why today is important. shane, i want to talk about this canard of authorization because it assumes what is disputed here. i don't think we can treat the senate report as only factual but it has a heck of a lot of footnotes and documents contemporaneous. the report notes the cia provided inaccurate information to the committee before 2006, when the blackside story went public in "the washington post." later briefings also contained inaccuracies, which were footnoted. doj said we're not doing independent investigator fiction, so they warned if the facts provided by the cia changed, the legal conclusion might not apply. shane, shouldn't we be dubious about folks who have a record of not giving the whole truth to the lawyers to get a sign-off and then pointed to that as a reason they knew they were all

good? >> yeah. and i think the report goes into great details about the way the members felt they weren't getting the full story. in hindsight, it's important to know we don't know if they're trying to distance themselves, but certainly these briefings don't sound like they were, you know, satisfactory for informing them completely of what was going on. we should remember, even to the extent if there were a list of techniques that may have been authorized, there's a whole other sort of activities including the force feeding, including contracting out some of these services to two individuals who were -- who had basically no experience whatsoever as interrogators. you know, one thing the cia does not dispute is that the program itself was very badly managed, when is a nice bureaucratic way of making it sound like it sort of went off the rail in a number of places. so to the extent members were being briefed maybe on various authorizations or the high points of it, it doesn't sound like they were really getting the full picture of what was going on at those sites we have now. >> absolutely. david o that mismanagement piece, what shane is referring to there is the fact that the

cia subcontracted this interrogation program out to a company run by two psychologists. they didn't have any specific training in interrogations. they didn't have any specific training in al qaeda. they made $80 million off of this contract. is this typical of the way that the cia operates? >> well, i don't know that it's typical of the way the cia operates. it's certainly typical of the way the united states operated in the first couple years after 9/11. when i did my book, i talked to condoleezza rice and she essentially said to me that for the first two or three years after 9/11, the administration was reacting. they didn't really have time to stop and take account of what was really going on. and you see that. you see that in bad decisions to go into iraq. you see that in the mismanagement of what happened once we did go into iraq. you see that in bad decisions with regard to the torture program, guantanamo, the management of our prisons and so forth. so, at the core of this, besides a breakdown of our values, you had a breakdown of management of

the united states government at the highest level. one side story that's come out of this report is that the president, president obama was not briefed on this for four years after this took place. well, that may have been the cia covering up, but it was also a breakdown of responsibility by the president to oversee a program that he authorized. he had a responsibility to know what was going on. and he decided not to push that as far as he should have, otherwise we, perhaps, would not have had these abuses. >> richard, david was saying earlier that this could go down as potentially the darkest period in our country's history. you now have the tactics that were used totally out there in the open, i think something on everyone's mind is, will there be backlash? you now have embassies on high alert. should we be concerned about any sort of retaliation to this? >> it's possible. there are many extremist groups who operate, and i'm just thinking big populous volatile countries, usually pakistan and egypt. they look for excuses like this.

they look for incidents that have public to -- as a rallying cry to organize some sort of protest. it's possible. i don't think it's going to fundamentally change people's opinions about what they think of the u.s. in a positive or negative way. >> surely these folks already knew what we're telling them now. >> the people who wanted to go out and, you know, set fire to an embassy in cairo wanted to do that yesterday, want to do it tomorrow. this just gives a reason to do something like that. but there is a -- there is an issue here. we're sitting back and looking saying, this was a dark period in our history. certainly this 9/11 era was. but the pa republican thisz hasn't been put on the end of it. while it's important to come out and recognize this horrible, sort of, violent culture that emerged, where you could really do anything to detainees abroad, that program is now coming to light-- criticizing it and talking about

it. we have a program right now called the drone programs. some drones are called signature strikes. signature strike means you don't need to know who the person is. before a drone attack comes and kills them. you just have to know how they behave. if you drive in a pickup truck in a part of pakistan where a lot of terrorists are known to operate, they see you from above, you look like a terrorist, you act like a terrorist, you can get hit. five years from now, two years from now, are we going to have another commission and take to task all the people who are operating the drone program now in the same way we're doing the commission now -- >> how are we taking them to task? people can get paper cuts from this thing but nine people who were court-martialed for abu ghraib. they're the only ones with skin in the game. >> clearly as you're pointing out, richard, important to keep self-reflecting and asking these questions -- >> so, if you know this is coming, do you to want address it now? >> we talk a lot about oversight for the drone program. i'm with you on the point.

i think the point is oversight, krystal, not backing off our obligations as a democracy. >> absolutely. richard engel, shane harris, david rothkopf, appreciate your voices. our coverage continues next with reaction on the hill. how do democrats respond to the claim they cherry-picked parts of this report? that's after the break. any minute now, president obama is set to push his immigration action in an unlikely location, but can you guess this report will make news there as well. it's all breaking news, all the time on this tuesday, december 9th. we're in "the cycle." i wish... please, please, please, please, please. [ male announcer ] the wish we wish above all...is health. so we quit selling cigarettes in our cvs pharmacies. expanded minuteclinic, for walk-in medical care. and created programs that encourage people to take their medications regularly. introducing cvs health. a new purpose. a new promise... to help all those wishes come true.

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we are waiting for the president to speak in nashville just hours after the release of that senate report on cia interrogations. we could see his first comments about that. we've already heard from the two parties with two very different takes on torture. let's bring in peter welch, who serbs on national security homeland defense and homeland relations, rather, andon stanton from buzzfeed. thank you for being here. congressman, off the top, what is your reaction to the report released today? >> well, two things. one, it's appalling. what we did was not acceptable and it didn't produce any actionable results as far as we can see. second, this really did a lot of damage to the intelligence gathering reputation of the cia. we need in this country a good intelligence agency. and what happened after 9/11 is that the cia really went wholesale into, in effect, their own warfaring plan. we should have the military

doing counterterrorism activities. essentially you had the cia taking on drone strikes, hiring psychologists to come up with ways to torture information out of people. in a way, undercut the hard work the cia is so good at doing gather human intelligence and giving the policymakers and decision-makers the information they need. what happened after 9/11 is we had an explosion in the budget at the cia, so you had unlimited money. and basically nonexistent oversight and it resulted in really undercutting of the quality of information we have and diverted resources from where they should have been applied. >> congressman, as you know, there are folks that are not happy about this report. many of them, cia officials or former officials, some of whom are not even a part of this investigation. john mclaughlin, who was on andrea mitchell earlier today. not happy about the report in general, saying this is basically cherry-picked for democrats to use. and that the cia has nothing to

hide here. what do you have to say to that? >> you know, the cia pushes back even at the prospect of doing what the 9/11 commission proposed. that is to have the top line budget numbers in the 16 intelligent agencies we have be public information. that's the beginning of oversight for congress. so, congress really has been awol here on doing the oversight role. and what i believe is that the congressional question here going forward is what is the role of the cia? should they be doing military activities? the drone strikes, the signature strikes, going after targets that they identify -- >> congressman, have i to interrupt you. we have to go to nashville where president obama is speaking about immigration. let's go there now. >> thank you, everybody. thank you! thank you so much. thank you. everybody, please have a seat. thank you very much. thank you. thank you. thank you so much.

everybody, please have a seat. have a seat. well, hello, nashville. well -- ole. thank you, ranada, for the wonderful introduction. i've brought some friends with me, who i think you may know. your congressman, jim cooper. as well as congressman steven cohen from memphis is here. i want to thank -- is your mayor still here? where did he go? there he is right there, doing a great job. and his wonderful daughter. we have to brag about her. she's a junior at barnhart. we decided just to embarrass her. when you're father of daughters, your job is to oem barembarrass. i'm trying to give an assist.

i want to thanks casa for hosting us and for being home to so many organizations that do important work, welcoming immigrants to the community. that's why i've come here today. i won't make a long speech because i want to have a dialogue, but i want to give some remarks at the top. as ranad mentioned, some people might think nashville was an odd place to talk about immigration. it's not what comes to mind when people think about gateways to america. but as all of you know, nashville's got one of the fastest growing immigrant populations in the country. new nashvillians from nepal, laos, mexico, bangladesh and nashville hapd happens to be the largest home of the kurdish community in the united states as well. they are us. they work as teachers in our

schools, doctors in our hospitals, police officers in our neighborhoods. they start small businesses at a faster rate than many native-born americans. they create jobs making the city more prosperous and a more innovative place. and, of course, they make the food better. you know, i know that tennessee barbecue's, pretty popular but korean barbecue is pretty good, too. the point is welcoming immigrants into your community benefits all of us. and, you know, i was talking to your mayor, carl dean, on the way over here. and he understands this. he's been a great partner when it comes to preparing immigrants to become citizens. >> we have been listening to president obama in nashville discussing immigration. this was his first chance to speak in public about that new cia senate torture report, but he did not speak to it there at

the top of that address. i want to bring back in john stanton from buzzfeed. we've seen a lot of discussion of this in the media, i think, incorrectly as some kind of partisan issue. but if john mccain's address this morning didn't put that to rest, i don't know what will. he's a hawk's hawk. he knows these issues -- >> ari, he has been against torture for quite some time. >> he has. which makes my point. he has been against tore fewer for quite some time. republicans have been. some have gotten around to a discussion about the senate report and whether releasing it is a good idea. john, it seems to me that that from the former republican nominee was significant and then "the new york times" reporting just this afternoon details from the report that show in-fighting within the cia, that this isn't about intelligence community versus everyone else. but real moral questions within the intelligence committee i was, including a high-ranking official, according to "the times," according to the report, which basically said this is a train wreck waiting to happen. i want off it. this doesn't work.

we shouldn't be doing it. john, what do you make of those facts that are in the innards of the report itself in contrast to this sort of partisan narrative? >> i think this issue is long broken. not so much on party lines as it has on sort of the notion of do you think that in the wake of a massive terrorist attack or some other kind of attack on the homeland it's appropriate to suspend sort of a lot of the moral guidelines that we've created as a society. you know, there are those, i think, that believe that, like senator mccain, obviously who is very, very strong liply against that, and then there are others that at a time of war you have to go out and do do things you wouldn't normally think are appropriate or right. >> war crimes. that's what we're talking about, war crimes under the geneva convention. >> but i think if they believe they were justified because of the circumstances at the time. that is the argument they're making. that's where this really is breaking down. now, i do think most republicans, at least publicly right now, are coming down

behind leadership and saying that this report is inappropriate, they don't believe it was -- includes a lot of the information it should have and they're worried it's going to endanger people operating in the field, particularly given the fact that everything that's in the report happened years ago and it's a program that's not really being used anymore. and i think that's -- that's where you do see some partisanship. but even there, most of the republicans that we've talked to have been -- they don't really to want get out there and talk about this issue one way or the other. it's making everyone fairly queasy on capitol hill. >> indeed anyone on capitol hill is queasy about this entire issue for many reasons. this is all about the cia, what the cia did. but they are not alone in this. leaders in congress, in both houses, were briefed 17 times from 200 2 to 2005. they knew and this report talks about the cia lying or not -- or concealing evidence to congress. but surely, a lot of folks on the hill knew what was going on. should they also be held responsible here?

>> i think so, yes. look, members -- a lot of of the members will say, we were sworn to secrecy, we weren't allowed to saying anything. the problem with that is they have a mechanism to say something. if they believed what they were told was egregious enough they could have gone to the howe house or senate floor and talked about it. they're given immunity if they're on the senate or house floor in almost anything. they could have gone out and raised the alarm bell. they could have done what senator wyden did during hearings on the wiretapping programs where he kept telegraphing there might be something there. we in the media didn't ever pick up on it. he was trying to make the point that there was something going on, i think. a lot of the members that are sort of saying, well, we're going to keep our hands clean from this, they were in charge, they were appropriating money, given updates, so if you're going to make someone culpable, everyone has to be. >> what joe biden, senator

feinstein and mccain and others are saying, we are-h to release this report to make sure we never go back to this dark place again. that no matter how our backs are up against the wall, no matter how scared we are, how fearful we are of potential attacks, that we don't go back and repeat these mistakes. do you think this report will have that sort of a long-lasting impact? >> i would be skeptical, frankly, of that. i think not as many members are around now as there were at 9/11. there's not as much institutional memory in washington anymore. it seems things get lost very, very quickly. people repeat a lot of the same kind of mistakes. people are still getting caught for basic campaign finance violations. the idea, that you know, they -- people are going to look at us -- another situation like this where the country's been attacked and there's a lot of pressure on them to do some things that are outside of the bounds of the law or morality, to me, is suspect, frankly. >> well said as always.

buzzfeed's john stanton. earlier, congressman peter welch, thank you. we continue to watch the president live in nashville at an immigration event. his first chance to comment on the cia torture report. he decided not to comment on that. tomorrow on "the cycle," "time's" person of the year. believe me, there are plenty to choose from. wellllll... ♪ ♪ earlyfit ♪ latefit ♪ risefit ♪ fallfit ♪ ballfit ♪ wallfit ♪ pingfit ♪ pongfit ♪ pingfit ♪ pongfit ♪ rowfit ♪ throwfit ♪ slowfit ♪ olliefit ♪ oopsfit

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war ii reminds us of the power of books. when world war ii started, u.s. published very few paperback books. it was clear the gis needed paperbacks. thus, 120 million armed services editions of over 1200 titles were sent to soldiers, including books like "the great bagatsby" until soldiers fell in love with it. soldiers clung to these books and they traded them with others no matter how worn out the books had become. one man said, to heave one in the garbage can is tantamount to striking your grandmother. in this book "when books go to war," who writes this is the story of pens that were as mighty as swords. welcome, molly. what a fantastic, interesting, captivating story you've

unearthed. talk about what the soldiers said about the impact these books had on them. >> depending on the book, some men just responded about how they made them laugh when there was nothing really funny about war, but then other books really touched their hearts like "a tree grows from brooklyn" which is a strange book to attract an audience of young men, but it reminded them of their own hometowns and ended up being something that gave them a sense of purpose in fighting the war. >> as toure was pointing out, the creation of these books had changed the form factor of what people were used to for books in general. >> that's right. before the war, in 1939, only 200,000 paperbacks were printed in the united states. but during the war, every major publishing company got involved in printing these miniature paperbacks. so the idea of printing paperbacks started to seem like something that would attract a whole new audience of readers. so by the end of the war, the

paperback industry was flourishing. by 1947, 95 million paperbacks were printed. >> you can see how portable -- i mean, gatsby is already a thin book but this little edition you can put in your pocket -- >> that's the whole thing right here. >> yeah. it doesn't add anything. it's beautiful. >> it's pretty cool. >> how did it help people use the gi bill? >> i think -- well, the average soldier during world war ii had an 11th grade education and he did not read books before the war. but by having access to millions of these miniature paperbacks during the war, i think many people discovered that they actually enjoyed reading books. and so when they had the opportunity to earn a free college education under the gi bill, they had proven to themselves already that they enjoyed something as scholarly as reading. and so, given the opportunity to get a free college education, i think many people felt that they could do it and actually succeed. >> and you look at where we are today. times have changed, technology

has surely changed the ways of communication have changed. still, they turn to reading. i look at the size of this book, if we can show it, it's so small. can you fit it anywhere. it's the size of like a nook or an e-book, which is what they're reading today. >> exactly. they're about the size of a smartphone almost. so just as people carry smartphones with them everywhere they go and pretty much any time you start feeling bored you might take it out of your pocket and start playing with it, that's what these books were during world war ii. they were an escape from the war and gave the men an entertainment -- >> amber forever" is one of the books on there. why was that a top seller? >> that was a top seller because it had sex scenes in it. so, basically most of the time the men were not around women for months on end, and so anything that maybe captured their interest on this -- >> all this was also transformative for the authors,

right? you talk about "great gatsby" was not well known, was not considered a classic until they got their hands on it. some of the authors received letters from soldiers, communicating with them. folks said they would rather be in the armed services edition than in the book of the month club. >> that's true. betty smith received over 10,000 letters from servicemen because the book "a tree grows in brooklyn" touched them so such a degree. >> such an incredible story. straight ahead, breaking weather news. a monster nor'easter dropping record amounts of rain and snow up and down the east coast. this, people, is the grinch of storms.

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and better money habits and the partnership we're doing with bank of america is to give people the tools they need to empower themselves. you're in the storm cycle. what a mess of a day. we're looking at major airport delays from philadelphia up to boston for this afternoon. and it's probably going to linger into the evening. here's a look at the nor'easter dumping massive amounts of rain going right up i-95. new york, 2 1/2 inches of rain so far. boston, over an inch and a half. providence coming in at 1.72. we still have more to go over the next 48 hours as this nor'easter continues to move up the coast. another part of this is not just the heavy rain, it is the strong winds. we are looking at very strong winds. b belmar, wind gusts of 30. 40-mile-an-hour wind gusts in new york. so, that is certainly causing

some more insult to injury. here's a look at the next 24-hour rainfall. we do have flooding concerns, mainly along the immediate coast. we're already seeing that in parts of the jersey shore. over the next 48 hours, bit time this storm wraps up, we could see an additional 3 inches in hartford and boston. that is a lot of rain. also, some snow with this storm, too, for the interior we're looking at heavy, wet snow today and tonight. 6 to 12 inches. so, a little something for everybody with this nor'easter. back to you, krystal. >> i can vouch for the fact it is nasty outside. cycling right now, prince william and duchess of cambridge at the 9/11 memorial on an important day in our nation's history. the release, of course, of that report on interrogation techniques used in the weeks, months and years after that horrific terror attacks. camilla is nbc's royal expert and royal editor for "the sunday express," thanks for being back with us. >> good afternoon. >> talk to us about their visit

stot 9/11 memorial. what was their reaction? >> i think like anybody coming there, it would be odd if they came to new york city and didn't go to the memorial. respectfully in britain, we felt as attacked as you did that day because we share this special relationship. and i think the royals wanted to reflect that. prince william is a military man. they feel that very acutely, the struggle. so, i think it was only right, it was only fitting. it was the day that changed the world. of course, they had to be down there to see that. equally, 7/7 we shared in your pain when we were attacked in london, very similar circumstances, the whole city feeling terrorized, so we felt that very keenly. i think as well, this is one of the major roles of the royals, particularly back in england, it's the commemoration, the support of the military. they turn out for rememberance day and it gives these sort of events -- >> you can write a comment at

the memorial, right? did they write anything down? >> they left a wreath wreath and wrote a comment along the lines of, we're so sad saddened by your loss, and never by your loss and never forget which is the message we always hear when we remember these major events. >> you talk about 7/7/05 in london, terrible day 52 civilians killed, 700 injured, does london, does england have their own memorial or tradition to remember that terrible day? >> we have a memorable in hyde park which is equal to your hyde park and 52 separate prints representing those who died. it was a smaller death toll but at the same time it is a time of the year, same as here in new york, everyone remembers that day where they were when they

heard h heard the news, the sense of chaos, thinking do i know family and friends involve in this atrocitiy. there's a lot of shared emotion about 9/11 and our own event. >> and prince harry has spent time fighting against the taliban. >> and he insisted he should fight on the front line. there was a lot of talk the first time. he was insistent. he was not going to go to the army and not do his bit. more difficult for prince williams, he doesn't have the future responsibility, where aspirins harry seemed it was too controversial to send him out and he regretted that.

he wanted to serve queen and country and couldn't but for harry it still resonates. they have focused on wild life and charity but the key thing is military. they want people to support and celebrate people who have done their bit in service. you are much better at america doing that. even at the game last night, you had someone there being applauded, you don't get that in england, here the support is more unanimous. >> what was their response to that moment last night. >> they of course recognized it. they didn't come until the third quarter but they had been watching at a private dinner and came out just for the final bit. everyone was anticipating and suddenly there were screams in the crowd and they worked out with their beyonce and jay z moment. >> when they play in december, a

holiday time, a upbeat moment in new york but obviously has been difficult in new york regarding the michael garner protest and the questions what we will do about today, we're talking about the torture on the war on terror but their visit to the 9/11 shows they are not avoiding serious topics but they approach them in a bit more of a broader ceremonial way. help us understand, since we don't have royals, how they do that as they are here during a time when there is a lot on people's minds. >> it can't always be style over substance, they are not here to add a sprinkling of star dust, there is a point to them. they are sin none mouse to bringing the nation together. the queen leads it at the forefront almost above politicians, the royals garner a huge respect for that and at the echbd the day they are people who go out and do royal engagements, pressing the flesh

with people that otherwise wouldn't get recognized, pushing causes, they have been to harlem, city kid's event today, they will bring new attention to these causes that might otherwise go unnoticed. that is a good thing. some say kate it's all about her hair and dresses, well we have seen this morning that's not the case. them going to pay their respects sends a huge many message cross the world that they are here and they mean business too. >> does this trip remind you in significance of other visits from royals to the united states. >> with all these trips there's like a light and shade is there, you take the basketball and 9/11 it seems poles apart, they crammed a lot. >> narrator: . >> they crammed a lot into this whistle-type tour. the cameras are rolling and it will always make front page news.

>> diana sets a high bar, never forget her walking through the mine field. illustrates that. the world looked to him as a great person who was really a servant for the world. she sets a high bar for her son and his wife. >> yeah and i think her sons are conscious of channelling her legacy in the right way. they don't want to go over ground. a lot has been written about diana, we need to remember she could have done nothing but she did something. they could sit back and say i'm going to get on with my privileged life but with great privilege comes great responsibility and growing up with diana, it does a huge amount for charity and help teens to get on with life. that can only be a good thing. >> that's what so many love about princess kate is she has taken on that role in a very serious way. >> definitely.

shes doing her bit who can criticize that, really. >> thanks so much. >> we'll be back right after this. i have a cold

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>> all right is that does it for a very busy tuesday here in the cycle, "now" with alex wagner starts right now. it didn't keep us safe and it was more brutal than we imagined, america's history of torture after 9/11 is finally being written. it's tuesday, december 9th and this is "now." >> it took five years, $40 million and bitterly fought battles between the cia, senate and white house but today the

summary of the senate's long awaited torture report was finally released. the controversial and damming report of the brutal techniques employed under the administration of george w. bush. >> our review was a meticulous and detailed examination of records, it finds that coercive interrogation techniques did not produce the vital, otherwise unavailable intelligence the cia has claimed. the cia provided extensive amounts of inoperatable information to white house, congress, cia inspector general, the media and the american public. the cia's management of the