worse, he'd look soft on communism which was the last thing john kennedy wanted to see. conventional wisdom has it that the cia misled kennedy about the essentials of the operation, that they really tricked him into going ahead by misleading him, for example, about the chances of the cuban population rising up against castro. i don't think the cia was totally up front. in fact, richard bissell later claimed, later admitted, rather, that they told too hard. but i don't believe kennedy was fooled either. i think he knew more or less what he was getting into, and he got into it anyway because he didn't know how not to get into it. he'd painted himself into a corner during the campaign. and by the way, most americans were in that same corner with him. everybody wanted castro gone. the operation moved forward almost inexorably through february and march, and finally in early april after weeks of hemming and be hawing, president kennedy gave it the thumbs up. he still held out the possibility of can canceling it, but he never did, and i don't think there was ever a good chance

why john f. kennedy ended up canceling the air strikes on the 16th because once people realized that this was not true, a charade, they realized, wait a minute, something is not right about this and they started looking at the americans for answers about what was going on. yeah, they were all marked. they were all marked to look like castro. there's somebody over here and i'll come to you in a second. yes. >> in your open remarks you referred to the fact that kennedy was concerned about provoking russia and by his actions in the bay of pigs invasion, do you go into that in the book? and what subsequently happened because, you know, four or five months later the berlin wall went up and i'm sure that was triggered by his weaknesses in the bay of pigs, eight months later vietnam exploded. that was all in consequence -- when they detected that he was what they interpreted to be weak, that triggered a lot of problems. >> and john kennedy knew that. he went to a summit in vienna in june, with khrushchev, and k

below deck, john kennedy and skylar tasered and subdued tom hawks.bbed jackie, and cuffed her. >> what did she say? >> she says what's going on? what is this, you know. she's screaming that we trusted you. and your wife came over. you know, you have your kid over, your little girl over. why are you doing this? >> then, alonso described how the hawks were brought to their bed, tied together, back to back. >> he got the tape and he told me to tape their eyes, tape their mouth. skylar went up and programmed their gps system to go out. >> heading farther out to sea now, jackie hawks, her eyes and mouth duct taped, and tied up back to back with tom, started to cry. tom stroked her hand, trying to calm her. then, one at a time, skylar brought each of them up to the galley, loosened their bindings just enough so they could hold a pen and sign away everything they owned. alonso described jackie hawks as shaking with fear. skylar had gotten what he needed, the boat, and those signatures. so tom and jackie were brought out to the stern. >> they were like, well

i'm fwlad you gglad you guys ar ronald reagan's idea of growth -- >> and john kennedy's. >> john kennedy's. are you willing to look at lowering osha regulations, lowering some of the epas burning on businesses as a way of creating jobs? >> i think that's what's unique about the proposal. it will allow both from the perspective of the 12-person committee, them to bring up both of those proposals and then put a vote before congress. they have to come up with the plan. i think everything should be on the table as is the case with reducing the deficit. i think it's a way of injoining this in a way that's dynamic and has us dealing with an issue that not only will result in lowering the deficit, but as importantly, i would dare say more importantly the people i've been speaking with, create jobs and put america back to work. >> all right. john larson. the man with a plan for washington to develop a plan. thanks for your good work and for explaining that to all of us today. thanks always to the megapanel. sam sedar, jim carney and imogen lloyd webber. i still think when i listen to the plans --

should john kennedy have thrown in the u.s. military entirely into this? well, we can say to that. then we have to ask what would have happened afterwards. what if marines had gone into cuba? in april of 1961, it's hard to know how that game would have played out. what we do know is what happened. and what happened was a tragedy. thank you all for very much coming tonight. i really appreciate it. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. up next on booktv, ted fishman. he appeared at the 2011 to talk about the book "shock of gray" of the aging of the worlds population, young against own, child against parent, worker against boss, and nation against nation. this is about 45 minutes. [applause] [applause] >> hi, everyone. i'm jerome mcdonald, i host wbez. it's on during the week. i've become friends with ted fishman. we can "china ink" and now this one "shades of gray." i'm delighted to be here. >> delighted to be here. worldview is one of my favorite shows. my friends listen to it on the web. >> th

so the sec's discussion, while it is well known within lossn miserables that john kennedy and franklin roosevelt had their te affairs but it may get into a sd price.s we don't have all these sex scandals it distract us. >> the 1970's. politicians. what happened?er in 1970. you suggested another era where they changed once again. th well, david is going to have a bit more on this. after the cold war. they no longer protectedoing ain roosevelt are eisenhower or whoever. maybe they weren't doing anything, but as far as they're private lives, they protected them.co after the cold war we were not that worried anymore. they just did not do it. a lot of political as dead as far as to the press tell with that personal on allocation. h >> guest: you also have yourh sexual revolution which makes o in kenot more comfortable and the rise onef feminism.ve in kennedy's day what would have been the past became a sexual-harassment lawsuit as is saw with paula jones. so mave this huge change in american social mores. politician journalism. what was kept secret became pare of the dialogue. >> host: the

whether it's fdr or harry truman or john f. kennedyl clinton or ronald reagan, when you've had these great recoveries from difficult time, they've come through great government and big ideas. >> that's not -- the way it feels to me is that when you wait for a decision to be made from someone in power above you and you give up your personal responsibility, you give up your own power, that's where the danger comes. >> right now, small business people, for example, they have absolutely no mechanism out there to get their businesses going again. they just don't. it's just not there. >> right. >> so what do you say to those people? how do they -- how do they operate? this government -- >> give them government money. >> i think the solution is probably to do a better job. probably to raise taxes, to cut spending, to do special incentive for business people. >> you think they're raising taxes not on the small business people. >> get the revenue from the higher earners in my view. people have to pay for this. >> it's always going to be the mid

kennedy catholic -- >> hold on. let eric answer this. i'll come back to you. >> it is not. >> yeah, tom, we're seeing in polling numbers some real similarities between what john '60s, where people just said frankly, i won't vote for a catholic. and we're seeing similar polling numbers with the american people here in the united states. now saying the same things about a mormon. in around that 20%, 25% range. who just said flat out i won't vote for a mormon. and i think, tom, that comes from a general misunderstanding about the tenets of the church and frankly people just aren't very religiously literate when it comes to the teachings of the mormon church. >> quinnipiac had it at 36% of voters feel somewhat or entirely uncomfortable voting for a mormon. tricia, let me come back to you with this. you have also said some things about the faith where you said you that knew it was a complete lie after you left the church it took years to clear the fog from your brains of indoctrination and deception. you clearly have big issues with this faith yourself. why should that affect anybody else's view of these candidates? because again, i'm asking you, give me one insta

. >> .called silent spring revolution which deals with john kennedy. >> it goes back to rachel carson of course. >> .rachel carson, stewart udall the important interior secretary. >> and you'll do seven books in total then? >> .yeah i'm going all the way through up 'til.i don't know the exact cut-off point now but the one after that is a texas book 'cause it's gonna be about lyndon and lady bird and beautification, conservation. >> really? >> yeah. that will be after the. >> oh wow. >> .silent. >> and you intended this back when you did the tr book that it would be a part of this? >> i did. the danger you have.this book flies on its own. my publisher, harper collins, gets nervous about multiple volumes 'cause sometimes people will say, "oh my gosh i didn't get one. why would i buy two." >> well this is not exactly like lord of the rings. i mean. [laughter] >> yeah i know. it is.it's not linked that way but they worry about things like that; it's a tough book. >> yeah. >> .marketplace. but i've put a lot of narrative research and writing. >> yeah. >> i lived in homer, alaska with my wi

richard nixon was vice president, john kennedy was still a junior senator from mast massachusetts. he and his entourage arrived in washington with cigars and rum, and castro spent most of his visit hugging and smiling and saying all the right things. there were some americans, including dwight eisenhower himself, who had serious concerns about eisenhower, mainly that he was communist in the making. many found him to be charming and charismatic. after a few days in washington, was castro took a train to new york city, and he had a grant old time. he went to the top of the empire state building, shook rands with jackie robinson, went down to city hall, up to columbia university. having left new york city, where the policemen who were assigned to protect him because there were all these assassination plots surrounding castro, and these were reported in the press every day, and none turned out to be real but the police didn't know that and castro was completely impossible to protect. he would throw himself into crowds, hugging and kissing people with no concern for his safety. and one

. >> that's why john kennedy picked lyndon johnson, the senator from texas.his guy from massachusetts carry texas. that really was the last time that geographic balancing made a difference. you see people like sarah palin, obviously alaska is one of the most republican states in the country. mccain chose her because she was sarah palin, not because she would add something else to the ticket. >> and the thinking that she would have helped him with social conservatives. >> and women. >> and women. >> let's talk about marco rub ohio. here's a guy getting a lot of press. he's getting a lot of ink. what makes him so attractive to so many? >> there are five things. when you talk to analysts and republicans, the real pros, they say the vp field is down to rubio and someone else. rubio is incredibly good looking hispanic man from florida,. which is probably going to be the king swing state again. he's popular with tea party conservatives but also popular and acceptable with establishment republicans. he's had a great year in the senate and also really good at fundrai

kid at the 1960 democratic convention in los angeles where i grew up and i saw the nomination of john kennedyired me to be in congress and 32 years later i ran and was elected in the so-called year of the woman. but looking back on those years and looking back on my time as a senate aid in the '70s, i think the present slide started in the late '80s. and there were two events, one was the invention of the negative ad, and the other one was the very contentious hearings to confirm robert bourque to the supreme court. he was never confirmed. and somehow the gloves came off and first our politics became very partisan and then after 1994 when newt gingrich was elected to speaker of the house and the majority changed after many, many decades, governance became politicized and it's just gone onhill everybody since. >> and you make a three point sort of fix it suggestion including that the president needs to build a relationship with congress, congress needs to become more competitive, and the middle has to become more militant. do you really believe those things can happen? >> yes, i do. i was in t

. >> it feels a little john kennedy in 1960 in the catholic church where the question was you belongstate where you have to listen to the authority of the pope, yet you want to run the united states of america, aren't you going to do what the pope says? i think we recognize there's something odious about that conception. what's the distinction? >> michele bachmann totally embraces evangelical christianity unless she's talking to another general audience, it's a big part of her life, it really informs her policies, and she put it on the table. even sarah palin, when she was governor of alaska, she did not really create as a priority, social issues. michele bachmann from beginning to end up until very recently, this was something very important to her and she continued to hold up her marriage as a model for all marriages. >> aside from its fairness, do you think it's a legitimate concern? >> no. i don't think it's a -- here's why, i think michele bachmann very wisely plays to her audience. at the time she was at the living worth christian center, she was talking to women and men who ne

we were so close to winning and then they killed john kennedy. , our president. they killed malcolm x. they killed dr. martin luther king jr. >> they were killed by the authorities? >> yes. >> okay. >> yes. this is all documented. >> bill: no, it's not. so, we want to know who is paying cynthia mckinney to go to libya and iran to bash her own country? ms. mckinney's office wouldn't tell us. so we sent jessie watters up to see her in boston last week. >> have you been to libya and have you been to iran. who is paying for the travel? >> you will see who is paying for the travel when we conduct this meeting. and, in fact, for libya, what you will see is that average, ordinary folks are helping to retake credit cards -- >> what about you traveling to iran? that's pretty expensive. >> well, iran was with the global forum for peace. >> so were foreign governments paying for any of the travels? >> these trips, as you will see today in this delegates is people through their dimes and their dollars are paying off the debts that were put on credit cards to cover the transp

john kennedy, thank you so much for sending this in. in annapolis, maryland, look at all these cars heading out of town. roads certainly clogged, heard also from the governor of connecticut who's thinking about making a mandatory ban on highway travel tomorrow morning, so they'll wait to see what happens. those are just a few of the things in travel, a lot more ahead and we'll get to all that. >> alexandra steele, thanks so much. and we'll have much more of our coverage of hurricane irene after this. go-gurt? yep...doh. [ boy ] slurpably fun and a good source of calcium. dads who get it, get go-gurt. [ boy ] slurpably fun and a good source of calcium. wso to save money, i trained my dog and this cockatoo to play all the hits of the '80's woman: hit it, mr. butters. ♪ ♪ take on me... ♪ ....take on me ♪ take me on... anncr: there's an easier way to save. get online. go to geico.com get a quote. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. that's how it is with alzheimer's disease. she needs help from me. and her medication. the

and perhaps he also hasn't heard same date john kennedy under him.spent half of the federal budget, 50% was on defense. today it was less than 20%. and falling. he wants to cut it in half. he mentioned japan. that means essentially turning over the pacific rim to china. i'm not sure that's really good idea. >> you are actually agreeing with me. so, be very, very careful as you know. >> occasionally, bill. >> reputation will be ruined if you agree with me. >> look, bill, i have to acknowledge that occasionally you stumble into the truth. >> that you and bernie goldberg, you know, the same mantra, occasionally. i'm right. i know i'm right. and let me give you a fact that very interesting. tuesday night. monday night. monday night. after the stock market blew up. all right. it's tuesday today. i'm delirious. our ratings were enormous. enormous. because people came to watch the factor because they knew we would tell them the truth about why the stock market went down 600 points. who was at fault and what was happening. the liberal networks, particularly

"to kill a mocking bird" came out when john f. kennedy was taking on the system, defending the right of a student to be admitted to ole miss. when we come back, dick cheney's memoir coming out, will any republicans run on his legacy? chris: welcome back. dick cheney's new memoir is out this week. it reminds us of the old politic he is served up with the bitter charge that democrats were willing to ignore the threats out there. he's trying to keep that alive. >> if you try to walk away from pakistan or after dwan stan or that part of the world generally i'm fearful that we're headed for trouble down the road. i don't think we need to run for the exit. chris: but chaney's -- but cheney's party isn't there anymore. listen to the reception that ron paul got a few years ago. here he is in 2007. >> if we understand that 70% or so of the people in america want the war over with and want our troops to come home. third, senator clinton -- [audience booing." >> i say stay out of their internal business, don't get involved in the wars, bring our tro

it's about rolling up our sleeves, since john kennedy said ask not what your country can do for you.> he owe made is personal. he said the buck stops with me. i'm the commander in chief. this is down to me now. the economy is clearly going to be the great election issue. and whichever way you look at it, the economy is certainly no better than when he took over. and arguably worse. so he's got his work cut out. hasn't he? >> i think he's already, you know, made spectacular gains. there are 40 million people who have health insurance that didn't have it before. there's an auto industry that was on its knees. remember, let's not forget, the president is modest about this, but he inherited this. it wasn't like the president created any of this. he walked in day one, they handed him the keys and the country was in deep, deep trouble. economic oversights, i mean, were thrown out the window. >> you have to say there comes a point when you can't keep blaming the ghost of christmas past, he has to, as he's now doing this week, take it full on and say, okay, now it's me. i'm the president. i'

john kennedy understood reducing tax rates helps the economy. reagan understood it. bill clinton reduced the capital gains tax. he raised the income tax. it did good for the economy. rather than pick more money out of the pockets of the american people, i think we would do far better by creating conditions for economic growth were the revenue comes from a more vibrant economy rather than taking people's pockets. a prime example. great britain has raise taxes on income and raise capital gains taxes and reduced their bit ande tax kila little their economy has stalled. other economies resisted the call for higher taxes. those countries are growing again. host: next call, pasadena, maryland, sandra. caller: i was for you back in 2000 with your flat tax. i watched you on the debates. guest: thank you. i wish there were is more of you. caller: you know how they collect social security and there is a limited -- they quit collecting after a certain point, 6%, 7%. the united states, if they collected all of the incomes -- if you made $1 million -- there are less people workin

john kennedy understood reducing tax rates helps the economy. reagan understood it. bill clinton reduced the capital gains tax. he raised the income tax. it did good for the economy. rather than pick more money out of the pockets of the american people, i think we would do far better by creating conditions for economic growth were the revenue comes from a more vibrant economy rather than taking people's pockets. a prime example. great britain has raise taxes on income and raise capital gains taxes and reduced their bit ande tax kila little their economy has stalled. other economies resisted the call for higher taxes. those countries are growing again. host: next call, pasadena, maryland, sandra. caller: i was for you back in 2000 with your flat tax. i watched you on the debates. guest: thank you. i wish there were is more of you. caller: you know how they collect social security and there is a limited -- they quit collecting after a certain point, 6%, 7%. the united states, if they collected all of the incomes -- if you made $1 million -- there are less people workin

john f. kennedy cut taxes on the rich. the share of taxes they paid went up. that's the way -- george bush by the way cut taxes on the rich. and after the bush tax cut, we had 52 straight months of economic growth. government revenues increased and the share the rich paid -- >> then everything collapsed under the lower tax rates. >> we had eight years of growth. >> and we bailed out the banks and they gave themselves bonuses. we bailed out the auto industry and they're making money again. in the economic recovery. that's what the american people want. i think the republicans are in a bad spot trying to defend. >> the issues will be jobs, jobs, jobs. >> how to create the jobs. >> it was remarkable to see gabrielle giffords looking so good about seven months after taking a bullet to the head. can she return as an active member of the united states congress. she voted last night. stand by. the unrest in syria takes an awful turn for the worse as the holy month begins. we have fresh claims and shock brutality. vrrooom...vrrroooomm vroom vrrooom vrrroooomm vrrroooo

house of representatives on the select committee on assassinations looking into both the death of john f. kennedy and dr martin luther king i interviewed james earl ray the assassin i like the dreamer better dr king said you and i will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of bad people but for the appalling silence of good people so my life has been a series my vocation while being a person of faith my vocation is basically to be a person who addresses ending the poverty that kills healing the earth and bringing peace and throughout my career i've been focused on all three of those major casts i joke and say i can retire when we end poverty. have peace and heal the earth. it's. it's extraordinary you also went to vietnam to look at the situation. you know we we not only explicitly and overtly killed two million vietnamese an. estimated two million we left behind a horrible legacy. in. american troops got a fair amount of publicity agent orange but not so much publicity about the impact of that of the news that so tell us about the sermons and what what br

i remember first, second grade she having me memorize john f. kennedy'sal address, and i was able to do it. by second grade, this is what was a little freaky about me, there's this little kid wandering around, you know, "asked not --" and i try to do the accent, i am a little taught "ask not what this country can do for you." so there was a very -- i don't know, i think if you come out of an irish catholic tradition you can't help but not be engaged in what's going on around you. and also you can't help but not have a sense of humor about it, too, because it's the thing that protects you from, you know, all that is. and so, yeah. i don't know, i think growing up in flint, being part of that whole situation -- >> since you were about 9-years-old when jfk was assassinated; the remember that? >> i remember very well. >> you're right about that in "here comes trouble"? >> yes, we were actually watching educational television and they broke in and they must have switched over to the nbc coverage and chet was on and announced it and of course all of the nuns to

universal doctrine that is if you support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation ok john f. kennedy pay any price bear any burden to assure the survival and success of liberty we all remember that one we should it's a good saying george w. bush had his own to the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in the world now mr obama a few days ago had the following to say let's discuss if this is his doctrine. america should not be expected to police the world particularly when we have so many pressing concerns here at home is that a doctrine should it be a doctrine should it be embrace and is it being acted out through us but i don't think that's a dark and i think it's a statement of lowering expectations i also think that one of the problems with all of these documents is that it bases the whole of u.s. foreign policy on the military so if we say should we intervene should we help it's assumed to mean should we send troops in my analysis that's almost never the case we should intervene with a whole range of other things but not with military force and that question of how are we defining inte

the sex discussion, while it's well known that john kennedy, franklin roosevelt had their affairs, it doesn't make it into the press. it was the time period in the 20th century that we don't have all of the sex scandals to distract us from the true problems at hand. >> host: you write about another change in the 1970s regarding politicians and sex, larry? what happened with our country then in the 1970s? you suggest it's another era where americans attitudes towards politicians of sex changed once again. >> well, i think the reason why it changed, and david can elaborate more on this is after the cold war, the press changed. they no longer protected roosevelt or eisenhower, or whoever, maybe they weren't doing anything. but as far as their private lives with they protected them. and then after -- after the world war, we were not that way anymore. they just didn't do it. that changes a lot on the political landscape, as opposed to how the press dealt with the personalized politicians. >> host: >> in the 170s, you also have the sexual revolution which made people more comfortable about

c-span: if you added up, the women of the problems of elijah muhammed and john kennedy, don't need to go through the whole list, becomes -- there's a lot of it in your book. c-span: >> guest: there's an awful lot of it. c-span: what impact -- what relations with women have on this whole movement during these periods? >> guest: it never became a public issue because martin -- malcolm x felt publicity about elijah muhammed was illegitimate children as hope of salvation that it was going to puncture the respect among the zealots who followed elijah muhammed and got the point of willing to kill for him that he could never get it publicized, partly because people were afraid of the muslims and partly because they were afraid of the libel suit. so it was a private place in coming and it was used mostly for black mail behind-the-scenes. it never became a public issue. you know, hoover's agent offered the material from the king but things all over the place under the condition that the fbi could never be identified as the source and in that day and age nobody wanted to take that to the privat

president-elect john f. kennedy and some members of his cabinet went to the white house to meet with outgoing president dwight eisenhower. eisenhower was to brief them on foreign affairs as was the secretary of state. they did that, and eisenhower said privately to kennedy, berlin is a place that worries me. i think we're going to have a crisis there. we've managed to postpone it, but it's going to come up probably pretty quickly. christian hooder, the secretary of state, briefed them on how khrushchev in 1958 had issued an ultimatum that they were all to agree to sign a peace treaty for germany within six months. if they did not do that, he would sign a private treaty just with east german party boss and dictator, and then after that the allies would have to get their rights from walter. at that point they would no longer be able to fly in the corridors the way they had been flying, they would no longer be able to go back and forth to berlin on a special privilege which only the soviets checked, and they would no l

kennedy group during this period. i thought at first and making the subtitle education of john f. kennedy because i think he was a different and in the fall of 62 from the spring of 61. khrushchev did not know that. that was a grave mistake. he had become to understand it. great commentary timesman kennedy supported him come on everybody else ran kennedy would not support it. he told me he had a remarkable conversation, where he said this is what you should do. he said the, talk to the president. don't talk to me. so it was quite clear that kennedy was beginning to shift, but he was beginning to shift in the way that none of the people around him quite understood and then did not become obvious. i thank you very much for coming and for your attention. i'm very honored really that you grow questions and thought to this meeting because this is a very personal memoir for me as well as a political book in research work. so it's a mix and scholarship and not a biography. and it's nice to see that people take it seriously. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much, w.r. smys

you know there's a critical issue which is how big is the government to be back in the days of john f. kennedy the federal government took up along with the state local governments twenty seven percent of the economy the big government consumes thirty seven percent of the economy we were inches away from no longer having a free economy. i am my classical liberal i believe that less government is better government i always maintained as governor of new mexico that i could have cut state government by a third and that no one would have noticed the difference well i wasn't a dictator i was one of three branches of government and in that context i vetoed seven hundred fifty bills as you pointed out earlier i had thousands of line items i think and the whole notion of less government i think my actions speak louder than anyone's anyone else's words and certainly louder than the big government in massachusetts so you would say you could cut a third of the of the budget in mexico without anybody noticing at the federal level you would still have the same problem that the beneficiaries of that spendin

he did with bill moyers' help and lost the nomination to john f. kennedy. and when lyndon johnson was elected vice president this was bill moyers chance to leave his employee and go to work for the peace corps, which didn't even exist yet. he went to work lobbying congress for it. he was only what 26 years old, 26-27 years old. he worked for the peace corps until in the fall of 1963. he was sent off to texas on a political mission. he was sitting at the luncheon in dallas on the day in november when president kennedy was assassinated. mr. moyers made his way to the airfield and got on board air force one and flew back to washington with president johnson and went to work with his very close personal assistance on domestic affairs and a speechwriter. and then press secretary. he left the white house for a couple of reasons, maybe more. he left because -- because mr. johnson who had powerful trepidations about the war in vietnam had become obsessed with it and paranoid. a sign of disloyalty and he felt that mr. moyers had become closer to hubert humphrey and