or a bit of an. extra. oh i'm tom arbonne in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture earlier this week i had a chance to sit down with anthony somers and discuss his long standing career as a journalist and author of investigative works of nonfiction his work provides a new perspective on many monumental moments in this country's history including the assassination of president kennedy involve the united states and world war two in the scandals of the nixon presidency anthony's newest book examines the many conspiracy theories surrounding the terrorist attacks of nine eleven and offers an in-depth examination of documents and evidence that previously been withheld from the public take a look. at

nights conversations with great minds i'm joined by journalist and author anthony summers anthony summers studied modern languages at oxford university before embarking on a journalism career that landed in the position of the b.b.c.'s youngest producer at the age of twenty four and a lot of travel the world report on some of history's most memorable moments during the one nine hundred sixty s. and seventy's for the past thirty years anthony has concentrated on just a gate of nonfiction author in seven bestselling books about historical figures like tsar nicholas the second president john f. kennedy f.b.i. director j. edgar hoover and president richard nixon has also written biographies of celebrities marilyn monroe and frank sinatra his latest book the eleventh day well to one account of nine eleven is an investigation of the terrorist attacks of nine eleven september eleventh is the product of five years comprehensive research and

access for the first time to tens of thousands of previously withheld nine eleven commission documents and it's being hailed as the first comprehensive independent account of the events that changed. america forever i'm honored to welcome anthony summers our studios in new york anthony rock thanks so much for being with us. let's end by the way congratulations on becoming honorary fellow at university college in dublin i must treat you with yet more research i want to have behaved behave to me in tripoli different way from. let's let's start with the present and work backwards just because you know this is this is the moment nine eleven. it's not this moment but this is your newest book and with regard to this the nine eleven book not what the. us what did u.s. intelligence agencies know before nine eleven and why was the public never.

but of course if we knew entirely what they knew then we'd be wiser people but it is clear although it was under play by the a natural investigation. it is clear that they knew more than we know they know. in particular. fascinating. they knew about the first two hijackers to arrive in the united states has me who would look much later it will much two years later. in the attack on the pentagon they knew about them before they even arrived in the united states they had followed one of them photographed his prosper with in his room and then that he had an entry visa into the united states had him surveilled at a terrorist meeting in malaysia and then. they claim cia crane

lost track of him but they learn the less that a colleague of his has me. had arrived in. los angeles the true them and has many had flown in on the same plane. but the cia didn't tell the f.b.i. and it didn't tell the state department which would have prevented the trouble. why why didn't they tell the agency that it is responsible for domestic counter-terrorism it's a big question it's not been answered by the cia which has made these throwing up its hands in the end and said what it could say which is we made a series of multiple errors there are serious observers including most recently to pluck who was counterterrorism advisor coordinated to the white house under both clinton and bush and he says he thinks the only rational explanation is that the

cia was had the notion of by the. i'm turning to the two terrorists getting them to become plan informants caught surveiling watching them while they were in the united states well if they tried to do either of those two things the operation went grievously wrong but the it with the truth remains completely opaque but that's really quite remarkable that this this in a decade in what evidence is the that there that other countries were involved it's . that there were. indications that two other countries are involved one of them is of ron which of course in the united states ones tend to think of as pro terrorist and hunting the united states. but so far as i've been able to gather the evidence against iran

amounts principally to the fact that they allowed the nine it up future nine eleven terrorists to cross into and out of afghanistan into iran without stamping their passports and then again travel through iran in order to travel either to the middle east or all to the to the west you know this was very i'm not having a stent is very important because if you arrived. in front of a u.s. immigration officer with an iranian stamp in your post you'd be looked at from all coldly and with much greater interest so it was important but it doesn't mean that it iran necessarily had any for knowledge of the nine eleven attacks. another there's another country and in that case the information is far more disquieting saudi arabia. there are two levels of which one has to look at saudi

arabia in this story the solid to use of course paralyzed going back to the end of the second world war because of oil. had. were if you like. on this they were on the one hand they were and are. hugely. hugely hostile to israel and also the home of the most zealous islamic extremism. outside afghanistan on the planet. it's also a completely impenetrable society a closed society. that country so threatened by some of it blood who had. been become become the black sheep of the saudi. elite and was in afghanistan in a strange from the royal family in theory but it seems that there were those who

played a double game and it was those who paid what if we were discussing the math here organized crime in this interview we would say that they were paying protection money they were too named princes prince sultan and prince naive who have been reported in responsible by really responsible sources not least in the wall street journal as having paid millions of dollars in official money. to al qaeda or osama bin laden same thing. to ensure that the saudis were not attacked by al-qaeda the deal was we'll pay you money if you don't attack us quite separately within the united states and in california there's evidence that. saudis with official connections at the saudi consulate in north angeles and a saudi with connections to saudi aviation. and and who had

a reputation. as being a saudi intelligence agent help those first two rivals the guys we were talking about just now me don has me help them in a supported sense but they needed it because they couldn't speak english. at all and they were complete strangers to the west and western ways hope them help them get set up in an apartment with vast for them. and just recently in the last week i pursued a lead that i had curing the research from the people in florida which is where three of the four pilot hijackers learn to fly and find that there's another connection with saudis living as ours so the evidence of some sort of saudi support for the hijackers involved in nine eleven is troubling. troubling to say the very least you you write in the book about john o'neill and how he was working on the

saudi connection even before nine eleven. who was he what what happened with him and how did that all work out. both heroic and tragic story john o'neill was a swashbuckling senior f.b.i. office a moment in that more than one thinks over the street taken he was very very senior counterterrorism. agent in new york city based out of new york city who had been through and from the middle east and was an expert on saudi arabia and was very very frustrated at the way he had to deal with the saudis. to i think i can say this on television he said to the director of the f.b.i. when they were flying back on one occasion from saudi arabia and. the director of the f.b.i. it's the day said well i think they have been they were really quite helpful the

saudis they gave us a lot to which john o'neill responded. they were just shining sunshine. more seriously. much more seriously he john o'neill came an interview in the summer of two thousand and one and said that all that we're trying to find out about al qaeda all the counter to all our counter to terrorism efforts would be rewarded if. if we could track back to saudi arabia he said all the problems originated in saudi arabia he then left the f.b.i. resigned from the f.b.i. in the mid summer of two thousand and one and extraordinary as it was written by a playwright he became the senior security officer for the world trade center and he would die on nine eleven trying to rescue people from the from the soft. what were the untrue accounts that you know about nine eleven told by president bush and

vice president cheney. well untruths were told very soon after the nine eleven attacks in ways that persisted because you know it's like any lie i want once you've told a lie full so that it it becomes the fact it becomes the fact that it gets written down it becomes the fact. i think we should talk about the the the untruths told not only by bush and cheney but also by. one of the generals who was involved in the middle of the attempt to defend the u.s. skies that day one former general general myers said on earth. would be very shortly after the attacks that if the last plane hijacked that united ninety three had reached the washington area it would have been shut down actually do not

true the audio and all the evidence all the documentation shows that the military. had absolutely no idea that the plane had even been hijacked. by the time that it crashed i mean there's actually no way that they would stop it why did he tell that food well i think i mean it's my speculation that the fed was told to make the military look better to make it look as though everything was functioning properly that day and i think that's the same cause of the fabrication because i think it's a fabrication based on all the evidence that. dick cheney said that he had given the order to shoot down civilian aircraft if they had been hijacked and failed to have the instructions to land he said that he consulted. with president bush as the commander in chief and said do you think this is a good idea and the president. gave the or thirty gave the authorization to shoot

down hijacked airliners which is a huge decision but i think a perfectly sensible decision in the circumstances except that all the evidence is that it didn't happen that way what happened so far as one can tell i mean. ninety percent probability probability is probably higher than that is that cheney gave the order. to shoot down hijacked airliners and afterwards president bush were authorized it now. i think there are many who would argue and i'd be amongst them that this was not an unreasonable decision to make the page seem to a fit about it why again because they wanted it to look as though the u.s. leadership was truly functioning that day they thought that that's how they wanted to look and it's what the american people would want just wasn't that way more with anthony summers on our conversations with great minds today right after the break.

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our t. is the state run in an english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. we're back with conversations of great minds that i'm joined by journalist and author anthony summers. and think one of the first books that you were quite famous for was one of the first really good thoughtful thorough books on this as

a nation of john f. kennedy recently reissued under the title not in your lifetime nine hundred ninety eight. how slow. the committee on assassinations reported that the it's quote pretty the committee believes on the basis of the available evidence that president john f. kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy and a quote probably in error in your mind and based on your research what what was that. well what an unfortunate i mean a fascinating reversal of the warren commission report which said that the hobby ozwald on his own shot president kennedy and then here comes years later it comes to the congressional committee that concludes that president kennedy was probably killed as a result of conspiracy for his story and that that's truly on satisfactory but it was a major move forward they concluded by the way at the same time that martin luther

king had definite you've been killed as a result of a conspiracy. i tried to avoid the kennedy assassination for years i was then working for the b.b.c. the british broadcasting corporation and i i thought recorders reputation would go down the plughole disappear without trace if he messed around with the kennedy assassination i think with good reason because after all we those of us who who were around then sat through the jim garrison circus and your new orleans with which the tragedy of a prosecution because it was right in new orleans that. he harvey oswald had been until not long before before the assassination vital events occurred in and around new orleans and yet the waters were completely muddy by the risible investigation and prosecution. which absolute which failed i mean the guys in charge were found

not guilty. by. i did get involved at that stage when the congressional investigation began in the late seventy's. and i did do a documentary which was shown on the b.b.c. under around this country and i was astounded i would go to see witnesses and i would say to them. you know i'm sure i'm sorry to be here bothering you because i'm sure that in the past you were interviewed by the new york times the washington post and of course the f.b.i. and the agencies and limited time. i would find people that if they couldn't throw me down the stairs they would say to me oh come in come in mr summers nobody's ever took drugs and i rely just that to the shame of the u.s. media no two journalists or woodward and bernstein's if you like of nine hundred

sixty three had ever been told by their it editor you're on this story and you're on it if it takes two three years you're on the story until you off it and the fact was that the reporters of the united states had looked into the if you like the plan of play the tragedy of the affair the funeral and all and all the that the momentous issues involved in the death of a president that they hadn't investigated the case no one had been there being what i think. decent media has to be being a flea on the back of the rhinoceros that is government and when i emerged from making the documentary i then thought i've got so much left over and i've done war not so much sure that. talking to witnesses on the ground i do have something to say so so i wrote a book and a brilliant one of was another book that you wrote official and confidential the secret life of j. edgar hoover. it was was it well known at the time that you began the

investigation that hoover was gay. and then the. basically the mob had been blackmailing him or was this something that you broke and and how did you what. what's what i mean we were just like we respect. yes well with respect to. to him being gay i have to say i mean it wouldn't have. mattered although it would have mattered in his day the story called fact that the man was not heterosexual is not in itself. necessarily a terrible thing walk and there was that rumor around him not least because he never barret and because he effectively although not precisely lived with his close a clyde tolson for many many years who when who the guy. became

effectively like it like if we did they went everywhere spent all the time together clyde tolson rose meteoric play from a humble agent to become assistant director of the f.b.i. in very short order to have three years so it looked as though they would pay. for it i think it did become significant as you rightly point out when i put together the facts about trade good. trade hoovers of the russian to pursuing the math here in united states with the fact which i find compelling that that that the maffia. knew about his sexuality and used it as a lever to to make sure that he did know that the f.b.i. did not pursue organized crime at the very time that it would right on the rise and could have been squashed so but by the time the f.b.i.

did get serious about organized crime which was during the kennedy administration. it had reached a peak and was enormously powerful so that it couldn't be squashed control and it took. a long time years later for one could say that organized crime was even even more old espied. you write about j. edgar hoover influencing the course of world war two by ignoring a warning about pearl harbor. yes and i'm glad you hit on that because i think that was. a real manifestation of. who had by the time came so much pot and had to do to him so about his judgment about people and the extent of his power. a man called pushed a puppet of a brilliant. agent who worked for the british. concluded and reported to

his british intelligence masters that. the japanese were likely to attack and that they were likely to attack. a major american harbor and he concluded that he brought that information to new york the british thought it was so important that they sent him in person across the atlantic to carry bit the warning to the f.b.i. . and hoover heidi moore for a couple of weeks and this guy was a womanizer famous womanizer i mean he was real love theriault and. flash with it and like wining and dining and living very well and. i mean a true sort of james bond and who didn't like that though. he said that he was a real decadent dissolute figure which we were the worst of i know

a great deal about him now because i know his family and have still spent time with them. but he was also a gun good agent and. the tragedy of it is that who knows how much it affected what actually happened but the tragedy and the the the evidence is that when. the information that popped off brought to the united states was sent digested and analyzed and sent to the white house. the element that would make it because of because of hoover's a painting of the this fellow. that's what i wasn't there and we can or you can i were in there and we can only say we can only surmise but it's significant that the most important thing the proposal came to say and that the british wanted him to say and i talked through his controllers and the people who for whom he worked in british intelligence as well before they died and. they would just devastated when

pearl harbor occurred in the way that it did occur in court he called the united states nothing. j. edgar hoover also according to your your writing used his knowledge of john kennedy's womanizing to ensure that when johnson became vice president he got the light and dirty tricks to stay in office under kennedy and subverted the warren commission's probe into the investigation of his death. you know i think you have it generally right on the t.v. program one cunto about it to push the i think the last of the elements of what you just said of the most important that. that in a sense he did said that the warren commission but it's a bigger thing than that you know people did well when i wrote that book. all the media. well surprise surprise on his sexuality and the more flowery bits that i reported about that from first time conversations with people

and in most cases. it was the way him view he abused the system that the democrats abuse the democracy that is most disturbing the way in which he would. have it actually have he's agents as spies. in the u.s. senate and didn't in the congress the way in which and i talked to some people who had i personally experience of this the way in which he would send one of his assistance. to the hill and have a conversation with the senate in which he just said in the course of things with the p p eight would put a document on the desk or just remark that one knew that the said senator had been called to a struct. drink driving with a woman not his wife beside him. little things like that peccadilloes it was

basically just say well i want to sleep. yes effectively and i would that would never be expressed as brought more guns to the black male to misunderstand me it would simply be you know i just want you to let you know that the director knows this we know about this but don't you worry and of course the congressman or the senator in question knew that he'd done what they did after work and work well we just have a little over a minute left anthony summers in your book god as the secret lives of marilyn monroe i thought one of the most fascinating aspects of this was all the. infusion arounds of the nature and. of marilyn monroe was there a cover up. in short yes i think clearly there was a cover up which doesn't mean that was a cover up of her death nor does it necessarily mean that the as anything sinister going on that she was murdered what is clear though is that relationship with j

f k and. relationship of some sort of intimacy although it's not clear that it was a full fledged relationship with robert kennedy who was attorney general at the time there was a great rush and you can see why with an election looming for a second term in order that sixty two that was suddenly covered up remarkable anthony summers thank you so very much for being with us tonight. that drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decision complete to break through get through to people made who can you trust no one who is imbue it with the global mission b.c. where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called.