you mentioned his one stages mother died when year before >> reading johnstown not only with the media but also a group of inspectors they come back to the states to blow the lid off but it would is so tightly controlled if you go to my website you can listen and some of the audio rehearsing answers to reporters' questions. all of the residence aid tour a gravy with of vegetable but not enough protein or sustenance. a lot of people who survive lost 30 or 40 pounds they were very weak he had them rehearsing what do we eat here? we each well. what do each year? we have for coming chicken, steak, he was rehearsing them and wanted death fantasy johnstown was agree fantasies so when dead defectors left he knew they would come back and talk to the media and how horrible conditions were now oh rehearsing them and planning to kill everyone he knew the kid was up and what precipitated that? he was able to say after his security guards shot them that now people are implicated in the crime and we say all 41 and one for all so now they will torture us of it is better if we flit across to the other

this is taken from audiotaped in johnstown. the fbi office collected a thousand audiotapes that i was able to use for the first time. i can't imagine being in that crowd that night when all of a sudden this man who you respected, this preacher, this progressive figure in san francisco politics is suddenly saying you need to plan your death and bellowing at an old woman, calling her a bitch. i can't imagine what that would have been like. sitting there with your child and hearing this conversation. so again, that is what i hope people take away from my book. of better understanding of what happened in jonestown and how proud these people were. he told another tape has him saying to people who want to leave, we are not going to pay your way home. if you want to go home you can swim home. over and over he is telling you know what is going home. we're all going to be here and die together. and at the thing is i have been to johnstown. i went there in 2008 and it is so isolated even today. in the 70s people had to take a two they bo

and while i was at the library of congress, i ran across photographs taken in johnstown, pennsylvania, right after the disaster and i had grown up in that part of the pennsylvania and i looked at it, my god, i had no idea that this terrible destruction happened. over 2,500 people killed. what caused it? what happened? what went wrong? i took a book out of the library. it wasn't very good. i at least new the geography of pennsylvania, obviously, the author didn't. i took another book out of the library and it was even worse. and so i thought to myself, because of something that one of my professors at yale thornton wilder had said about how he got the ideas for his book, which was i try to imagine a story i'd like to see in a novel or i'd see performed on a stage and if nobody has written it i write it so i can see it performed on stage so i thought to myself, why don't you try the book about writing the book about the johnstown flood that you wish you could -- you were able to read. and every one of my books has been exactly that. i'm trying to write the book about this subject that i

and they would argue with him night after night with these meetings in the pavilion of johnstown and they would say we want to defend our community. we want to live and you have to read the book but eventually he was able to break them down by depriving them of food and sleep and by telling them they were surrounded by mercenaries in the jungle who were about to come and attack them and their children and he had his conspirators go to the jungle to shoot at the camp to make it look like there were people in the jungle about to attack them. the amount of planning and the orchestration that went into that final night are just astounding to me. the methodical nature of his breaking down their willpower in other fights, the psychological resistance so i'm going to read to you very briefly about the first time he brings up the idea of the revolutionary suicide and by the way i should say huey newton, the co-founder of the black panthers wrote an autobiography called revolutionary suicide and what he meant by the term is that they should go down fighting instead of going down passively. we

and while i was at the library of congress, i ran across photographs taken in johnstown, pennsylvania, right after the disaster and i had grown up in that part of the pennsylvania and i looked at it, my god, i had no idea that this terrible destruction happened. over 2,500 people killed. what caused it? what happened? what went wrong? i took a book out of the library. it wasn't very good. i at least new the geography of pennsylvania, obviously, the author didn't. i took another book out of the library and it was even worse. and so i thought to myself, because of something that one of my professors at yale thornton wilder had said about how he got the ideas for his book, which was i try to imagine a story i'd like to see in a novel or i'd see performed on a stage and if nobody has written it i write it so i can see it performed on stage so i thought to myself, why don't you try the book about writing the book about the johnstown flood that you wish you could -- you were able to read. and every one of my books has been exactly that. i'm trying to write the book about this subject that i

that the building of the panama canal, the brooklyn bridge and also a historic tragedies like the johnstown flood. david mccullough is our season chronicler. his latest book is the greater journey, americans in paris. the 19th century story of americans turning back across the atlantic to discover the science, the art and learning of the old world, even at a time when other americans were churning physically to this specifics to discover national resources, national beauty of challenges of the american frontier. america was opening up a new world physically in the west while in reaching itself culturally and intellectually in the great city of lights and the journey eastward across the sea. ladies and gentlemen, david mccullough came into my office two days after the first national book festival to say how important it was to continue to do this kind of event nationally and he offered to help in any way he could. one day after that came, the unspeakable tragedy of 9/11, one of the darkest days and all the narrative of our national life. but he came back next year to get the final talk at th

is also a devout catholic and to discover further that the diocese of altoona johnstown where he goes to church has been dealing with child sex abuse problems since 1987, one of the very first diocese in the united states to be sued a suit they lost in 1994 and didn't en wind up paying until 2007, i lked to the lawyer whobrought that suit. he says several of the victims were from state college where penn state i and one of the victims was a suicide, committed suicide. so the community of state college not only knewhe consequences of child abuse, the consequences of a coverup, but they had a... almost a preview that the rest of the nation only got later. so yes, i thought to myself, how could it possibly be that somebody who has seen this and then see it happen in their own institution could turn its back on it. how could it be. >> rose: your answer is? >> well, my answer goes to some of taylor's great reporting in the atlantic and in his book which is that the... the n.c.a.a.... the student... quote/unquote student athletes are... it's an injustice what takes place. the rules, the reg

i was at the veterans parade and visited the university of pittsburgh in johnstown campus with the presidentated a veterans memorial to make sure that students understand what our veterans do is immensely impressive. i think if we begin to understand that that kind of leadership that focuses on the youth of our nation and i think that unfortunately we focus on a program that brings public relations to a university and, again, i've come back. justice had to be meted out in this case. and it was. but how we do it, not worried about not just let's protect the institution but victims in the future and let's demonstrate the right way to do things. yeah, i think we need to look at ourselves exactly how we said. >> okay. by law, joe paterno was not required to call police and it was private property on that campus. >> well, do you hold somebody accountable because they are walking down the street and not for the crime because he didn't report it to the proper authorities and follow up. publish institutions across america, from wall street and the teng cal law says i don't have to do that. and that'

my favorites, the national drug intelligence center located in the heart of america's drug war in johnstown, pennsylvania. you can thank john murtha for that one. another of my favorite, the state's awareness program, were people involved in spaceflight put together all wards and spend $60 million for no apparent purpose. and finally, $132 billion worth of reforms to entitlements. mostly efficiency changes, not big, flashy, raising eligibility age is or anything like that. he can save more than $47 billion by reforming repayment rates in high-cost areas. even when you account for differences in costs and providing care in man hadn't as opposed to kansas, when your account for those differences, we have huge disparities in some cases in payment rates. or removing the ceiling for collecting overpayments in the ssi program. we are reducing our ability to recover callbacks. and the reason that we got into this was to show that from our perspective, cutting wasteful spending is not an issue of ryder left but an issue of right or wrong. these aren't that -- right or left an issue of right or wron

my favorite, the national drug intelligence centers in the heart of the american struggle for in johnstown, pennsylvania. we can thank john murtha for that one. another favorite is the spaceflight awareness program, were people involved in spaceflight put together lavish events that they give each other a warrant and spend $16 million for no apparent purpose. finally $132 billion worth of reform and these are mostly efficiency changes. these are not the big flashy raising eligibility ages or anything like that, you can save more than $47 billion by reforming payment rates and high cost areas. we have in some cases even when you account for difference in cost of providing manhattan is suppose to some my kansas, when you account for those differences we have huge disparity in some cases and payment rates are moving overpayments in the ssi program. we are handcuffing ability to people. so those are the broad outlines of it. the reason we got into it is to show that from our goods cutting wasteful spending is not an issue of right or left. it is an issue of right or wrong, but these are things

my favorites, the national drug intelligence center located in the heart of america's drug war in johnstownpennsylvania. you can thank john murtha for that one. another of my favorite, the state's awareness program, were people involved in spaceflight put together all wards and spend $60 million for no apparent purpose. and finally, $132 billion worth of reforms to entitlements. mostly efficiency changes, not big, flashy, raising eligibility age is or anything like that. he can save more than $47 billion by reforming repayment rates in high-cost areas. even when you account for differences in costs and providing care in man hadn't as opposed to kansas, when your account for those differences, we have huge disparities in some cases in payment rates. or removing the ceiling for collecting overpayments in the ssi program. we are reducing our ability to recover callbacks. and the reason that we got into this was to show that from our perspective, cutting wasteful spending is not an issue of ryder left but an issue of right or wrong. these aren't that -- right or left an issue of right or wrong.