the account of three of the men appeared in their memoirs. lieutenant general smith spent as much time with him reported, well, we'll go. in his memoir, major general francis who was the montgomery's chief of staff reported we will sail tomorrow in operation victory published in 1947. in an intelligence at the top which came out in 1969 ike had described as the best intelligence officer he ever worked with said ok, boy, we will go. admiral ramsey died in an airplane crash. the story was published behind the quote the invasion of europe. journalists tried to verify what ike said near the date of the invasion. on june 5, pressing admiral ramsey for the moment by moment details of the final meeting and he was fluent in telling his story until he reached his decision. what words did he use? i can't quite remember but it was "a short phrase and something typically american." he peppered him with possibilities, all of which admiral dismissed, until he hit upon ok, let her rip. he rushed to ike's command trailer and asked an aide. the aide returned

in his 1948 war memoir he records he made the decision at 4:15. general montgomery puts the decision at 4:00 in his 1946 account of his meeting, but at 4:15 in his memoir 12 years later. another six eyewitnesses who note the time of the meeting cast one note for 4:00, one for 4:15 and one for 4:30 and francis omits the june 15th the identity of these eyewitnesses is questioned by the eyewitnesses. a june 5th, 1944, memo by operations planner puts eisenhower, montgomery, lee mallory, air vice marshall james rob, rear admiral george crazy and generals smith, strong, and dwiggen as present. air vice marshal rob had his own list who had the administrative officer and the officer with my favorite name, agp wigglesworth. in some accounts captain stag attended. eisenhower is alone in including general omar bradley in his account of the final meeting but bradley states in his 1951 war memoir that he was aboard the "uss augusta" at the time of the decision. the eyewitnesses, a designation rapidly losing its force by now, further disagree on ike's miements

the accounts of three of the men appeared in their memoirs.ieutenant smith probably spent as much time with him as anyone during the war, reported well, we'll go. in his memoir eisenhower's decisions, general montgomery's chief of staff reported we will sail tomorrow, in operation victory, published in 1947, and in intelligence at the top, which came out in 1969, major general kenneth strong, whom like lik ike described as the bt il tense general officer he ever worked with said okay, boys, we'll go. the invasion of europe, it's the best account available to historians of the contemporary journalist who tried to verify what ike said near the date of the invasion. he writes he began his quest for the allusive phrase on june 5, pressing general ramsey for the moment by moment of the meeting. he reached the moment of ike's decision. there he stalled. what did eisenhower say? i can't quite remember, ramsey said, but it was a short phrase, and something typically american. he peppered ramsey with possibilities, all of which the admiral dismissed un

he wrote a memoir. it was really quite refreshing compared to the drive memoirs -- dry memoirs. here you have the lew wallace writes the memoirs 30 years after the fact. when wallace says they arrive here and they lit their campfires, he would say something like the sky gave way to her brilliant blue orange sun as we made our way down at the junction with campfire smoke curled up. that was great. you had balance what he says in his memoir with the telegrams from the ballot field -- battlefield. wallace had a way of making himself sound really good. he did a very brave thing. you cannot take them away from that. as he said in the book, i believe and i think the judgment of history is what wallace did here did save washington, d.c. this battle took place on july 9, 1864. it is november 2 of 2007 and a beautiful fall day. one thing to keep in mind that it was very hot. they didn't have from owners -- thermometers. at the mid to upper 90's and very humid. he set up headquarters in a very good side which was on the east bank of the river and high ground. he could overlook the entire

it is in my memoir. it is a hard story for my son to read because it happened on a friday and they have already reported me and therefore the bureau was locked up. i couldn't get my son out until monday and of course at this point the hospital is afraid i am going to sue them so when i come on monday to get my son they have all kinds of excuses. cheese spitting up, he is this, he is that, you can't take him, i can close my eyes and see myself ripping through that hospital and taking my son and i said i don't care what form you want me to sign he is going out here with me. it is a hard thing and people don't realize, they talk about racism but don't realize the extent to which it affects us. almost in tears, you kind of hide that from your son because it is like once people believe it is absolutely not true but people believe it. i don't even know what it is about. you hide it and i wrote it in the memoir and is a hard thing for my son to read because the next thing in my head -- when he gets to go to col

there were -- i couldn't have explored those things through memoir. i like good memoir. talk shit about memoirs with a memoirist. >> sure you can. >> but for me personally, think -- i find it hard because the story -- there are stories you want to tell yourself about what you have been through. but if you put it into fiction, you take those ideas you have about the world and you put it into a story and then you need to make the characters real, and invariably those characters in the process of making them real, like just destroy all the notions you had about what you were originally writing. and i guess that's one of the things that is valuable for me. >> if you do it well -- i've. >> i've written memoir issue essays. >> do you want to read more? >> yes. so, this is the opening of the story called "bodies." it's about a mortuary affairs marine. for a long time i was angry. i didn't want to talk about iraq so i wouldn't tell anybody i'd been. and if people knew, if they pressed, i'd tell them lies. there was the hajj corpse lying in the streets. then i'd luke at my audien

wrote acarrington memoir that is no longer in print. he did write a kind of revised have history, have memoir called "soldiers from the war who are returning" which is still in print. it is the memory of a junior officer's serpas on the western front. it shows principally two battles. like so many british soldiers, he was at both of these battles and shows them in great detail. what makes the book really distinctive is carrington felt the need -- and he wrote his publisher about this, peter davis -- and he said i want to put an essay at the end of my book on the philosophy of war, and that became the essay you read, which was "on militarism." this was not some kind of tome on here is what war is. this is an essay instead about generations and about war generations and how they are being interpreted. and it is an amazing memorial document. a document that engages with concepts of war memories, not only in britain, but baker war memories.- bigger war i am going to pull up 3 quotes from it. he writes that his intention for the book is to s

not the best presidential memoirs. in some ways, i think the best memoirs he has left us are these tapes. you get to hear what he has to say rather than him trying to remember his viewpoint. i think it was really an effort to reconstruct what he did, but they are not the best memoirs. >> he died relatively young. intimations of his own mortality? >> yeah, he did. physically, he looked very different. he almost looks like a hippie. a sense of he had his mortality from the time he decided not to run. i think that was the end of him in some ways. the core.itical to he spent his whole life in washington, his whole life trying to achieve legislation. that is how he measured his greatness. from the moment he told america i will not run in 1968, in some ways that was the beginning of the end. he did not have much more to live for. >> can you compare him to his predecessors or successors in the white house? >> i do think he was more effective than john f. kennedy and i think he was fundamentally a legislative president. he was

ron capps, his memoir is "seriously not all right: five wars in ten years." thanks for your service and thanks for the text. >> thank you. >> my delight to have you. more to come in just a moment. >>> as one of the founding members of the elements earth, wind, and fire philip bailey sold more than 90 million albums worldwide. he's written a memoir about his life and times entitled "shining star: braving the elements of earth, wind and fire." before we start our conversation a look at the band performing that big hit "shining star." ♪ >> such crossover audience. after all these years to what to you attribute that? >> i think really the fact that the music is really for the people. and just in writing the songs, the whole vision was the music is for the people. and so that whole message has really been something that's been very, very compact, you know, inm$r6p terms of, you knol over the world. yeah. >> when you say the music is written for the people, unpack that. explain what you mean. because depending what artist you're talking to, there are other artists

his memoir is called seriously not all right five wars in 10 years.ks for your service and most importantly, thanks for the text. >> a great pleasure. >>> coming up, music legend, arturo sandoval. stay with us. >> imagine this, 1977 in cuba when two great trumpet players, dizzy gillespie and turo sandoval get together for a bit of improvisation, the rest is history, one presidential medal later, arturo sandoval is still recording and still touring. before we begin our conversation let's look at arturo performing co-written by dizzy. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i probably shouldn't confess this to you but i come see you as often as i can you know for two reasons. one because i just love you -- [ laughter ] >> but, two, i'm checking to see if there's any slippage in your sound. your horn is as big now, arturo. >> you know what. i'm very lucky, man. i feel like a -- i still have a lot of energy, man, the desire to still play music and tour, the whole thing. >> do you hear -- i don't want to say slippage again. do you hear any difference in your sound at almost 65? >> i f

>> those were part of the memoirs to be published. >> okay ,-com,-com ma okay.sir do you have a question? >> first off thanks a lot for very creative work. my question though i'm curious about what you think how the press as you mentioned how t

>> those were part of the memoirs to be published. >> okay ,-com,-com ma okay.do you have a question? >> first off thanks a lot for very creative work. my question though i'm curious about what you think how the press as you mentioned how the vietnamese press was under the palm of the u.s. government. how much better to the american press do because you must have read a lot of articles and watched a lot of newsclips. the u.s. media did they build her up or demonize her or trivialize her or how did the u.s. press do? >> such a good question. the u.s. press, i think if you read the accounts of helper sam and sheehan and malcolm brown who were there in the early days they tend to have really believed that the united states was doing the right thing by being in vietnam. this was a country that needed to be saved and they dominos were very real and they were really falling so they were really sort of patriotically behind the united states involvement in south vietnam. but because of that madame nhu and her family were really a stumbling block. they were things up rig

can't talk shed about memoir. but, you know, for me personally and think i find it hard because there are stories you want to tell yourself about what you've been through. but if you put it into fiction, take those ideas you have about the world and put them into a story and make the characters real. invariably those characters in the process of making and real just destroy all the notions that you have about what you were originally writing. and i guess that is one of the things that is really valuable for me. if you do it well caught, memoir essays, you can do the same thing when you are getting your own experience, but i find it hard. >> to you want to read a little bit more? >> so, this is the opening story it is a vow a mortuary service marine. for a long time was angry. that did not want to talk about iraq, but would not tell anyone i have been. people knew, if they pressed i would tell them lies. there was this corpse, i would say, lying in the sun. been there for days, swollen with gases. the eyes were soc

her memoir is "losing tim: a memoir," out of this year.you write that tim was despond and enraged by the bush administration and its regime in baghdad, the corruption, the incompetent, the cradle, the lies, the stupid the. is disillusionment that deep. you said we as a nation have adopted a previously different images of our brave young men and women of the armed forces versus sleazy contractors. could you explain? >> yes. is this on? okay. i'd like to start by piggybacking on david's comment about the 22 a day, because my son doesn't count among the 22 a day. because he went to iraq as a contractor, he was in love with the military all his life. he started as a toddler with an obsession with the weapons of war and never outgrew it. he had, to my mind, all the time he was growing up i am naÏve, reverence for what he called the warrior spirit. and he did talk about valor and honor and glory. he spent three years in rotc and four years in the army and eight in the reserves, and in the reserves they volunteered for everything he could to save

and he wrote in his memoirs of his terrible frustration. every minister i consulted with was still terrified of a possible confrontation with the auto producers. and so this was a complete failure because the european ministers preferred to appease rather than to resist. in the third part of what i lumped together as the material pressures we brought to bear is the sheer weight of numbers. for every few in the world there are 100 missiles. one is row, 22 member states of the arab league, 57 member states of the organization of islamic cooperation. and it is a fact of life or of human nature that most people seeing a conflict between the many and a few find it more comfortable to take sides with the many. only the very brave will join with a few. and there is also a practical consequence of this or walling number which, of course, translates into diplomatic pressure, economic policy and also has enabled the arabs to take over the u.n. so at the u.n. you have the security council where the united states has a veto and is not really a problem.

they are not the best memoirs in the world. >> he died relatively young did. he have a sense of his own mortality? >> yeah. he did. he speaks a lot about civil rights. physically he looked different with long hair. e almost looks like a hippy. i think that was the end of him in some ways. a man who was political to the core spending his whole life in trying to achieve greatness. i think that was the beginning f the end. can you compare him to his predecessors or successors in the white house? i do think he was a legislative president. a learn that loved and erevered congress. he brought his relationship and the sense of the institution. kennedy does not have that and i think that was a big flaw. fast forward to today i think a lot of the presidents in recent years are much more disconnected from washington and from congress. some like president obama serve for a short period but they do not invest themselveses on capitol hill. that is one of the most distinctive features of who he was as a politician. >> when does the book come out? >> january 2015. >> each we

that is why the memoirs are so strange. only 90 points up to him joining jonhston than 300 pages of johns ton. now we know. i think his publisher would have sent the manager back -- many script back and said, give us a little more. here are some of the new letters. heard, ipeople have was supposed, it is contended quite often that hood was writing the secret poison pen letters back to richmond, hnston,bbing joe jo trying to get him fired because he wanted his job. that is kind of the narrative. letters of hood's sounded like he had been written to and was responding, but it was not clear. one letter in the boxes now proves he was. this is a letter from lewis t. confederate senator from texas and hood's superior earlier in the war. a letter to hood in dalton on april 5. me, this is a letter from hood to wigfall. it says, "your letter of march 29 has just been released -- received, and i hasten to answer your direct questions, which must purely be between us." he goes on to talk about what is happening. hood received the lett

he wrote about those beginnings in his 2012 memoir entitled "in pure willie fashion: light me up andad in your last memoir you started writing poetry as a kid. >> as i kid before i could play guitar, i was writing poems. once i figured out a couple cords on the guitar, i started putting melodies to my poems. nobody ever told me i couldn't, so i went ahead and done it. >> brown: you knew the words first? >> usually, yeah. usually something is said, and then the melodies are out there. >> brown: in that memoir you write about working in the fields picking cotton in 100-degree-plus weather and thinking, maybe playing the guitar would be a better way of making a living. >> i would see these cadillacs drive by on the highway with the air conditioner and all, that and i would get a little bit jealous. rion brown yeah? you remember that feeling? >> heck yeah. >> brown: are you surprised these years later that it worked out? >> no, i'm a little surprised at how well it worked out. ♪ a band of brothers and sisters ♪ on a mission to break all the rules ♪ >> brown: not only has it worked out, b

her memoir is out this year.ou write to that he was despondent and reshape -- enraged#.b)z-) and went back to do the same job as a contractor. then of course the contractor claimed that he worked for was bought by another and bought by another and a lot of happened that happens in the contracting business as well as in publishing. but, he went to ethiopia. he married in namibia and had a step-son and young daughter in the winter if he'll be a for another operation. then he was given the option by his company of going to washington are going to iraq. he went to iraq with fabulous, ecstatic enthusiasm. at that point he admired bush. he believed that wmd would be found. he believed the war was necessary, bought it all and he was there for only seven months but when he came home i feel that this one like that he had to stand on which was his belief in the military values, had been ripped from him. he was appalled at for example the disbanding of the baathist army and he had, if you look at it on paper, all of the sym

. >> i think them a more -- memoir and there is one little essay bear about the contradictions of capitalismme the the kinds of problems that a capitalist system experiences to move away to a more modern corporate egos. that stands well today and the big problem for modern capitalism in general. >>c-span: what is your prediction for the future of this country? >> it will survive. i am an optimist or a cheerful pessimists. i refuse to be discouraged. terrible things are going on in the world the and in that country but i have lived long enough to see lots of terrible things and i am optimistic about the future of this country. >>c-span: the cover of the book neoconservatism 1949 through 1995 our guest has been irving kristol. thank you. >> thank you.

. >> host: with your memoir daring. where does that come from? >> that is when i finished the book to think what is the theme of my life? that word came up. taking chances. actually taught how to swim when i was two years old the}= wanted me to know how but then a lot of times your parents did not care where you were until you would show up for dinner. i was seven years old i started to type stories on a typewriter and by the time i was 10 years old i would sneak into new york on the train to go to is the top of grand central station to look at the crossroads of 1 million private lives. i did do that. i learned a lot about writing then if i waited until i was noticed for four or five years that whole period would have passed me by. all the way to the end of my life during is what allowed me to live my life and then i would dare to love again. that is part of this story i have to tell. just keep getting up putting 1 foot in front of theater. >> host: the subtitle is passages. >> and with the turmoil and in decision between the more stable states

ted kennedy's memoir. a number of fiction writers. and then the s and s list when you talk about non-fiction there are a few publishers who can boast a list. walter isaacson, bob woodward and the list of non-fiction writers on the catalog is mind-blowing. >> do authors like doing publicity? >> some more than others. some are better at it than others. some come to play. some come to work. we figure out what somebody's needs are and adjust. it is the most fun when someone comes to play and as humor about it. then we can have fun. someone asked how to do publicity for man like christopher hitchinson and i said you get out of his way. >> how would you describe the health of the publishing industry today? >> i think it is in better health than it has been for a while. when digital publishing came into the world there was a certain amount of fear and trepidation of what was going to happen but it added energy and capabilities. i talked about the advertising thing but dick simon and matt used to chat with consumers and now we can agree to go

clair has written a memoir are given interviews, so we don't know for sure, but it's my believe they played a role in getting these tapes made public quickly. once they were public, everyone of june 23 waspe a smoking gun, that the president knew that mitchell as head of the committee further reelection of the president, was aware of this break-in before it and that the president agreed with the suggestion and , that the cia should be told to tell the fbi that this was something the fbi should stay out of. that strategy did not work. the cia ultimately refused to go andg with this approach there was no question that the president was involved in deciding to ask them to do that. that led very quickly to the president's announcement on august 8 that he was going to resign and to the actual resignation on august 9. everything happened more quickly after that decision. himself andcused appropriately took himself out of the case. it was written by the chief >> who has a right to assign the decision himself. as you read the opinion, you see is trying to accommodate the decision that is try

it is in my memoir. hard story for my son to read because it happened on a friday and they have already reported me and therefore the bureau was locked up. i couldn't get my son out until monday and of course at this point the hospital is afraid i am going to sue them so when i come on monday to get my son they have all kinds of excuses. cheese spitting up, he is this, he is that, you can't take him, i can close my eyes and see myself ripping through that hospital and taking my son and i said i don't care what form you want me to sign he is going out here with me. it is a hard thing and people don't realize, they talk about racism but don't realize the extent to which it affects us. almost in tears, you kind of hide that from your son because it is like once people believe it is absolutely not true but people believe it. i don't even know what it is about. you hide it and i wrote it in the memoir and is a hard thing for my son to read because the next thing in my head -- when he gets to go to college and

he never wrote a memoir or gave an interview. we do not know for sure. it is my belief that he played a role in getting these tapes made public quickly. once they were public, everyone saw that the tape of june 23 was a smoking gun, but the president knew that mitchell, as head of the committee for the reelection of the president, was aware of this break-in before it happened. agreedt the president with hold him and's suggestion and reiterated that the a cia should be told to tell the fbi that this is something the fbi should stay out of. that strategy did not work. the cia ultimately refused to go along with this approach. question that the president was involved in deciding to ask them to do that. quickly to the president's announcement on august 8 that he was going to resign and to his actual resignation on august 9. everything happened more quickly after the 8-0 decision. it was eight because justice rehnquist had recused himself because he had been involved in the case while working for the executive branch and appropriately took himself out of the

here but just is not on the tip of everyone's tongue because he did not get a chance to write his memoirmany have done in the past. i will not steal your thunder but this book is of the street also for the general public to a understand a time when the cia was doing pretty amazing things throughout the world that it's time when most of that agency has a chance to look dan understand the men and women doing intelligence work have the best interest of america at heart. so please welcome mr. kai bird. [applause] >> that is the great introduction i am shocked i am an entertainment weekly. [laughter] but not shocked that rock-and-roll takes precedence with the biography. i will be given back in september 1993. when frank anderson then the chief of the director of operations for south asia was driving to work here in washington and was so little of nbc zero though it knew there should have said in a good day because he spent his whole career on the middle east as a war-torn troubled neighborhood. that day yasser arafat was scheduled to shake hands iith the israeli prime minister on the white h

in prisoner memoirs, in the diaries, you know, we use raider with a small r. it's 150 years ago right now and into next week. a large, massive vigilante group is raised to stop raiding. this image that we have, this fighting off the raiders is sort of a jets versus sharks bit of business. that's post-war mythology. samuel melvin in his diary, he says i saw six victims hung today. his diary is full of long entries where he struggles with the moral quandary, the fact that it's -- people are preying on each other when they shouldn't. he goes onto describe the regulators. in the fall of 1865, the only thing he did was execute the sixth. >> thank you. >> jorn busset from new york in springfield, virginia. dichotomy there. >> i'm a member of the prison associati association in the con fed rat star line-up. the death rate there -- or the death numbers are almost as may andersonville, i am told. but i'm not sure of that. but the narrative of the prison seems to be remarkably similar to what you've been describing although it's common to not get tried and executed. and

charles francis edited in of hisn -- an edition father's memoirs and published half of the material.e did a wonderful job. there are 12 volumes, including the index. it includes the public side of john quincy's life with little bit about the private. for the other half, you have to go to the microfilm. it is what i did -- that is what i did. of the computer is that you can go online to the massachusetts historical society site and there it is. it is in john quincy adams' han dwriting. that is the challenge. >> did you read it? >> i did. it is difficult to read as time goes by and he becomes an elderly man. biographers who deal with material, i have my tricks. i have ways of moving through the material that allow me to be efficient. >> telecentric -- tell us a tr ick. >> dare i do that? of course i do. to make useicks was of knowledge that i had prior to reading the diary or the manuscript -- the handwritten portions -- that allow me to not have to read every word of every year or allow me to get to certain points in john quincy's life where i want to make sure i read every word. i kn

we have a memoir coming out in a couple weeks that i think will attract a lot of attention. >> so why are there different in print for simon & schuster? somebody goes into a bookstore online. they will see a simon & schuster imprint, but they might of the sea others on my simon & schuster, correct? raid. the idea is you want to have people passionate about the books, so publishing houses are often broken down into smaller groups and within each publishing house that can be numerous imprints, numerous editions and they are all putting their energy behind the projects that they are the most excited about. >> one of the biggest books for simon & schuster this year is hillary clinton new book. what has been your role the process of getting that to the bookstores? >> hillary clinton has been a drop there for 18 years now. i guess you can initiate in the mightiness first lady of the precarious date during those years. callan reidy, ours eeo acquired hillary clinton's first book any years ago, that was the takes a village. we are publishing "hard choices" on june 10th. it is our fourth book.

campaign advisor and collaborator on hillary's white house memoir, living history.these days when hillary and lissa talk, they spend most of their time discussing the latest great novel, mystery or biography they are breeding. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming hillary rodham clinton and lissa muscatine. [cheers and applause] >> thank you. great. [cheers and applause] thank you so much. [cheers and applause] >> well, that was very nice. it is great to have you. thank you so much. >> thanks to you and brett are running such a great bookstore, politics & prose. >> speaking up hooks, you got it out for four days now. >> is right. for. >> it's been one of the spaces that was more like when your secretary and you start your books are all over the place in doing these interviews. you keep a pretty frenetic pace. i have to ask you because her the first time i read this book and i read it several times now, i was struck by a kind of lightheartedness. it's a serious book. it deals with obviously very serious issues. but there's a lighter side that comes true.

when i decided to write this memoir i sought the help of my longtime friend and confidant philip g.ior. phil was a speechwriter for governors robert e. mcnair and john c. west. and he wrote books on both of them. phil's untimely death about two-thirds of the way through my practice gave me great cause in more ways than one. we spent many hours discussing our mutual backgrounds, common heritage and different cultures. he was a tremendous help in style and perspective. but from the very beginning i reserved unto myself all the substance and context. i miss him dearly. i have always been frustrated by those who explain questionable actions towards me and those who look like me by proclaiming themselves to be southerners, but moderate or conservatives. phil and i share a low tolerance for such behavior and for years i told him that if i ever wrote the memoir he always promised to help me with it would be entitled i too am a southerner. long before it became a son of the south i was an offspring of two died in the wool proudly conservative southerners who treated me and my brothers and t

there is a wonderful episode in the memoir, the autobiography, that a make use of john quincy adams. in which for the last time he goes to swim in the river and there are some young men there who are also swimming who sort of recognize him. i wondered what an extraordinary experience to -- for these young men, can you just imagine seeing our president swimming either naked or just in some small garment in the water and then stretching out and drying in the sun on the banks of the potomac river. >> you start off in your book, your first sentence is, john quincy adams adams is a president about whom most americans know very little. how long did it take you to compose that first sentence? >> not for long. it came to me almost instantaneously. i sat down to write this in the preface for the book, and before i got into the narrative of the first chapter, it begins when john quincy adams is president and he learns that his elderly father, the second president, is very ill. he wants to travel home. he wants to see his father before he dies. the book is -- it didn't take me long to think up

this is a very personal story, which is an investigative account and also in some sense a memoir becausei wanted to relate that what it means to have 70 million people and a third over there, two-thirds in the south, and they have been families for 5,000 years and they're separated forever. the war ended in 1953 and here we are in 2014, they never saw each other again. so i think that when i wanted to relate to my kids, i wanted some sort of, i guess, bond or understanding or some way of connecting, i think. >> were you allowed to wear western clothing? >> no jeans allowed in north korea because kim jong-il doesn't like them. i guess now kim jong-un -- he might because he likes dennis rodman. but generally the jeans, because it's symbol of america. but it was a very sort of conservative environment. but also a locked compound. none of us were allowed out. >> so you never really got to see the country side. >> we were taken on this organized group outing. the teachers only. students never left. and they were always at a certain time in all of us in one minder and you go out in a group so

he has written just an incredible memoir, and i'd like to start by thanking scott manning of manning and associates, and the shatner press for having the wisdom to publish a wonderful and meaningful book. i think a lott of you -- a lot of you personally know ron, but for those of you who aren't as familiar with him, ron's bio reads like one of the more interesting novels of all time, and we are really lucky to have it captured here in this memoir. he has served as both a senior military intelligence officer in the army and an observer for the u.s. department of state, and he is a combat veteran of afghanistan serve anything the army and army -- serving in the army and army reserve for 25 years where he retired as a i lieutenant colonel. as a soldier diplomat, capps served in rwanda, kosovo, afghanistan, iraq and the darfur region of sudan. he received the william r. rivkin award from the american foreign service association. his policy writing has appeared almost everywhere there is to mention, and he is the founder and director of the veterans' writing project, a nonprofit program t

afghanistan and pakistan when i was there is called to end a war which is the title of richard's memoir about ending the war in the balkans and he taught me a lot. i have known him for a long time so i have been in touch with him when he was ambassador of germany and went to the un and we had been colleagues even before he became my special envoy for afghanistan and pakistan and he stressed continually that getting to the point you can make peace is never easy. because you don't make peace with your friends. you make it with people who are your adversaries, who have killed those you care about, your own people as those you are trying to protect. is a psychological drama, you have to get into the head of those on the other side. you have to change their calculation enough to get them to the table, talk about what we did in iran, put a lot of economic pressure to get in to the table, and see what happens but that has to be the first step. i write about what we did in afghanistan and pakistan, trying to get the power -- the taliban to the table for comprehensive discussion with the governm

in 2011, he published a memoir called "life itself," turned into a documentary.is a trailer. >> one of the most unusual american documentary films i have seen in a long time. >> roger ebert was the definitive mainstream critic in american cinema. he has been riding for half of the history of feature films. >> roger was amateur writer early on. >> he wrote a novel. >> he won a pulitzer prize. >> how did roger ebert write "beyond the valley of the dolls"? >> this is the title. >> he was good at dishing it, but he could take it. >> he is a nice guy, but not that nice. >> i am a little excited. >> i am less excited, roger. >> roger ebert and jean siskel were the most powerful critics of all time. >> even though roger wrote "beyond the valley of the dolls," gene lived the life. >> i am going to crush you. >> that is totally unfair, because you realize -- >> they almost did not care what anybody else thought as long as they could try to persuade the other. >> this morning, i confess i am a sick person. three years ago, i felt a lump under my chin, and it turned out to

but in the book, in the memoir, in the pros my grandmother comes across as very carefully. she comes across as a wonderful funny person which she was on the surface. it's real because poetry sort of digs into more of, digs right away into sort of the eternal character was in the pros, this book had to create the extra character as well as the relationship. it was a loving relationship. i'm not complaining, so to speak it, but she was a significant in that way. >> the cuban culture tends to be much is no culture, doesn't? >> yes. one of the things i'm excited about this book, one of the things that was the first ever since i wrote page-one as i was interested in seeing that end up liking them how those things collide. i can separately am going as a cuban american kid from isac shelled and also my artistic identity. so you have these triangulations. so yes, i studied engineering partly because of homophobia, my grandmother but also it was a cultural circumstance. we were were a working-class immigrant family and the idea of a career in the arts is just not, just wasn't within