eight years later, william proxmire took up the cause. my main goal in the book is for the word lemkenian to be an adjective to describe obsessive compulsive humanitarian. he stood up on the senate floor in 1967 and said i will give a speech a day for as long as it takes to get this convention through. i can't believe that the u.s. senate could not have ratified this law. it's a genocide convention for crying out loud. he thought it was a legislative quirk. 19 years, 3,211 original speeches later, proxmire, creakier at at the joints was still standing giving his speeches with the hope of getting the convention through. >> bit time the genocide convention was approved, it was the 98th country or something like that. >> that's true. what's interesting is how the rat tpeu indication came about. i wish i could say it was lemken and proxmire teaming up and these cassandra figures had brought enough people around. it's important the reason that the rat tpeu indication came about is for very political reasons. ronald reagan, you might remember,