against the chinese, i think we could get a shock. >> 9 minutes left in our conversation with max hastingstom, ann arbor, michigan. go ahead. >> mr. hastings, i am in awe of your understanding of the details associated with these different wars. i'd be interested in our absolute certify vagues of two generalizations that many clueless americans have, one ise most peaceful periods in history and western europe as well. >> thank you, tom. >> let me say one first, again, michael howard, the british historian was so much my mentor and one of his phrases that he often used, he said we used the word peace far too much. the greatest good is not peace, it's stability and the reason that michael was among many people including richard hass, the president's of american foreign relations and american strategy groups think we are living in such grave time because stability is out of the window. we are living in unstable times and the word certainty during the cold war that advantaged and you find awful lot of senior military on both sides of the atlantic, they almost -- you could predict what the sovi

the japanese or all mentioned. >> max hastings has been armageddon the battle for germany 1944 -- 45, in 2004. donald, new york city, good afternoon. >> good afternoon. good afternoon, mr. hastings. i want to thank you for participating in the day. here's an 82nd airborne jumped out -- also the german army when hitler was invading czechoslovakia, was going to stage a to and they would if britain and france supported them but they didn't. you think this would have made a big difference if it had happened and why didn't it happen also, the british journalist said after the war's uprising 1944, churchill became as much an appeaser to stalin as chamberlain had been to hitler. i'd like to know what you think about. >> thank you, we are going to leave it there, that is a lot of information. >> that is quite a mouthful. it's a difficult question whether there was a realistic aspect of the german army before the war. i think the best historian is probably, probably the best account of it. it was no doubt he was opposed to hitler but the german army most support him and i think it's debatable

peter: april 29, 1975, where were you max hastings. x: [applause] i was very scared young reporter in the compounds of the u.s. embassy in saigon. i felt that in vietnam, i was this young distinguished reporter by chance but i had spent a lot of time there between 1970 and 1975 read once he became plain that we were seeing the drama i wanted to see it. and in fact when most of the americans son been tom and the evacuations of then last mornin, i told them that i was going to stay and follow saigon and the arrival of the north with mayonnaise. and i forget how many maybe about a dozen other journalists would stay read all of the americans left. and without the australians and the british would want to stay. but around lunchtime, there was lots of shooting around the place, we saw one aircraft shot down in saigon in the morning while we were eating breakfast. there's just a lot of shooting going around. and what was what was more frightening and one was scared of the hand arcade the breakdown of order in saigon. in large numbers of the vi

max hastings 77 years later is there a different perspective on d-day? >> to host the host of people who actually had been there. and i should never take up the evidence of that oral history but they do give you a feeling of how they felt but i remember when i was watching one particular guy he was very articulate and landed on utah beach and ian asked him how before it all happened is huge event how did that all seem to you? he said lily higgins age 18 and said i just could not get my mind on the idea i was abouthe to invade france and it was incredibly young for most of those in the book not long after it was all over that they understood the biggest event in human history one reason that d-day still has assassination that before and after. with the right cores that our parents and the grandparents were the good guys in this event. but with the british and american and it incredibly well. and from what was achieved there. host: max hastings, september 1st, 1939, s in a surprising could have been prevented? >> . >> when they learned about it afterwards