Found his style raw. Turned to eb white his concerns were not mine. Hemingway. Then i picked up George Orwell. He was contemporary. It feels fresh. It can take a paragraph out of many of his essays, job it into todays newspaper, and it would fit right in. I started diving into orwell. Why did he feel so fresh and contemporary russian mark contemporary . This resonates with our own time. Paralleled by another hero of mine come Winston Churchill. Such different people in so many ways, yet they keep coming together on the question on how you preserve individual liberty . And we were agent talking about writing a book about the vietnam war. I decided after research, i cannot do it without research and interviews. Onecided to do a book churchill and orwell. Men only buy books on three ii ts, world war host how close is this book to what you set out to do . Tom this is the book i hoped to write, but it is not the book i first set out to write. I sent it out to my longterm editor, six books with him, who i really trust. He read the first draft and 70 ites sent me notes saying hate it. This is not the book i asked you to write. Host you are finished with the book. Tom he is a good editor. Of i knew i needed editing. I sent him the book and he said no, this is not the book. Before i can edit this, you need to redo this whole thing. I spent four weeks going over his notes to me and the markings on the manuscript. At the top of my revised version come he wrote in the margins of the printout, tom, if you deferred the narrative, you could get away with murder. His point was that in the first draft, the worse for put ahead of the people. He said not to give me the people before the works. The second thing, chronology is your friend. I had written a thematic book. To my surprise, it is much easier. I do not have to tell you why something is happening. Over the course of six months, i revised the book, took down the structure, piled my materials like a housebuilder, sat down with a new blueprint and rebuild the house. Scott, my editor, got the revised version and said this is perfect. This is what it wanted. Host you started with a story about Winston Churchill. Why . I was struck by these two people. Close to not being any part of our history. Orwell and churchill almost nearly died and that was and will not ask me because these guys, for most of their lives, were failures. It struck me as so human. These are great people who had a great effect on our lives, but they nearly didnt. They struggled to be who they wanted to be. Unlike most of us, they succeeded in doing great things. Host what was the story about Winston Churchill and new york city . Tom churchill in the 1930s is in new york city trying to recover his fortune by speaking and giving a speaking tour. He had lost a lot of money in the stock market crash. He was on the outs politically with his own party in london. York, certain trying to make some money and maybe trying to repair his political situation. Wrong way and is hit by a car and dragged many yards. His scalp is lacerated, ribs are broken, he could have died. He called it one of the lowest points in his life. Great physical pain, really feeling isolated politically, not knowing what his future is. In fact, after that, 1933 he gets up in the house of commons and gives his first antinazi speech saying we cannot live with the nazis. All you are doing is making the outcome harder because they are growing in power. He repeatedly gives speeches saying germany is rearming, building a force. He is mocked by his own party. He is treated that she is bypassed by history. He is kept out of the cabinet by his own party despite the popularity with the people. He called this his wilderness years, which end with the beginning of world war ii when they are forced to bring him into the cabinet. Host the second story is about a personal story about George Orwell. Tom he is also an obscure figure. It is interesting that he is a much larger figure for us now than he was in his own time. For most of his life, which was , he was ahort life novelist and fairly minor journalists. He wrote some great essays, especially about english language. They are not really appreciated. He is a tertiary figure on the literary scene until close to the end of his life. He published his first animal farm. Both are extremely successful. The hero of 1984 is winston. Churchville. Churchill. The last thing orwell wrote and published, he wrote on his hospital bed while he was drying dying. Orwell goes off to spain in 1936 to see the spanish civil war. Entranced are was the quality of the spanish revolution. He loved it in barcelona come he goes off and fight on the frontlines. He comes back a few months later. His wife whispers to him, everything has changed. You have to be really careful here. Very soon, there is streetfighting. His faction is being pursued and exterminated by the people whose side he thought he was on. The government who is fighting the rebels. Front goes back to the and is shot through the throat and nearly dies. He is expected to die. When he realizes his he was shot in the throat. He never heard of anyone surviving it. Miraculously come the bullet passed between the windpipe and the artery. Because it was coming in at an angle, it missed his spine when it came out the back. He temporarily lost the use of his right arm. He survived for some time. Unfortunately, he already had bad lungs and went on smoking whiche rest of his life, aggravated his tuberculosis, which is why he died a young man. What were they like . Tom opposites. Orwell was scrawny. Churchill was described as a round little pig. When he was in the bathtub or swimming, people compared him to a hippo. Churchville loves his champagne and wine and good food. Wears peel pink, silk underwear. Lying in bed come he must appear like a pig smoking a cigar. This is a book about writing. What did you learn about writing from both of them . Tom it is a book about writing. That is a perceptive comment. It is a book about words. The new that both of them knew that words matter. Young men hads been more correspondence more war spondence correspondents. You had to know your player. I was assigned the role of George Orwell. I studied him. Great proseo of the stylists with very different styles. Orwell once said he wanted his writing style to be as clear as a pane of glass. Churchill said he would be stained glass with powerful sunlight pouring through the reds and the blues. He was a painter. That was his relationship between his painting and his writing. Says i love the bright colors. I feel sincerely sorry for the browns and the grave. Grays. In painting, yet the Pay Attention to the smallest detail. Details bute into he always had the strategic picture in mind. George orwell sold 50 million copies of 1984. Since his death. It was popular when it came out, but one of the surprises looking at orwell is his career since his death has been one of the. Reat posthumous careers i cannot think of anyone else who comes as close. He goes from not being mentioned in books about his time, written now. E time, to if you read it International History of europe, there are things like sections called the age of orwell. 1984 captured so much the problems of totalitarianism, hitlerism, stalinism, and the basic question of our time that both men addressed. How does the individual conscience and soul survive in a time of all intrusive government . Is there a place for the individual . Said. S what churchill this is a war about what is the place of the individual. For orwell, that becomes even more the theme of how do you think about our place in this world in an era where the state can reach into your mind . Right toe preserve the think and perceive . 1984becomes a key theme in 1984. The right of the individual to perceive. To determine for themselves what the facts of the matter are, not to have the government tell you what the facts are. Host how did you go about that in the book . Did you travel to places . There is not much video on orwell at all. Tom there is very little footage of him. Bbc recordings of transcripts that have been found. I do not think the recordings themselves he spent time at the bbc in world war ii. He was so unhealthy that he could not get into the army. He was even rejected from being a war correspondent. He joined the home guard, national guard. He went to work writing propaganda for the bbc. He hated the job at the bbc. I do not think you was that good at it. He did not have a good speaking voice. He hated the bureaucracy of it, as good journalists hate it. The meetings of the bbc were 101, whichld in room he makes the torture room in 1984. Room 101 is where your personal fears are realized. They threatened to have rats eat his faceoff, and that is when he gives up and says you can take my lover before you take me and i will agree to anything you tell me is the truth. 129 coming of a paragraph. I will read it because it gives us an idea of what he sounded like in words. This is his comments on chamberlain. See him ins opponent a dark and wiley schemer plotting to sell england to hitlers, but it is far likelier that he was merely as good old man doing his best according to very dim lights. It was difficult to explain the contradiction of his policy, has failure to grasp any of the courses like the massive people he did not want to pay the price of peace or war. It is true. It is very insightful. All too often, it is a problem in politics and policy. I judged chamberlin a little more harshly. Chamberlain thought he was a great man. I judge him particularly harshly because on that day that world war ii began in europe, britain entered the war in 1939. Churchill gave this wonderful speech about the role of the world, whetherhe we can survive in an age of totalitarian government. The mostgave up selfish speech. He said all my dreams are rumored, all my hopes are shattered. It is not about you mr. Chamberlin, it is about the future of the world. Says. S what churchill it demonstrates how lucky we are but england was to have and have himhand take over in 1940. Aboutwhen you are writing 1984 you are in the ministry of truth and the government is part of it. This struck me. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. You go down and refer to the department of the ministry of peace. The reason i ask you is we have an institute of peace in this country coming and this time. What is that all about . True . T 1984 coming tom no. It has a good motivation behind it, which is the u. S. Government spent so much money on war and not sotion for war, and much on diplomacy and ways of finding peace. Diplomacy. Gthen u. S. Army has more people in its military than the state department has in the foreign service. I think our military would be stronger if we cut spending, because we would have to think rather than spend. Host i want to ask you to expound on it. Where fdr has met with joseph kennedy, who was ambassador to great britain. After they mete up at hyde park, i never want to see that sob as long as i live. Take his resignation and get him out of there. What is that about . Him, you invited him for the weekend. What it is about is joseph kennedy, father of john f. Kennedy, in 1939 was ambassador to england. Some people thought he was profascist. He was sympathetic to the germans. He absolutely believed that they would beat england. Came back and said to sums some reporters that democracy was washed up. He went roosevelt and almost certainly told him that britain was going to lose and it was time to sign a peace treaty with germany. Which was what a lot of the aristocrats and conservatives of england thought. Roosevelt was having none of it. He had just kept kennedy and england to keep him from coming back and running against roosevelt or president in 1940. Once roosevelt was reelected, he had no use for kennedy and hurled him out of his world and banned him from american politics. Host general brooke. Tom general alan brooke was churchills closest military advisor. A man of some talent, but not great talent. He simultaneously admired churchill and grew to hate him while working with him. He loves him and he loathed him. It was exacerbated by churchills behavior. I have a lot of sympathy for him, but i think he failed in one key way. He did not have a basic strategic understanding of the war. He reallys not does not get why we need to help russia. America and the british need to help russia and persuade stalin to stay in the war. Absolutely understand that having russia on our side is essential. As is having the americans. He also understands that russia basically won world war ii. The three key elements of the allied victory in world war ii were british stubbornness, american industry, and russian blood. I think we in the west tend to forget how much more of the burden russia carried in world war ii than anybody in the west did. Host how many people did russia lose in world war ii . Tom about 20 million. Host the british . Tom i do not know off the top of my head area the americans were about 500,000. Head. The americans were about 500,000. Host the americans were by reluctance to open a second front in europe. Roosevelt seem to put after chill in 1944, sometimes taking his time. This was because with a sick man. One man complained to his wife and a letter in 1984 that reduce policy was handcuffed to an obstinate old cripple. That is president roosevelt. It was also because the distance was burned growing between them. You spend a lot of time talking about the attitude of americans towards the british and british towards americans. Give us some background. Tom it strikes me as almost a greek tragedy. Britain and america come together in magnificent ways. Allies working so closely together. The British Attitude is very condescending. Their attitude at the beginning is the americans are our little brothers, we will educate them. We have been at war for several years. We can tell them how to find it. The american attitude is, you guys have been losing for several years. What do we have to learn from a bunch of losers . They worked together and follow this plan. Eventually, they do invade northern europe. Momentu find this tragic where the british realized in september of 1944, the americans do not need us anymore. Churchill had hoped and it post and a post world war, the british would play the role that the greeks did for the romans in teaching them. Instead the americans said was off, we do not need you anymore. They found the americans sometimes did not even ask for british advice. They just said this is what is going to happen. This is what we are going to do. Host back to the writing. You said earlier this is the sixth book. They briefly, tell us the books you have written. One was in 2012. Tom i would like to go in the opposite direction from the beginning. Was inspiredore by marines. They said who cant boot camp. I followed one group of marines through boot camp. The knowledge you thousand novel in 2001 . I thought, how often soldiers duty to his superiors can be at odds with his subordinate area and what is a subordinate. What is a soldiers duty . My least successful book. My favorite review was the person who wrote, reading and by thomas rex is like watching Michael Jackson play baseball. Somethinge is getting , but you are not sure what. Fiasco looked at the war in iraq. It was an attempt to say this is what happened. Heres how it is happening and here is why people do not understand more. Some people tried to prompt me out of calling it fiasco. Ae only good reason to write book is because you want to get it out of you. This was the book i needed to write. It became a number one bestseller and enabled me to move on from daily journalism. Host did you get the points are for fiasco . Tom no. The gamble is from 2009. Tom it is a look at the next stage of the iraq war. I said i was going to cover what happened. Really pushed back the insurgency. He gave an opening to iraqi politics. Iraq did not take advantage of that opening and the war continued. Host you may have done this for Foreign Policy where you listed the eight worst generals in your opinion in history. I will name them, starting with the eight worst. Burnsideates, and rose tommy franks as number four. And douglasold macarthur as number one. Why Douglas Macarthur at number one . Tom macarthur was a blowhard. He manipulated journalism to bolster his standing politically. It made it difficult for president s to deal with him, and he was insubordinate to three different president s. Because subordination of the military to political authority, to civilian authority, is key to how this country is run, and because he challenged it so often, i think he was the most dangerous general we ever had. Host here is some video from general tommy franks. After we listen to him a little bit, i will ask you why you put him on your list at number four. This is an incredibly precise military operation. I think you seen time and time again, military targets fall while the civilian infrastructure remains in place. It is the same with civilian lives. My experience is that the people of iraq will welcome their liberation. Ellis march 30, 2003 that was march 30, 2003. France was a good soldier good soldier. A he was a Battalion Commander wearing general stars are you he was truly tactical. Stars. He was truly tactical. He had grown up in an environment in the army, which did a great job of training, but not of educating. E was very welltrained the generals came out of the anotherneducated like man who prided himself on never having gone to a military school except paratrooper school. , the first job of a good general is to think and understand the war. People like marshall, George Marshall and world war ii, understood war. Ridgeway and the korean war understood his work very well. Hisks did not understand war. He got the job after you invade with someone elses job. Thought the job after you invade with someone elses job was someone elses job. In that way, he typified the problems of a modern u. S. Know terry. Host u. S. Military. Host how hard is it to be honest . Tom i have a callous attitude about this. People talk to you not because they want to but because they have to. When i was running fiasco i set up an interview with a Division Commander in iraq. He went on to be chief of staff in the army. At the time, he was working on the joint staff at the pentagon. Materials andf had 35,000 pages of documents. I had a lot of general emails people had given me. Interview with the general. Apparently the office heard about it and told him to cancel. I. E. Mailed him the i emailed him the chapter. I know, he is standing in my office, wanting to talk. He would not talk with me because he wanted to. He talked me because he said rick did all this stuff, i have to talk to him. To his credit, when i wrote my gamble, he was more open with me and more giving of his time than was his boss. You are to a number of times in the book in 1983, he was talking about orwell. Why he was soyou infatuated with orwell, and was he right . What did you like about George Orwell . You would follow logic and honesty. I thought he put up a good show for the last left. Hard toere pressed very say they must support the soviet union. You must not criticize it in public, even if you have doubts. He said that would be stupid. That would be giving up. The thing that made him radical and the first place was the right to think for himself. Tom i totally agree. I share his appreciation of orwell. This is key to me about orwell and churchill that he put his finger on. The willingness to criticize your own side, your own team in politics is not a formula for friendship. I think it is key to being intellectually honest, to have principles and to act on those principles not only in dealing with political opponents, but also political allies and they know, i disagree and heres why. I am trying to apply that as i look around at america. The people i Pay Attention to especially in this era of the i am lookingncy, at people willing to criticize their own side. Willingness is in the antitrust a couple people at the washington post, jennifer rubin, maybe ruth marcus. Bret stephens, a former wall street generalists, now you new york times. The response to trump is this guy is not a conservative. He does not have the traditional ,ualities of a conservative which is supporting values, aporting the rule of law real support and adherence to the cost of tuition constitution. He is none of those things. s favoring forl political words, i do not call trump a conservative. Host on the firing line with bill buckley. I think you could say that iof the biggest works did not think that people really read this particular rhetoric. They somehow accept it as a great document. They put it on their shelves. There is a good book to be written about tom that is a good example. It is glib and not true. People do read churchill. It is shocking how many people read and reread churchill. You could spend the rest of her life reading nothing but churchill. I think he is wrong particularly there. Editingnvolved in andchill for the Newspaper Printing the fourth or fifth volume when churchill was over the climb. He and the last man would have been very much at all. Odds. Here is Winston Churchill, december 26 in front of the u. S. Congress after pearl harbor. Here i am, an englishman welcomed into your midst. One of the most moving and thrilling in my life, which is already long and has not been uneventful. , i wish indeed, that my cherishwhose memory i across the veil of years could have been here to see. By the way, i cannot help but reflecting that if my father had been american and my mother british, instead of the other way around, i might have got here on my own. [applause] host how important was that speech . Tom i think very important. It was a winning speech that overcame a lot of american distrust of the british generally end of churchill and of churchill personally. I think this speech was very be assuring and also brought into the american congress. It overwhelmed a lot of isolationism. It helped roosevelt consolidate the country and get it behind the war. Go towhy didnt churchill fdrs funeral . Tom that is a good question. Two reasons. Their friendship, while tens, was a friendship of war. War rot them together. Churchill had to act a little unnaturally to himself to suck up to roosevelt. Churchill was a model august. He would dominate monologuist. He would dominate the dinner table. There were some moments of wartime comradeship, for example churchill is talking to fdr in the oval office when they get news. This fortress in western egypt had tens of thousands of troops and supplies. There was no reason to surrender. Is shocked and humiliated. He is told this by fdr. He says what can we do to help . Churchill says we need tanks. You said i had to them back from some of the divisions training on them. That is a hard thing to do. Fdr says do it. Marshall does. Host did churchill have any idea that he would lose it through world war ii . Churchill i think tom i think churchill suspected. He was not an imperialist. He did not see the downside of it as much as orwell did. At British Economic history, it is clear that the 1985. H economy peaked in they do not have the ability to hold on to an empire. They did not understand how much history was against them when amountd he thought the should go free of french control. I think he was right. I think it wouldve saved this country a lot of agony if he had only gone free. What did fdr think about the British Empire . Tom he thought it was time to go. He was concerned with the future of india. He told churchill how to handle india. Churchill wrote a better response which he then put aside note. Ote a diplomatic we hadll privately said in india problem because we did not kill our indians like you did. Host you click daily reporting. Where do you live now quit daily reporting. Where do you live now . I live in maine. Are in the friends tourist trade or lobstering in the summer. I find the winter a very social time there of getting together, talking about books, having potluck dinners. Living on an island off the coast is about as close as i like to be to this country right now. I do not know where this country is going. Another civilt war was a possibility. I think, for the first time in my life, i think it is possible we may see sustained Political Violence in this country. Against federal judges or state governments refusing federal control, things like that. Host if you were to recommend one book or a first book that someone could start with centro pro Winston Churchill and George Orwell, what would they be . , i wouldchill recommend my early life. Favorite book by orwell is catalonia. For someone new to orwell, i one of mynd requirements is do not come to work and must you have but two from orwell. You could read both things in one evening. They are the two essential pieces of how to think and write nonfiction or history of politics. Host i cannot resist. From januaryvideo 12, 1994. See if you recognize this person. I do not think there is anything classifiable. I am amazed at how much information you can find out. I publish rings in the paper about requests for Nuclear Weaponry filed by military commanders in the field. Despite what you hear about bad military gear relations, i am surprised by how much commanders in the field are willing to talk to you on the understanding that you will be careful with how you use the information. Om i recognize him i still have that shirt. Int when you were that age 1994, did you think he would do what you have done . Have you done everything you planned on doing as a writer . Tom in retrospect, everything is inevitable. I always loved to write. I had no idea. This question a couple years ago. I had the personal experience with the war in iraq was very hard for me and my family. I was discussing my journey and recovering from the war. I asked myself, what i do it all over again . My answer, honestly, was no. Friends,n, losing. Eople committing suicide i concluded, nonetheless, it is. Hat i went through that is why am now. There is a quote i got from somebody. We are our scars. Wear them proudly. Coming out the other side, i found myself oddly hoppy happy. I love being out on my boat in the summertime. That is the opposite of war in iraq. I will leave it at that. Host when you look back on this book, what did you learn yourself that you did not know before you started the research . Tom i learned just because you have written five books, and three have been bestsellers, writing the next book will not be easy. Every book is different. Every book is like a child area they are all different and you have to spend time with them to figure out who they are. I love writing. I love the process of writing. I love the process of reading. I love sitting in my rocking chair, going through some new book ive just gotten. My post office in maine thinks i have a subscription to amazon because i get a book a day. I am always ordering used books from around the world. I enjoy the process. I enjoy living this life on a Little Island where you walk , my wifepost office will look in and they will look at her. They will look at her and say nothing for you, mary. Tom has something. Host how do you write . Tom i live in an old house. I love the house i live in. It was built in 1812 by a sea captain. My dog comes up and sits with me. I usually start early in the morning. In the wintertime, it is dark. My blog file. Then i start writing. Usually i have some books ive been going through. I always read a book with a pain in my hand, underlining area underlining. Book . Ave that maybe i should get a copy. I make a note to myself about going to the archives. The book grows out of my book proposal until i have a first draft. Host how many books did you read to write this book . Tom several hundred. Not as many as for the generals. Several hundred. In my basementf were all my books go. It is a very dry basement so it does not kill the books. There is a shelf about the size of this structure here and that is full of all the Churchill Orwell books. Afghanistanew up in. How did that happen . Tom for two years. It was peace time. My parents were likely responsible. I knocked all around afghanistan from by myself. I was about 14 or 15. Older brother was getting into a lot of trouble. And knockp on buses around, travel with friends. I would buy books. I picked up pretty good street farsi. I really enjoyed it. Been backs then, words were were extraordinarily hospitable. I love reading the history of alexander the great in afghanistan. I go to those spots and hike them. The taught me later on that whenever possible, breathe the air and walk the soil of what you are talking about. It is so illuminating to actually see a battlefield and think that looks a little bit different now. Battle from about a a book, i try to go to that battlefield in the season where the battle was fought. The fully age is pretty different in gettysburg in july than it will be in february. Abouti want to ask you the endoflife of churchill and orwell. How did they die . Lived too long and orville died too young. Fromwell died at age 46 tuberculosis. The being shot through throat did not help. Churchill lived too long and ed in 1965 from a series of strokes. Play, short play. It was churchill meets orwell in heaven. I put it online as an extra bonus for people. I had to talk about this. Isone point, churchill having brandi and orwell a beer. Had died says i wish i after 1940. That was my great year. Churchill only had that one great year in all his life, which was magnificent. If you can have a good year, save western civilization is a good year. He gave all his famous speeches. Read his collected speeches, there are none in world war ii after 1943. The next memorable speech he gives, his victory in europe mid1945. It is memorable because it was so bad. Host where can people read that play . Tom it is online. Just look up churchill and orwell in heaven. Everythingrong about book i thought i was every book i was going to do. It is not the book i can do right now i do not know. I thought of writing a book about grant and sherman, two of my favorite generals and good writers. I saw one on amazon. If he begins it at shiloh, i am not going to write this book. I opened it up and it began in shiloh. It was a good book. It has been done. I am interested in biography. Im worried about where this country is going. Everybody right now is writing trump era politics. If i can reach beyond that and talk about americans and who we are, i am interested in that. To me who would the parallel of americans be the and orwell . Rchill i would say Martin Luther king and ruston. What an american life. He fascinates me. The relationship with king fascinates me. Maybe king and hoover. Not an inspiring book, but when everybody is talking about how the fbi playeds, a major role in american politics. Host our guest has been thomas ricks. Thank you very much. Tom you are welcome. Transcriptsor free comments vistyour qanda. Org. If you like this q a, here are others you might enjoy, our 2009 interview with Christopher Hitchens who talks about his career as a writer and social critic while sharing his views on politics and international affairs. Es also Candace Bullard and larry arnn. Announcer prime ministers questions will not be seen tonight. Threats a discussion on posed by north korea. Then a look at the Trump Administration approach to Foreign Policy. And at 11 00, another chance to q a withn today thomas ricks. Korea. Ook at north foundation for defense of democracy. This is one hour 15. Good morning. Welcome to the foundation for defense of democracies. Im the director of communications. It is good to see so many familiar faces this morning. Were looking forward to a timely event as we address the threat post by north korea and u. S. Policy options. Posed by north korea and u. S. Policy options. Todays event will be livestream and i encourage guests here in
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