it doesn't stop it being i did a novel called "pompeii." we all know pompeii wades royed.people are waiting for the shoe to drop in a way is often a urce of greater drama when you don't know what's going to happ t. >> brown: degree you're looking at different periods of hstory, what does something have toave for you to want to tackle it? >> i think it ha to have something that's new. it has to have something that's relevant. i hope that from munich people take away the fact that whe we use these loose terms about appeasement and munich, actualli we'rusing them and there might not have been the great churchill victory speeches in 1940 if we hadn't hade nville chamberlain patiently trying the buy time and to make sure where we did fightwe fought on a big issue, and not something people would probably have given up onn if it we a war in '38. if i can twist the history and show something new that i like. >> brown: what about our own mo ant? do you sything here in ten or 20 years you might want the tackle? >> the rowbl is it's all so bizarre, you can't do it in fiction. it's pu

it took me four years to write enigma and archangel in five years to write pompeii. then i started to speed up. i became more aware of the techniques of writing. i enjoyed it more and because i had more books under my belt, i didn't feel each time i had a book that i would be judged just on that one. people would say i like that one but maybe not this one. i did find things that interest me and they came out of nowhere. i was interested in the election of the pope and i saw the pope on the balcony and all the cardinals peering out, looking at him and i thought who are these people voting and how did they vote? it was. curiosity that led me too write that book. i had always just been interested in the moral compromises of munich and had the sense that it wasn't quite as people thought it was. it was written to satisfy that edge. in most my books i think that's what i do. i was a journalist and i naturally look out for the world in present and past and there's always a story to write about. as to how i do it? i speeded up and i normally research a book in six months an

. >> do you agree with director pompe pompeii that we haven't seen a significant decrease in the active? directo director, you've already alluded to this, that they will continue in 2018 and '20? >> i agree with director pompep, this is not going to change or stop. >> yes, it is not going to change nor stop. >> throughout the entire community, we have not seen any evidence of any significant change from last year. >> they go down the lineup in every one of the members of the intelligence community. america's top spies all agree. they did it once. they're going to do it again. they are doing it even as we speak right now. the president sort of inaction on this, what message is that sending to those in russia and frankly elsewhere trying to disrupt our elective processes? >> it's clear the president doesn't believe this is a problem. he's not doing anything proactive to stop it. not only that, the steps that congress took to say we've got to send russia a very strong message that this is unacceptable by imposing sanctions. the president said i don't want to impose them. he's trying to pre