Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20240622

A look at the impact of entrepreneurs living in the worlds poorest countries, and a book on the rise of chinas military and economy. For a complete Television Schedule visit booktv. Org. Booktv, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors. Television for serious readers. Youre watching booktv. Up next, historian h. W. Brands recounts the life and political career of americas 40th president , Ronald Reagan. Henry william brands is a man of the american west. Born in oregon, earned graduate degrees in mathematics and history in oregon and texas. He taught at Vanderbilt University and texas a many and university before going to the university of texas at austin where he holds the jack s. Blands senior chair in history. Professor brands teaches history with and writing to graduate students and undergraduators. Hes written several dozen books on American History and politics politics and is no strange err to the bestseller list. Two of his books about fdr and Benjamin Franklin, were finalists for pulitzer prize. Hes also written on Ulysses Granted, Woodrow Wilson and theodore roosevelt. He can be seen and heard on national and International Television and radio, and he has spoken several times here at the archives. At the reagan president ial library, he researched reagans handwritten correspondence, minutes of meetings, memoranda offing of meetings with foreign leaders. Continues to frame the choices facing his wouldbe successors, and this astute biography is further be evidence that the 40th president continues to cast a long shadow over a still largely conservative political order to. Please welcome h. W. Brands to the stage. [applause] thank you david for that very kind introduction. Im delighted to be back at the national archives, because i can say that none of the books that ive written in this series of which reagan is the last would have been possible without the records at the national archives. So coop up the great work keep up the great work and make it possible for people like me to do what i do. The book im going to talk about today, reagan. The reagan the life, was originally planned as a history of the United States in, i was thinking, five or six volumes. And i pitched the idea to a publisher who just sort of laughed in my face saying in these days nobody writes that kind of work of history and you wrote it, nobody would buy it, nobody would read it. And this particular publisher said and i will be able to guess the ages of some you have by your but your reaction to this who do you think you are anyway will durant . Well, he wrote the story of civilization a history of humanity in about 25 voluming. And i knew the answer i was expected to give was, no, of course not. But the real answer was yeah i want to be. Because i read not all of those volumes, but a lot of them, and i was very intrigued and quite charmed by the idea that you could be guided through a broad sweep of history by a single guide. I had already been in the business of teaching history long enough to know that certainly in American History the work of, say, a broad survey of American History is partialing that to typically four, five or six different authors. Now, i naively thought that was because in the academic world the expertise is apportioned. So youd find the colonial expert to write on the colonial period, then the expert on the Early National period and so on. And that is, indeed part of the reason. After i got into the business myself as a coauthor of one of these book i also discovered that the more mercenary reason is the more authors you get on the title page, the more of their graduate students are teaching in various places around the country who might actually adopt the book. So is i did not want to write a history by committee. I wanted to do it myself and i realized it was rather ambitious, but i decided to go ahead. After absorbing and sort of thinking my way through the initial discouragement from this publisher at the idea of doing it. And i decided that i wouldnt do it head on, i would do it in the form of a series of biographies. And this because i looked at the bestseller list, and i saw that its relatively rare to see something on the bestseller list that says a history of this or a history of that. But there are lots of biographies that make the bestseller list. People like biographies. So i thought i would write this history of the United States but i would do it under the guise of, in the form of a series of boirg mys. And the first volume in the series was about ben men Frank Benjamin franklin. And, in fact, i came and spoke here now 15 or 20 years ago, and ive had the honor to come back and speak on, about a number of the books in the series. Of which the final one is Ronald Reagan. So im going to tell you a little bit about why i wrote about Ronald Reagan and not perhaps, somebody else. And it has to do with the fact that in the first place be the volume in the series before this volume five reagan is volume six volume five is about Franklin Roosevelt. And Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945 so i needed someone who could pick up the story in 1945. And i wanted somebody who would get me as close to the present as reasonably possible. After having written five volumes in the series, i wanted to end it with six. I didnt want to have to do seven. So that ruled out certain other potential candidates. When i started the series, i did not intend, i didnt want even expect i didnt even expect, that most of the biographies would be of president s. In fact volume one is about Benjamin Franklin. Ive sometimes been asked why was bepg might be franklin not president , and the short answer was that he died. [laughter] he died just as George Washington was being inaugurated. Theres a deeper reason, he didnt have the personality to be president. But the subsequent books in the series have turned out to be president s, and this primarily because of the way i conceived of the series in the first place, it was going to be a history of the United States. And so is i needed biographical subjects who occupied some place near the center of American Public life. If i had chosen an inventer a poet, an artist of some sort, then i could, i would really be with testing readers patience when i went from that particular life to the broader themes of American History. And so president s are pretty much write in the center of things, and they enable me to tell that broad story without diverging too far from the life and the career of the president. So it turned out that most of these actually, everybody after franklin was a president. So Andrew Jackson was volume two, Ulysses Grant theodore roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and, finally Ronald Reagan. Now, again back to the reason for reagan. With each of these books i tried to associate with the individual or more precisely i tried to choose the individual to somehow epitomize what i con sued in my conceived in my head as the central path of American History during this particular period. So my book on Benjamin Franklin is called the first american, because it seemed to me the central theme of American History during the 18th century was the emergence of an american identity. Benjamin franklin, like everybody else of his generation George Washington, thomas jefferson, James Madison you name it they were all born englishmen, and they died americans. So how did this happen . My book on Andrew Jackson was about the emergence of american democracy. So jackson and by the way, jackson is 23 years old in the year that Benjamin Franklin dies. So one of my considerations is that i want my figures to be stepping onto the adult stage as the previous figure steps off. And this is partly because as a biographer i will be the first to confess that i dont do childhoods very well. [laughter] and i dont want to spend a lot of time on peoples childhoods. Maybe its my personal taste. I have written biographies in which there are to big story to big story darling letters from little Franklin Roosevelt to his mother, and there are lots of them that i could have chosen from, but one or two make the point, and lets get on to the adult life. So i deliberately did that. Theodore roosevelt is just, hes three of four years out of college when Ulysses Grant dies. And we get down to Franklin Roosevelt who dies in 1945. So i want somebody whos an adult and has sort of embarked on life at that point. I need somebody as well who seems to me, to summarize what happens in america in the second half of the 20th century. I thought about leadership are are Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon johnson is a president who was central to the civil rights revolution that remade American Society in the second half of the 20th century. And he would have been a good choice except for two things. Number one, robert caro has pretty much stolen Lyndon Johnson [laughter] from everybody else until he finishes. Now i think, in fact, as soon as caro finishes, there will be room for a one volume on Lyndon Johnson to. But caro is kind of dominating the johnson market, and im not going to step into that one. Even if that werent the case, for my purposes, johnson steps off the stage too soon. He leaves the white house in 1969. He dies in 1973. And theres the still a quarter century to go in the 20th century. I thought about Richard Nixon and he carries the story a little bit farther forward, but theres a problem actually, theres an enticement with Richard Nixon but theres a problem. The enticement for the biographer is that nixon has that dark streak in his personality that biographers really like, you know . As tolstoy said all happy families are alike and boring, its the unhappy ones. And so its the unhappy individuals, the ones who have that dark streak that are appealing to the biographer. But they are not necessarily appealing to the biographers publisher, because just as there is a rule with broadway musicals, you know youve got a success when the audience comes out whistling the theme song, okay . Well publishers like it if your readers can be doing the equivalent if theyre whistling, you know . And i couldnt imagine, and when i talked about this with my be publisher, i couldnt get them to imagine anybody to be whiting i dont know what the watergate theme song would be. If you leave them on a down note, they dont go tell all their friends and everybody be uplifted. I may circle back and do nixon is but i wound up with Ronald Reagan. In part because his dates, the date the period of his life worked really well for me. He lives into the 21st century. He lives until 2004. But the other reason is well, two other reasons and theyre related. I had just written about Franklin Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt is the iconic president for the fist half of the 20th first half of the 20th century. Franklin roosevelt, more than any other president s the one who is associated with the creation of the modern american welfare state. He is the liberal launch of the age of liberalism. You could call it the age of Franklin Roosevelt that start in the 1930s and i would say continues through the 1960s. Theres a direct line from the new deal in the 1930s through the Great Society of the 1960s. And the essence of the new deal and of the Great Society is the liberal belief that when there are important social problems, government preeminently the federal government is the agency of choice,st its the solver of first resort. When the economy is in depression in the 1930s and lots of people need relief turn to washington. In the 1960s when Lyndon Johnson wants a deal with civil rights when Lyndon Johnson wants to launch a war on poverty, johnson and all the people who voted for Franklin Roosevelt, the roughly 59 who voted in 1936, the almost 60 who voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964, they say is, yes government is the solution to our problems. And thats where we will look. That attitude changed. It was changing during the 1970s, and it was decisively reversed when ronald ray began was elected reagan was elected president in 1980. And so, in fact in his first inaugural address Ronald Reagan famously said government is not the solution government is the problem. And i would argue to you that this is the attitude that has predominated the american political conversation ever since. Its not that there havent been any new programs, new federal programs between 1980 and now, but if you compare the number that were created between the 1930s and 1980 when new federal programs came often and came easily to what has been accomplished on that realm since 1980, they come seldom and they come hard with the fate of obamacare which is still hanging in the balance five years after its pass being a good example of this. So if there is one individual i think, who embodies the conservative turn in american politics in the second half of the 20th century its Ronald Reagan. And having written about roosevelt, i felt sort of obliged intellectually, academically and historically to look at the counterpart to Franklin Roosevelt. And be i convinced myself and i hope to convince readers of the book that one way of looking at roosevelt and reagan is they are sort of the two brent cease of the american brent sees of the paren the cease. Now, im going to tell you a little bit about what i discovered or at least what i concluded. Im not going to tell you everything because, of course, i want you to read and buy the book. [laughter] but im going share with you some of the experiences that i had in doing research for the book. This is a story that relates to Ronald Reagan when he was the least likely political hero in the United States. In fact, this is reagan during what i call to myself his Wilderness Years. A brief summary of reagans biography til then. Reagan was born in illinois, he grew up in the small town of dixon. He went off to college in eureka, illinois. He went from there into radio in the midwest. He found his way to hollywood, and he had a modestly successful film career. But it was only modestly successful. He never quite cracked the top of the marquee. He was okay at playing easy roles. He didnt have it within him to play the really tough, the really dramatic roles. And im going to give you a little bit of i mean, i dont claim the insight myself im just, this is how i explain that. And it has to do with some of the research that i did. But it was research that came from a direction that i didnt expect at all. It wasnt something i found in the records at the national archives, it was something that i actually well, ill tell you how i learned. I was doing a book tour for another book. In fact my, the last published book that i was doing was Ulysses Grant. And i was doing an interview with a radio host. And i believe the host was in chicago, and we were having this interview. And as often happens towards the end of the interview, it was an hourlong interview and people called in. Toward the end, the most asked me what my next project was what are you working on now . And i said is i was work on Ronald Reagan. And the host, at that point put his happened over the microphone, concern his hand over the microphone, and he said when we get off the air theres something i want to tell you. I said okay, good. I had no reason to expect that he was an expert on things relating to Ronald Reagan, but maybe he was a fellow midwesterner or Something Like that. There was some p insight he was going to share. So we get off, and im all ears. And he said if you want to understand Ronald Reagan what you need to remember is that Ronald Reagan was the son of an alcoholic father. Now, when he told me this, it was no particular news. Reagan himself reported on this in his memoirs. And so i was waiting for him to say more because he this one he wasnt giving me new information. He went on to say however, i speak on this subject as the son of an alcoholic father. And i will tell you that there is a characteristic emotional style that people in that situation grow up with. And heres the way it works. So this is what he was telling me. He said one day your father is your best friend, and youre throwing the baseball around in the backyard, and hes telling you funny stories, and he takes you out for ice cream. And the next day hes beating the living daylights out of you. And every day of your boyhood when you wake up you dont know which father youre going to be dealing with. And as a result of this my host was saying, you grow up keeping people and emotions at a distance. Because the one person who is your, who should be your role model, the one who should be the one who shows you how to deal with emotions is someone who is utterly and sometimes violently unreliable. Now, i heard this, and i thought, okay, ill talk this away and see what i can do with it. And at that point i went back and reread reagans memoir, and i reread Nancy Reagans memoir. And the first thing that struck me was the passage from Nancy Reagans memoir, just a sentence, where she said that now, ill tell you that grain and Nancy Reagan Reagan and nancy reagan were is so close emotionally to each other that they were almost the entire emotional universe, one to the other. And no one understood Ronald Reagan better than nancy reagan, and probably vice versa. But nancy reagan said in her memoir, which i recommend to her called my turn, it was published in the early is the 90s, it is one of the most candid memoirs of anybody in American Public life in the last 50 years, at least that ive encountered. And she said that as close as she was to her husband whom she always called ronnie, as close as i was to ronnie, there were those moments when that curtain came down, and even i didnt know what was going through his head, what was going through his heart. So for nancy reagan to admit that about her husband, to state that about her husband, i thought, was quite striking. But there was another passage this from reagans own memoir, that i found maybe even more striking. And, again, its just a sentence or two. And if you maybe i had read it before, and it didnt mean a whole, it didnt mean as much to me as it did the second time after having this conversation with my radio host. Theres a moment that reagan described when hes a boy, hes maybe 11 or 12 years old living in illinois and coming home from school on a cold winter afternoon. And theres snow on the ground, the temperature is below zero. And he walks up to the house and just as hes about to walk up the walkway to the house, he almost trips over his father passed out drunk in the snow. And as reagan hes writing this at the age of 80, so hes looking back seven decades and he remarks that i stood there for a moment, and i asked myself what should i do; should i wake my father and get him inside to where it was warm, or should i just walk on by and leave him there lying in the snow . Now, for a young boy each for a moment even for a moment to be considering should i just leave my dad out here in the snow and let him freeze to death, would my life be better if my father were dead, that strikes me as quite a significant revelation. Now, reagan in his memoir doesnt make much of it, and he quickly goes on. In fact, the rest of the memoir is about how his mother had told him, had told him and his brother that their father had this disease and this was the way he was made to understand what alcoholism was. Its a disease your fathers not responsible for this, so dont hold it against him. But clearly at some level he was holding it against him. Anyway, so this was one of the things that i kept in mind in observing reagan, watching reagan and in answering the question kind of a basic question in all of this is, so how did Ronald Reagan accomplish what he accomplished . Now, ill get to what he accomplished but im actually going to come around to the story im going to tell you. And so reagan goes off to hollywood, and his film career gets about this high but it gradually fades out in part was he wouldnt go, he couldnt go to those emotional wellsprings that actors have to go to if youre going to convey emotion. You have to have some emotion inside yourself that youre willing to access so you can play that part in your role. But he wouldnt he couldnt go there. And so, in fact, when anticipating a little bit when reagan decided to go into politics, he announced that he was going to run for governor of california. And Samuel Goldwyn heard that reagan was running for mayor. He said, no, no, Jimmy Stewart for governor, Ronald Reagan for best friend. Thats the kind of role he plaid. His film career played. He was demoted to the tiny screen of television which was a serious demotion. And not only that, so he was, he had a three minute gig every sunday night, he was host of the ge theater. And he would just introduce this sort of madefortv play, and then that was the end of it. For the rest of the week, he was a spokesman, he was basically the flak man for the General Electric company. For eight years during the 1950s, reagan was essentially a walking infomercial. And this was what his career had come to. And then in the early 1960s he lost even that job. And he managed to find a role as host of death valley days, but there was no future for this guy in show biz. And his life had been show business of one sort or another. And he had no idea what the future was going to bring. Now, anybody who had looked at Ronald Reagan in 1963 before he went into politics would have been hard pressed to identify any of those talents any of those ambitions, any of those character traits that make for political greatness. You could do a lineup of ten people, sort of any ten people off the street and include reagan and say okay, which one is going to change the american political world, and youd have a hard time saying this is the kauai. This is the guy. Now, as the biographer, i know what he became. And as is the case with a lot of biographies, you dont narratively start at the end and work backwards, but you conceptually do. If reagan had dropped dead at the aim of 5 at the age of 52 neither i nor anyone else would have thought of writing a biography on Ronald Reagan. Its because he became this person who changed american politics, and i would say World Affairs as well, that were interested in the first half of his life. You look back, and its really hard to figure out what it is in that that gives rise to this thing thats going to become. So the fundamental question that i had is how did he do it . How did this person of unremarkable talents presence and Everything Else accomplish what he did. Now, i am going to tell you the story. So heres the story. Reagan is in the middle of his career these eight years where he gives talks on behalf of General Electric. Sometimes the talks are in ge plants, very often theyre lunchtime talks to the rotary club the chamber of commerce, the kiwanis you name it. He always called it the rubber chicken tour, and he was often introduced by people who had never met him before, and people who in the case of this particular story, the guy whos going to introduce him is someone who has never met Ronald Reagan, in fact, hes only seen the name in print. So hes a little bit uncertain is as to how the last name is pronounced. Its called reagan, and is it reagan or regan . All right. So in this story our introducer is puzzling over this question on the morning before hes going to give the introduction at noon, and hes getting kind of, you know, getting kind of anxious because he doesnt want to make a fool of himself in front of all of his friends and mispronounce the guests name. So hes wandering around, hes Walking Around the neighborhood thinking this over. And he encounters somebody else who apparently lives in the neighborhood as well one of the neighbors whos walking his dog. And this guys walking the dog and its some kind of small houndlike dog. And so the guy whos going to make the introduction asks the guy walking on the street, the neighbor here, ive got this problem. Do you happen to know how this guys name is pronounced . And he shows him. And the guy walking dog says, oh yeah, its reagan. Its Ronald Reagan. Reagan youre sure its reagan, its not regan . Yeah, reagan. Boy, that is a relief because i was really afraid that i was going to get it wrong and get embarrassed. So reagan, reagan. He starts walking away saying reagan, reagan. And as he, just as hes walking past the guy he says, oh, by the way, thats a really cute dog youve got. Its a bagel. [laughter] so this was the story that Ronald Reagan told on himself. Now, the reason im telling you is that this is part of the answer, and its going to sound really prosaic, but its part of the answer to how Ronald Reagan accomplished what he accomplished. Now p im not going to give you the full blow by blow of my interpretation of how reagan accomplished what he accomplished. First, i will tell you what he accomplished. And before i do that, im going to make a disclaimer. Those of us who are or in the biography business we often use a shorthand. And those of us in particular who write president ial biographies, we tend to say or speak as though the things that happen during the presidency of the person were writing about were accomplished by the person were writing about. Now, im going to be the first to acknowledge that that is not universally true. Sometimes its not even mostly true. Lyndon johnson did not exact the civil rights revolution by himself by any means. Martin luther king had something to do with this and all those people who marched and demonstrated and got beaten over the head they had lots to do wit as well. However, there was in the 1960s an essential role for a president in guiding that legislation through congress. Likewise, im going to say that Ronald Reagan changed the american political conversation, that it had been moving in a liberal are direction since Franklin Roosevelt since Ronald Reagan its been moving back in the other direction. I will tell you what reagan set out to accomplish, and ill give you my scorecard on what he did accomplish. Reagan one of the secrets of reagans success was the fact that he focused very narrowly on a very small set of goals in particular. Ronald reagan had two goals that he reiterated every time he gave a speech. By the way, i begin my book with what those people who like Ronald Reagan and those who worked around him simply call the speech. And its a speech he gave in the autumn of 1964 when goldwater was clearly going to lose and lose badly to Lyndon Johnson. But in order to raise some money to keep the Goldwater Campaign from ending too deeply in debt and maybe to energize republicans to go to the polls a little bit, the Goldwater Campaign allowed to put this or agreed to put this political novice on tv. Ronald reagan had given some speeches in Southern California so they put him on tv. And its really not an exaggeration to say that 30 minutes before reagan went on television on that october night in 1964 the nation, well, those few people who could remember Ronald Reagan as an actor the few, but nobody thought of reagan as this political figure. Almost nobody 30 minutes before he went on tv that night. And by the time that 30minute speech ended, there were people, there were lots of republicans who were smacking their foreheads and saying we nominated the wrong candidate. If we had nominated this guy, we might have a chance of winning. In fact, the story of republican conservativism which is really a story of conservative, modern conservativism, is how Ronald Reagan went from that reaction. So the day before he gave that speech nobody had heard of him. The very next day there were Ronald Reagan for president committees being formed around the country. Hed never run for any Political Office at all but he started thinking about it. Anyway so Ronald Reagans two goals articulated in that speech and pretty much every speech he gave for the 25 year of his political life, reiterated the same two things. Number one shrink government at home. Number two defeat communism abroad. One of the secrets of reagans success was his insistence on focusing on those two goals. Now, i told you i was going to give you a scorecard how did he do on these two goals . I will say that he got one and a half of them. He got one and a half of his two goals. The one that he got again not all by himself but one that he got completely was to defeat communism. Reagan pushed soviet communism to the brink of dissolution. And when reagan gave that speech before the Brandenburg Gate in 1987 and he said mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, the wall didnt come down right away but with it had come down within the next two years and it was followed by the demise of the soviet union. Now, of course, Mikhail Gorbachev had a lot to do with this the elder george bush had a lot to do with the fact that it went out with a whimper, and not with a bang. If theres a central figure in this drama its Ronald Reagan. So im going to give him he gets one out of one on that one. He gets half out of one on goal of shrinking government at home. And the way he only got half of this is very significant for the way we live today. When Ronald Reagan became president , the litmus test for republican conservatives on fiscal issues was the balanced budget. Households have to balance their budget match the income with the outgo. Government needs to do the same thing. Reagan entered office as that kind of fiscal, traditional fiscal conservative. But during the course of his first term, he made a fateful decision to accept tax cuts without insisting on spending can cuts. Now, reagan proposed a budget to congress in his first budget message. He said i want to cut taxes, i want to cut spending. And what he got was guarantees of tax cuts, bringing the top marginal rate from 70 down to below 30 . Its crept back up a little bit since then. But he got the tax cuts, and you could almost literally take those to the bank. He got promises for spending cuts, but promises of spending cuts, any political realist knows that as much as certain groups in Congress Might complain about tax cuts, they dont really complain that hard because they know that when theyre running for reelectionthey tell their constituents guess what i cut your taxes people dont complain about having their taxes cut. Spending cuts are a lot harder. Reagan did not get the spending cuts. He got the tax cuts. What did the country get . The country got structural deficits that have been a very large problem ever since the reagan years. Reagan, not surprisingly, blamed the democrats in congress, blamed tip oneill. They just wouldnt go along with me. Well, he should have known he did know, but he didnt act on the fact that when you make political compromises, you have to insist that the two parts of the compromise stick together. If you separate them, then you might get part of it, but youre not going to get the other part. So anyway so this is what reagan accomplished. How did he accomplish it . Well im running out of time. I want to leave time for questions, so is i will make this relatively brief. And i will tell you i realize this is not a particularly Republican City [laughter] i spoke in dallas a couple of nights ago. They were really interested in what im about to say is. [laughter] but you are all interested in politics i assume, so im going to tell you the formula, and you can share it if you want or you can just bury it if you dont want to. This is a formula for how the republicans can reclaim the white house in 2016 o. K. . And it goes like this well, you should be as much like Ronald Reagan as you can be. And what is it about Ronald Reagan that conservatives today should emulate . That is, if you want to get elected. The first thing is speak conservatively 100 of the time. Ronald reagan in that first speech in 1964 to his farewell address in 1989 was 900 conservative 100 conservative. And this is why Ronald Reagan even today is an icon of the Republican Party. Because everybody from just right of center to the most zealous of the Tea Party Activists can read reagans speeches, they can watch reagans speeches on youtube, and it is almost chapter and verse the conservative message that conservatives embraced ever since. So if you like ill call it rhetorical conservativism reagan is your guy. You cannot hear him, you cannot read him, make any kind of slip from that 100 consistent conservative message. So thats the thing you want to do in your speeches. But theres Something Else you need to do. You need to this is why i told you a little story about grain and the bagel you need to learn how to headache people laugh learn how to make people laugh learn how to make people smile. I realize this sounds minor it sounds prosaic but one of the secrets of reagans success was well, it was something he learned during those Wilderness Years on the rubber chicken circuit. He would speak before audiences he didnt know audiences that might, as far as he know they could have been skeptical, they could have been hostile. But he would always warm them up with a story a joke. And, in fact if you realize reagans speeches while hes in the white house nearly every one begins with a joke. Now whats the purpose . The purpose is to get people to laugh. Because reagan learned when he was speaking at all those places in the midwest and everywhere else that if you can get people to laugh with you youre halfway to getting them to agree with you. But theres a larger message here, and that is that reagan i dont know if grain thought this through. He was not a particular reflective guy. It may have simply been insting call with him. It may have reflected his career in hollywood where he was a celebrity, with where he wanted people to like him. Some of you are, some of you know conservatives and i dont mean to stereotype conservatives, but with i will say and you can decide for yourself whether what i say is accurate. But i would say that most conservatives tend to be pessimists. I would say a lot of them come across as grouchy even as angry, righteously indignant. Now, i think youll have to agree with me at least regarding the pessimism because the definition of a conservative is a person who is distrustful of change. And, you know, if youre distrustful of change, you think that change is usually for the worse. But i would just say in american politics, in american conservativism there is this stern, often angry emotional undercurrent. And ill give you the example that was foremost in american thinking at the time reagan came on the scene is. Barry goldwater. Barry goldwaters philosophy was no different than Ronald Reagans philosophy. Maybe i should put it the other way around. But their visage, their appearance to the American People could not have been more different. Barry goldwater was stern. Barry goldwater lectured. Barry goldwater was scary to a lot of people to. And the Johnson Campaign went to town on that. Reagan, by contrast, reagans this friendly guy, reagans this likable guy. Reagan tells jokes reagan smilings. Reagan is conservativism with a friendly face. Reagan, in fact, reagan was that rare, im going to say almost you meaning in American Experience unique in American Experience example of an optimistic conservative. Reagan said again and again and he thoroughly believed that america is shining city on a hill, and its going to get more shining as time goes on. Again and again including op his tombstone, his epitaph. Reagan said that americas best days are ahead. Now, for somebody to say that in the 1970s, late 1970s when hes running for president after the 1960s and the 1970s which between the vietnam war the riots of the 1960s watergate, the stagflation of the 1970s it wasnt the most natural thing. Remember jimmy carter and the socalled malaise speech where he says weve got these problems, we need to look within because theres something wrong in there. Reagan said, no no, its not. Americas best days are ahead. So heres how the republican candidate can win. Take that conservative message, but put a smile on it be friendly, be appealing. So im just thinking that, you know, if ted cruz could have a character transplant [laughter] hes your guy. Anyway, i will stop there and take questions that might have occurred to you. Of or objections, for that matter. [applause] and there are microphones here for the questions. [applause] so shortly after reagan came to washington in 1980, Clarke Clifford that longtime democrat fixer, attorney, truman, Johnson Administration figure, opined that reagan was nothing more than an amiable dunce. You remember that quote. Yes. Would you speak to that i can. The truth or not truth of that . Yes. Well, he definitely got half of it right. Reagan was amiable. [laughter] actually ill elaborate on that a little bit because reagan did have that emotional reserve that i talked about. Reagan seemed to be amiable from a distance. If you saw him on television, youd think heres somebody id like to get to know have a beer with. But, in fact the closer people got to reagan the more they realized that there was this coolness in his heart. Reagan had almost no friends aside from nancy. There were people that he associated with, but he never let his guard down sufficiently to let people close. About the dunce part, i became convince ared, first of all, that reagan was no dummy. He knew a lot more than people thought he knew. Now, im going to tell you something that i got. I did interviews with pretty much every surviving Senior Member of the cabinet. And i will share with you what they told me and theres almost in the same words everyone that i talked to, and ill let you decide what to make of it. Usually within the first five minutes they assured me that they would say, you know, Ronald Reagan was a lot smarter than people thought he was. And, okay, that tells me something, but when they say than people thought he was, because people didnt think he was very smart at all. Clarke clifford thought he was a dunce. If hes smarter than a dunce is this damning with faint praise . One of them said he was the smartest person i ever met. [laughter] and this also well, in fact bob gates, robert gates was talking to me, he was the number two guy in the cia in the reagan administration. Of course, he later went on to other thing but gates told me he thought that reagan deliberately downplayed how much he knew because reagan liked to keep those expectations low. He could sneak up on people this way. But i will tell you that reagan knew enough, and he didnt know too much. [laughter] and i think this is actually important if you are going to affect change from the position of the presidency. And in many ways jimmy carter is the one who shows what happens when you know too much. Because carter became notorious for micromanaging. Carter im sure op an iq on an iq test carter came out much higher than reagan. And carter was one who thought he ought to master all the details of policy. Well the federal government, even the executive branch, is a big thing. And if you try to master everything, if you spread yourself too thin, you get nothing at all. The secret of reagans success was his focus on these two particular items. And when reagan wanted to focus on those particular areas he knew enough. And i can testify to this having read the transcripts of reagans negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev. And i spent a lot of time on the weekend at reykjavik where reagan is going toe to toe with glob chof. And it is clear gorbachev. And it is clear that neither one is a master of all of the details of what goes into each element of the nuclear arsenal. But he certainly he knew as much as gorbachev did about this, and he knew that he had his experts other people, who would fill in the blanks, fill in the details when necessary. So reagan understood that you dont have to know everything to be president. You have to know enough. And then you have to know who to hire who knows the rest. So in this case ive long had this theory that i have no way of knowing how to test this theory, but that if you could somehow take all of the president ial elections in history and average out the iq of the, you know, the intellectual iq, not the emotional or social iq, the standard schoolbased kind of ik, if you could average out the winners against the losers i wouldnt be at all surprised if the winning candidate wound up with the lower average iq than the losing candidate. And this just simply goes to show, i guess you could say it shows the limits on iq as a measure of important stuff but it also shows a couple of things. One is that odder nail american ordinary american votedders are not necessarily drawn to the smartest person in the room. And secondly that that kind of intelligence does not necessarily con deuce to effective results as president. You can hire smart people, you cant hire judgment. And thats really what separates the president s who affect change from those who dont. Yes. Next question, sir. Oh. Thank you for a great presentation. Im looking forward to reading your book. I only began looking at some of it. As you pointed out reagan emphasized the importance of words and the importance of focusing, so i looked at the title, reagan, the life, comparing it to reagans second memoirs which is a little bit less bold, right . An american life. So i was wondering if that, the title of his second memoir influenced your titling the book or your publishers book . And how, how do you think well im sure your purpose is probably to write the definitive life of president reagan. Of course, mrs. Reagan really liked luke hannons book, so i dont know if you want to discuss that, because thats a good read too. Sure. Okay. The subtitle is a subtitle i did not choose. In fact, i resisted the subtitle. I wanted it just to be called reagan. But the publisher, for some reason, thought that somehow didnt convey that this was a biography. [laughter] so i dont know what else it would be, but nonetheless so i sent it off, the man i you script, i sent it off with just reagan, and it came back in page proof with reagan the life, at which point be, by the way, i long ago learned that the fine print in the Standard Book contract says that while the author has control over everything that goes inside the book the author has almost no control, sometimes the author is asked to consent to what goes on the outside of the book. And the outside of the book includes the title. The Standard Book contract says that the publisher in conjunction with the author will determine what the title is. The title is part of marketing. So actually, i happened to like it. I didnt want to put life and times, thats too trite and a life well they sent it back with the life, and i said okay, lets be assertive about this. Now, but im not, im not i would not be the one to claim that this is a definitive life. And furthermore, its way too soon for anybody to be definitive about somebody like Ronald Reagan. Way too soon in the sense that were still too close to the event. And were too close to the event in two senses. Number one is what ill just tell you one thing. What is the meaning of the end of the cold war . Now, if russia under Vladimir Putin decides to revive this hostility with the United States and if in five years those russian missiles are again theres still thousands of them are aimed at the United States and the United States missiles are aimed at russia then its going to start to look as though 1991 was not that big a deal. So we dont know exactly how all this stuff plays out. Secondly although i made what i hope was good use of records at the Reagan Library and records available elsewhere, there are a whole lot of records that are still not available, and theyre going to be coming available over the next 10, 20, 30 who knows how many years. So itll probably be 50 or 60 years before anything really approaching a definitive life. But there have been a couple of reviewers who have been kind enough to say that this is the definitive and im not going to argue with that. [laughter] luke hannon is the best of the first takes on reagan. He covered reagan as a journalist from the california years through washington and cannon for obvious reasons, focuses on the political life it was his beat. And be he has two big volumes one is president reagan, one is governor reagan. And each one is as fat as my whole life. Cannon gives relatively short attention to reagan before he goes into politics. So is mine in this case maybe thats why the publisher said the life, because it really does include the first 50 years. With cannons its mostly 5094. And, yes sir your turn. Much of the reagan agenda how was how his agenda and did he just continued to be walking infomercial as president . Very good question. The agenda was reagans but the details of other issues were filled in by other people. I will give you the extreme example the turned out badly, we can look at the ones that turned out reasonably well from a republican conservative perspective the regulation of large parts of the economy. Reagan believed the economy was too regulated as of 1980 and it ought to be lifted to unleash the independent entrepreneurship of the American People. Reagan didnt get into the details this was the basic principle you put into operation but the area where reagans detail blew up in his face and even he would acknowledge this was in the irancontra scandal and the irancontra scandal emerged i will get the part the deals with reagan specifically and iran. Reagan is concerned about the fate of hostages held in lebanon. Reagan entered the white house when 52 american hostages were held in iran. Team made a big deal against jimmy carter for affecting hostages so those hostages on the day reagan was inaugurated several americans were taken hostage in lebanon, supported by the governor of iran. Reagan became involved in negotiations to attempts to release the hostages. Even the details of sending weapons to tehran in the hopes that that would spring the american hostages in lebanon. And it was really clear to understand the connection between on shipments to iran and relief to the hostages. Time and again he writes okay, the current plan we send a new shipment of antitank missiles and they released two hostages. Is always written in the future perspective because the hostages didnt get released more weapons and they release the hostages finally end in dragons diary in reagans own hands, hostages arms hostages he is not paying attention to the connection the profits for the arms sales to iran the money that is going to the contra side of the connection. One comment about the hostages and the contra connection. The hostages some of you remember when reagan went on television after the irancontra story broke and got in front of the American People speaking from the oval office and he swore that this was not armed for hostages and if you look at him and listen to his voice and read the body language he certainly sounds sincere. If reagan were a better actor than he was i would say he was just acting but it was more complicated than that but also simpler than that, that reagan had a deepseated belief that the United States never did anything wrong for long. And talking to ron reagan his son, ron was a teenager when reagan was in politics, the youngest of the reagan children and was among liberal mind. And pokey and prod his father and ron reagan tells how they were watching a movie one day reagan likes to watch movies, really liked westerns and they were watching a western, the indians getting beaten up the way the indians did in American History and ron asked the president , pointed out to his father the indians got bad deal from the United States government dont you think so dad . He said it made his father uncomfortable. When he was talking because reagan didnt want to believe this greatest country on earth ever did stuff the was basically wrong, consistently wrong. When i was talking to ron reagan he said my father was no dummy, and he knew slavery was an evil institution and it was supported it was legal for 300 years though my father knew there was the start aspect of American History. Between what he knew and what he felt it was this that. He didnt trade of arms are hostages. The part that wrote the diary knew there was this lincoln, there was this other part, doesnt do that kind of thing, the arms were going to tehran. And he knew the linkage. And it is absurd. And other people in politics, you have seen it perhaps in your own life and people around you, it is wanting to know something, another thing to feel little believe it and other people live in cognitive dissonance, they know one thing and act as though this of this thing is the real deal. Reagan did not know the profits from the arms deals were diverted to the hostages. The reaction reagan made, and the diversion and everybody who saw reagan thinks his face went white and he was shocked by this. John poindexter was National Security adviser at the time and i asked the question this way, did you feel as though you were hung out to dry . Has our results when this story broke, poindexter and oliver north were fired and reagan poindexters says i wasnt present for better at all. That was my job. My job was to protect the president from stuff he didnt want to know stuff he should know so i didnt tell him the money was being diverted. Poindexter asked me, told me one other thing, and maybe i am anticipating a question. By 1986, reagan was 75 years old, 76 years old, and he was the question came up later whether the diagnosis of alzheimers which reagan announced to the public in 1994, whether there were any symptoms early on, and 1984 some of you perhaps remember the first debate, between Ronald Reagan and walter mondale, in the first debate reagan did not acquit himself well at all. Here is the guy who was a trained actor who knows how to memorize his lines and could not remember his closing statement. Everybody, all the candidates memorize the opening statement, he tripped over it, repeated himself, the wall street journal and next day said, asked the question in the headline is reagan too old to be president . Ron reagan writing later said he thought those were the initials symptoms. John poindexter told me that he thought one of the reasons but irancontra scandal got out of hand the way it did there was stuff going on in the west wing that reagan was aware of, reagan was becoming forgetful. This would culminate in a scary moment, reagan was two years of white house, and he is being asked to give evidence to testify in one of the irancontra criminal cases, he gave a deposition and in this deposition a couple hours, he asked the longest of questions, and he answers more than 80 of these questions with one form of i dont know, i cant remember, i dont recall and these were not just questions these were questions as basic as do you remember who your chairman of the joint chiefs of staff was . I dont recall. It really got heart wrenching when he was asked to you remember who Michael Deaver was . Mike deaver was reagans closest friend, closest Political Associates from way back in the california days and he cant remember. Finally at the end of this reagan said it is almost like i was never president at all. It is relinquishing to read, here is someone whose life is vanishing before his eyes. Is also kind of scary figures only somebody two years out of the white house. How much of these symptoms word there when he was in the white house . I do not use the label the term, the word alzheimers until reagan does himself but i dont need that to demonstrate that reagan was slowing down when he was in the white house. He worked shorter hours, he had never been a workaholic, one of these people who thought the more hours you put it would translate directly into better output. He went home at night, went to the residents typically 5 30 or 6 00 and that was the end of his work day and he would sleep in, wouldnt come down until 9 00. By the end of his term he was not coming down until 10 00 and people were just okay he is slowing down. Can i point to anything, poindexter was pointing to irancontra can i point to any incident, a aspect of policies it suffered because of this . I cannot. I can give you some evidence to the contrary that when called upon reagan could perform very well. Is weekend with gorbachev and reagan was this was the end of 1986 and reagan for 36 hours was i am going to say at the top of his game. He couldnt distained that day after day. He called it off at the end of sunday. The meeting was supposed to go saturday and then sunday morning we go home. They continue to negotiate through sunday afternoon and another through late sunday afternoon and finally he calls an end to input, we stay over night and get a final agreement monday morning, they were close to an agreement that he followed through on and would have led to the elimination of Nuclear Weapons between the superpowers that reagan said no, i am going home and his explanation was nancy is holding sunday dinner for me so i got to get back to that. Have we run out of time teaching we probably have. Thank you, you have been a wonderful audience. [applause] h. W. Brands will be signing books. [inaudible conversations] booktv on twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you. Tweet us twitter. Com booktv. Or post a comment on our face book page facebook. Com booktv. Here is a look at recent authors featured on booktvs afterwards weekly interview program. We heard from andrea maze about the creation of an search for shakespeares first folio. Biographer charles shields discuss the life of harper lee and the events leading up to the publication of her second book, go set a watchman. Historian carol burke and join us to talk about the creation of the bill of rights and the debate it spurred. In the coming weeks on afterwards we will discuss the National Debt with the katie institutes michael tanner. Charles murray will explore how technology can limit government power and offer more personal freedom. Also coming up Arthur Brooks president of the American Enterprise institute argues for a new kind of conservatism and this weekend ralph nader discusses the unanswered letters he has written to president s george w. Bush and barack obama. Afterwards airs on booktv every saturday at 10 00 p. M. And sunday at 9 00 eastern. You can watch all previous afterwards programs on our web site booktv. Org. Booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. I told you before i go down to the used book store in waco, texas and i by 20 bucks for a dollar so i can nickel apiece. Most of them are mysteries, murder mysteries and things of that sort. In terms of nonfiction, i am reading a biography of winston churchill. I am also going back and reading the old tom clancy novels that the late tom clancy wrote to. Primarily i am reading pulp fiction, mysteries, murder mysteries and things like that 20. Booktv wants to know what you are reading, tweet as your answer booktv or post on our Facebook Page facebook. Com booktv. President ial candidate often release books to introduce themselves to voters and to promote their views on issues. Here is a look that some books written by declared candidates for president. In his book immigration worse ideas for new immigration policies. Ben carson calls for greater individual responsibility to preserve americas future in one nation. In against the tide, Lincoln Chafee recounts his time serving as a republican in the senate. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton looks at the Obama Administration in our julius is. Enough time for truth, texas senator ted cruz recounts his journey from the cuban immigrants and to the u. S. Senate. Carly fiorina former ceo hewlettpackard is another declared candidate for president in rising to the challenge, she shares lessons she learned from her difficulties and triumphs. South carolina senator Lindsey Graham released an ebook on his web site in my story, he details his childhood and career in the air force. Mike huckabee give his take on politics and culture in god guns, grits and gravy and in leadership and crisis, louisiana governor bobby jindal explains why he believes conservative solutions are needed in washington. Ohio Governor John Kasich calls for a return to what he sees as traditional American Values in stand for something. George pataki is also running for president. In 1998 the former new york governor released pataki where he looked back on his path to the governorship and kentucky senator rand paul calls for Smaller Government and more bipartisanship in his latest book, taking a stand. Another entrant into the 2016 president ial race is former Texas Governor rick perry. Instead of he explains that government has become too intrusive and must get out of the way. In American Dreams florida senator marco rubio outlines his plan to advance economic opportunity. Independent vermont senator Bernie Sanders is a candidate for the democratic nomination for president. His book the speech is composed of his eight hour filibuster against tax cuts. Andean bluecollar conservatives president ial candidate Rick Santorum argues the Republican Party must focus on the working class in order to retake the white house. Businessman donald trump has written several books in time to get tough, he criticizes the Obama Administration and outlined his vision to further american prosperity. More president ial candidates with books include wisconsin Governor Scott walker. Ian and intimidated the argues republicans must offer Bold Solutions and have the courage to implement them. Former virginia senator james webb looks back on his time serving in the military and the senate in i heard my country calling. Vice President Joe Biden may announce his candidacy in promises to key. He looks back on his career in politics. Chris christie and former Maryland Governor Martin Omalley announce their candidacies but havent released books. Guy lawson tells the story of Efraim Diveroli who with his friends, one of 300 Million Contract to supply ammunition to the u. S. Military when they were in the early 20s. In an effort to maximize his profit, chinese munitions to fulfill the contract to violate u. S. Law. Good evening and welcome to oblong books and music. I am suzanne merriman. We are so pleased to bring you author guy lawson, New York Times best selling author and the Award Winning investigative journalist. The work has appeared in Rolling Stones n. Y. Times magazine gq and harbor to name a few. His latest book arms and the dudes how 3 stoners from miami beach became the most unlikely gunrunners in history is out now from simon and schuster. Please join me in welcoming guy lawson. [applause] thank you, susanna. Some kids in the crowd, there will be a few words that start with the letter f and i apologize in advance. So please forgive me. Torture massive legal government surveillance, a coverup of the murder of civilians in iraq by american forces, at the contractor fraud. These are the crimes of the 21st century, socalled global war on terror. Each crime relates to actions taken by the government, policies implemented in secret without public debate, each part of what United States took to the dark side in the aftermath of 9 11. Who has been punished for these crimes . The ones held accountable for vast changes in with the United States conducts itself . Torture, a prison guard named when the english. The nsas massive illegal global surveillance. Of course that is all ed snowdens fault. For the murder of iraqi civilians and coverup, whistle blowing soldier named Josie Manning is currently in prison. For private contractor fraud, the loss of tens of billions of dollars worth of arms as well as wars in iraq and afghanistan for fraud it was we freeze donors from miami beach in the early 20s into the fall, those of the three dudes i have written a book about. Of course no politician or general or diplomat has been held accountable, not one. This is the age of the scapegoat the fall guy. Arms and the dudes how 3 stoners from miami beach became the most unlikely gunrunners in history captures this reality. The reality in which politicians and bureaucrats and soldiers are never held accountable, not by congress, not by prosecutors and not by the press. This is the age whistleblowers and journalists to speak truth to power are endangered, not by officials breaking the law or silence being sent for debate. With that cheerful beginning arms arms and the dudes is about three bettys to turn themselves into the most unlikely gunrunners in history. On one level the story is comical which is why it is being turned into a movie. The movie just wrapped, finished a couple shootings a week ago. It stars joy hell, a cameo appearance by an extremely famous movie star who i cant name directed by Todd Phillips who made the hangover movie, i read the script and have been on the set and with all due respect pretty much what you expect. Comic, drama, American Hustle meets Pineapple Express and cheech and chong, that is entertaining. That is hollywood. As i have written in this book, contains how many important facts. And serious implications and importance. To skip ahead to blow the end little bit. They were indicted for fraud by the federal government, crime was supplying chinese manufactured ammunition wind such rounds were banned by the pentagon. It is virtually impossible to fight the department of justice. You are innocent until indicted. The truth is the kids did not defraud the government in any way the common man can understand. The actual truth is a political and legal matters the opposite of the public version of events. The courts and congress and the press. When an 18yearold kid in miami beach wins his First Federal defense contract, it is for 900,000 rounds, essentially big, but that is a tiny miniscule in the context of pentagon contracts theres no Bigger Consumer in the world than the pentagon, the magnitude of numbers. The name of the kid who is living in a tiny studio apartment in miami beach, Efraim Diveroli at Internet Connection and a phone. He was awake, people asked me about that and im characterizing and im not. He was a guy who woke up and hit the internet. At the same time he was incredibly sharp, ambitious and ruthless. The millennial will have to learn to deal with that. Then as now, defense contractor posted on line. Fbo fbo. Gov. If you want to be a gun runner, go there, sign on, get a licences and you can do it. The recent this existed was in the ear of the days after the invasion of iraq and afghanistan, the Bush Administration awarded a big contracts to Companies Like halliburton and blackwater as you might recall, there was an enormous amount of controversy, the Bush Administration decided in its infinite wisdom the best thing to do would be to put these contract online and favor Small Businesses. What business could be smaller than an 18yearold sitting in a studio apartment in miami beach . Before long Efraim Diveroli was doing millions of dollars of business with the pentagon most of it by winning contracts to iraq things like helmets and boots and ak47s. His Business Model is brilliant, he had no overhead, none. He was a very astute and capable businessman who understood his did vantages and the weaknesses of his adversaries. The time the army was trying to stand up all these new terms to metrics and all these things, the iraqi army, private contractors would scour the ball balkans and chase down soviet weapons. Cheat kinds the iraqis not native standard weapons, standard and nonstandard, nonstandard of the soviet bloc kind, much less expensive. Even though he was just a kid he was really good at it. He dropped yes sirs and knowss and no one thought they were dealing with an agingyearold, he pretended to be a general to get a price on something. He would call baghdad and full of them. Treated them like wolves and not without some merit. He when he was 18 years old he was able if you can imagine to get connected with serious gun runners in eastern europe. This was guy in particular in this world. A genius hacker like a kid with no respect for boundaries a story, what was expected of him, he had appetites, appetites were for money, drugs and girls, and as he got to 7 million in business by the second year, half a Million Dollars in contracts it was much bigger than he could handle on his own working 24 hours a day so he decided to improve one of his buddies, these dudes were Orthodox Jewish kids who had grown up in miami beach and and they were like the bad kids, dropout kids to smoke dope, and ran around knitting people at 5star hotels. Were the enough, this wasnt my insight, their training as orthodox kids helped the master this world to reading the college with its complicated contradictory, trilingual references, historical and legal gave them the skills that to not be bored to master this technically challenging world. This other guy he approached, david packhouse was attracted by the money, he was 18 years old or 19 by then, how much money do you have . And how much money do you have . Only saying this to encourage you, not to boast but no one . 8 million in the bank, just simply couldnt believe his years, he smoked and thought it over, decided it was worth making millions of bucks he would take the ride with Efraim Diveroli, like Efraim Diveroli was pulling into a movie which is ironic given the fact that it was a movie but he really was living this fantasy of becoming a real life lord of war, roofless relentless billionaire gun runner. And you have to throw it to the guy, he was doing it, it was becoming a reality. In 2006 contract appeared on line that astonished the dudes. The pentagon wanted 100 rounds of ak47 ammo, on and on the contract went, enough ammo to build an army which they were trying to do of course in afghanistan. This would be a single winner. All the ammunition awarded to one company and that company would be in charge of delivering essentials hundreds of millions of dollars and the reason for the contract was at that time in 20067 the government surge troops into iraq as you might recall leaving as barack obama noted frequently on the campaign trail no resources to put into afghanistan, no american soldiers and so the solution by the people in the pentagon was lets get a whole bunch of ammo over there and create an afghan army on the fly. Efraim diveroli and packhouse, david packhouse was a licensed connoisseur and students at a local college. Efraim diveroli was the ninth grade dropout. Their third body was a pot dealer. Packhouse had ambitions of his own, an album and in packhouse. In the contract to the cheapest price for 100 million rounds. 100,000 grenades. And serviceable in the arms dealing, and the barrel of a gun and that is it. And cut and by the russians or chinese, those other countries that could actually supply this easily, at a great price, especially the chinese simple logistics but the Bush Administration abandoned countries dealing with the United States government largely due neoconservatisms politics but also the policy about iran and doing business with iran and doing business with them they said you cant buy from russia or china. On the day they are supposed to put it in in the afternoon, get to the post office, they were tormented. 10 profit margin, 9 , what would anyone else be doing . Smoking dope, back and forth and lets go for it, 8 . Throw it in and it is 290 million a is there bad, bidding against General Dynamics and raytheon Massive Companies theyre going against and they won. They could hardly believe their luck. I would like to do a little reading for you. On january 26thexcuse me. On january 26, 2007, david packhouse was packing his loss of protegee in his Apartment Building when his cellphone rain. I have good news and bad news Efraim Diveroli said. What do you want for speaking with is the bad news gq our First Quarter is only for 680,000. So we won the contract . F yes. An upscale restaurant was the site of the celebration. Multiple bottles tested their incredible good fortune. The two friends already stoned from the joint they smoked on their way to dinner were responsible for one of the central elements of the Bush Administrations foreign policy. Packhouse at cellphone rain. A massage plan want to make an apartment. He retired as a missile or, as they age, plastic cocaine boule cactus cocaine in a plastic bullet around his neck. Back and forth under the table using their napkins to pretend to blow their nose as they wiped away the white powder. You and me buddy, Efraim Diveroli said, will take over this industry. I see it being a 10 billion company in a few years. Those fat cats in board rooms running fortune 500 companies are worried about their stock price. A have no idea. General dynamics will not be happy now, packhouse agreed a range of the line of quote on the dashboard of his new audi in the parking lot after dinner, Efraim Diveroli reminded his colleagues of their precarious position. They won the bid but were not convinced they won the contractor sure. They perforated would be taken away. Excuse my language, Efraim Diveroli said you got the bitchs panties off but you havent fed her yet. The her is the United States government said that gives you a flavor for how these guys were thinking and acting. Not with a whole bunch of fear and respect how i learned about this story was like everybody else i suppose in the initial wave. It appeared on the front page of the New York Times. I have a missing page here. The story appeared in the front page of the New York Times and essentially portrayed the story as a group of sleazy teenage kids who instead of providing quality and the nation to the afghans had gone ahead and defrauded the government by providing faulty ammunition. So what followed after this, this is where the plot thickens. The kid won contract and here is what follows. Albanian gained steers swiss arms dealers politics is lynn Vladimir Putin and george bush, a covert sabotage on a runway, ammunition explosion that killed 28 people, and solve the murder federal indictments, that is just a short list. That is just a quick rundown. I will read from the introduction of the book, give flavor of the New York Times story and how i came across this story. Incredibly, according to the official version of events, instead of providing highquality ammunition they shipped a mountain of the cheapest possible surplus from the balkans. A story that appeared on the front page of the New York Times in march of 2008 reported they had the audacity to scam the federal government supplying faulty interesting munitions, cheating the army and endangering the lives of innocent afghan soldiers. The times article made the dudes celebrities of a kind, internet celebrities but also raised questions. How could three so on qualified and inexperienced kids be trusted with such a massive defense contract . How would the full so many people . With the contract typical of the way the worlds loans superpower was fighting in afghanistan and iraq . What did the debacle say about american ability to try the war on terror . I was a reporter for the Rolling Stone magazine and a new with the magazine was looking for to make the words of the editor, stories about kids doing things. Pretty good grief, right . This seemed to qualify. I knew from experience the right time to approach people facing criminal proceedings is after they pled guilty and been sentenced but after they had been convicted. At waited and when david packhouse and Efraim Diveroli were sentenced i spoke to david packhouse and he agreed to tell me the story. So in court the government portrayed the kids the dudes as lowlife fraud this, sleazy kids who would do anything to make money. In the times packhouses qualification as massage therapist with the joy of reporting, checkered personal history like violence with girlfriends and alcoholrelated problems. The New York Times ran mug shots of these kids on the front page of the they dont run mug shot of anybody. These kids had not been indicted with anything, charged with any illusion they ran mug shots of fugitives, not regular citizens. They were portrayed as these hardened, tough criminals. When i met david packhouse and was really a surprise a nice, smart kid. He had a keen memory easy laugh and ironic appreciation of the craziness of what he had lived through unlike hollywood image in hollywood of an arms dealer, sold with the merchandising that. He was the kind of kid who can easily started a dot. Com in Silicon Valley or invented a killer apps. He was a bright young guy. The Rolling Stone article attracted more attention than any other piece i have ever written including the movie deal which happened very quickly. It seems like somehow it had captured the craziness of this last decade we went through, the wars failing, it seemed to grab people. I was happy with Rolling Stone article but i knew there was a lot more. Federal judge had plays a significant amount of documents involving the case under seal. I didnt give up. I continued to pursue it. It became wahabi. Anybody who had done the investigation, you get these things and dont want to let them go so i started drafting a freedom of information requests trying to get interviews, figure out how to get to these documents and lowend the oldbehold i got from. Persistence and van Efraim Diveroli talked to me and the way it had been portrayed in the New York Times it didnt capture the texture, three stone is had taken a trip into the wild reaches of International Arms dealing with no one has been in this world in quite that way that they did. It was important politically and legally. I discovered during the wars iraq and afghanistan the government of the United States turned itself into the biggest gunrunning organization on the planet. It sounds crazy but when you think of it they needed an ocean of munitions where can you get those munitions . You ban the russians and chinese. One place to go, the balkans, eastern europe, you want nonstandard ammunition and guess who is there . Suggs, gun runners, people who sell weapons to drug dealers and african war lords. That was the reality that confronted the pentagon. They use private contractors, brokers, these kids to go in to be the fall guys. Vance veazey politicians and paid bribes and look the other way, and the way these people operate. The kids had no clue about this the from the outset they were set up to be the skate go to anything ever went wrong. The story illustrates what went wrong in afghanistan and iraq. The government tried to hide this story at every level, state, justice, defense kamal these elements of government did everything they can to hide what truly transpired and i say this with a little hyperbole but not a ton, this is a story werent meant to read, it was never meant to come out. I am glad i got a chance to do it. Here is another element to this. What i just described is the establishment of the government, the establishment of the press. The New York Times framed this story in a different way. The New York Times portrayed this story is sleazy kids cheating the pentagon. That still persists. I have been doing interviews with this book launch, they were sending faulty ammunition and sleazy kids and it is like no. Stop. I dont do that to be polite but that is what i want to say. The times ran these mud shots and also ran a photograph on the front page of the newspaper with a box of ammunition that was clearly by implication meant to represent what the story was about which was 100 million rounds of chinese manufacture, ammunition, chinese in this sense it had been shipped from china to albania in 1915s and 60s for ancient cold war reasons and had been in albania 60 years. Steve department rules any munitions in another country for five years changed nationality. Alliances change, politics changed. The pentagon to and have that rule. This photograph really by implication showed this was what kids were shipping. It was completely and totally wrong. It was not what kids were shipping. It was as misleading as an image can be. The rounds the kids shift, hundreds of millions they got to about 100 million rounds they shipped to this chinese ammunition to cobble there were never any complaints, it worked. It was strategically vital. As our results of the New York Times story and how bad the government looked with these kids on the front page the shipments were stopped. The result, the afghans ran out of ammo in summer of 2008 which was a crucial time in that war as barack obama kept saying on the campaign trail. These were in the times when that war was lost. None of this, none of this, department of justice, state, pentagon, none of it has ever been reported until now. So one of the great pleasures of my kind of journalism is that you get the chance from time to time which i guess you would call not to burn a few bridges friday of journalism is that you get to speak truth to power so i will give david packhouse a chance to speak to the New York Times through me but in the book he is quoted and this is a particular delight for me because it is hard to counter the narrative that appeared, this is what david has to say in the book. Quote there were so many factual errors in the article like the picture of the bulgarian and lo, the , themmo , the, the times took the worst rounds, how could the government award such a contract to a kid in his book, the reporter, a very prominent and superaccomplished great reporter war reporter he wrote a book called the gun and he wrote eloquently about the ak47 and even 50 or 60 years later you can find in afghanistan that worked perfectly. But he didnt apply the same standard to the ammunition for the ak47. He pledged to nato standards which was absurd, not part of the pentagon contract stipulation, quote, he made no mention of the fact the vast majority of the ammo be supplied was fully functional including the chinese rounds from albania. The surplus ammo was old and we hadnt done rigorous ballistics testing but a contract joy and require those. Focused on making the government looking competent instead of realizing the government made a calculated decision to get the cheapest possible ammo as quickly as possible. In truth we were paid to do with the army could do for itself. It impossible send american soldiers to the capital of albanians to buy the ak47 ammo. They would get caught up in the corruption for shore just like we did but he never wrote about that in the larger context of what the army was doing in afghanistan and iraq and how they were using private contractors to be gun runners on their behalf. The response to this New York Times article was profound and immediate. Inside the Albanian Embassy there where terrified the New York Times would connect them to this arms dealing shenanigans which of course they were deeply connected to. So the piece ran at midnight new york time which was 6 00 a. M. In toronto and i have an email from a senior officer, 12 minutes past 6 00 he read the article and he writes no mention of the embassy, thank god. This is a quote from the book and this is the aftermath of the times article. The dudes were no longer the only do this. In the days that followed that emerged, prosecutors and investigators and diplomats and military officials taking deep katie hits on the bond of power. The Justice Department bringing indictments against as many of those involved as possible. The pentagon was determined to defend its honor and avoid looking foolish as it the simple to add the more dating truth this contract was an aberration but a good representation of how they the chairman system operates. The army did the fact versus series ammunition shortages in afghanistan because of this case. Likewise the state department was terrified longstanding knowledge of what the company was doing in albania would be merged along with evidence of possible american complicity, an explosion that killed 28 civilians. In effect the times story, the most up proximate consequence of the times story was a series of byzantine overlapping of self contradicting attempts to feign innocence. Like teenagers frayed their stash of wheat would be found. What was the result of this case . What were the Lessons Learned . The answer is nothing and none. No authority was held accountable for any of this. No one was punished for creating the extra itlegal system to enable the American Military to do business in the balkans. That system persists to this day the same munitions i write about in this book in 2008 are proliferating to the middle east and syria and other countries in afghanistan. Contemplate this fact. Have the guns shipped to iraq in afghanistan in the 2,000s, half of the guns disappear, that was half of all 5 million ak47s, no one not one person has been disciplined or prosecuted for any of that. There have been Inspector General reports and wrist slapping going on but the people behind the story have risen up the bureaucracy, no one had any consequence whatsoever which may be one of the most depressing things of last eight years of this administration. In the age of the scapegoats officials use the fall guy to take the blame and continue on confident that congress and the principal did nothing to bring the truth to light. With that i will do a final little reading here. Theres lots of fun stuff i promise you, really. What happened was the kid could guilty as you know. The government had never alleged any issues to do with quality. That was one of the first thing they stipulated. The new york time is based on one loan quote from one afghan soldier. There was no allegation about anything other than a purely technical case whether it was chinese or not. That didnt stop politicians from issuing press releases. Prosecutors and politicians. Here is what they said. When these contractors cut corners to line their own pockets and risk the safety and lives of men and women in uniform, United States attorney for the district of such callous disregard for the wives of soldiers will not be tolerated and will be vigorously prosecuted. Another one, if this a once soldiers and Coalition Partners are fighting to keep the save it is reprehensible to greet and disregard human safety of resulted in a such dangerous fraud. In fact the opposite was true. The greatest peril to Afghan Forces was not the dudes the government claimed but the u. S. Government itself. The pentagon set out to circumvent domestic and International Law by creating a joy and protocol to acquire weapons to speed getting into afghanistan. The pentagons own Law Enforcement agency applauded that effort. No one responsible will be held accountable apart from the fall guys. The case illustrates the kaleidoscope like nature of the war effort in afghanistan, major ron walton was a logistics person, receiving this ammo when it arrived from the tarmac he got so much training for that task, at number 0, no clue whatsoever. In the aftermath of the whole thing he left afghanistan and returned to the United States the subject was failure. The epigraph for his thesis was taken from a german writer, his book the logic of failure. Failure does not strike like a bolt from the blue, it develops gradually according to its own logic. When you watch individuals attempt to solve problems you will see the complicated situations that seem to elicit habits of thought, failure and the motion from the beginning. So the saga ended. The war in afghanistan was lost. Not in any great battle but in the Quiet Desperation of three dudes in a doomed cause. I would be happy to answer any questions. [applause] was and that upbeat . The New York Times story, the book and the movie, what is the best order to read or watch the book . The book first . Then the movie bully then go back to the times. If you want to commit to this it might be interesting to read the New York Times story, then read the book, the movie is off on a different tangent not attempting to seriously explain or discuss this stuff. I think as i wrote the book as i worked on the book it occurred to me more than at once that this was an interesting study in journalism and how journalism happens and daily journalism is different from the journalism this book represents because i have two years and turning things over every day. I am very aware of that and also aware of having someone come back and read for something i have done. Anyone who has been in this business knows that is not going to feel great. I hope this was done with Great Respect. I know it was done with Great Respect and i hope the times knows that. It is a Great Institution open to criticism. Just like all of us. I think the book is an interesting voice into how you read newspapers as well. Questions for you. In the event that these guys when they put that bid in if they went for it 9. 5 what happens in that alternate universe . Whoever it was that won that bid supplying a huge amount to afghanistan with their be a scandal there . Or we would never hear about it . They have different criteria that they apply to determine the winner of a contract. One is priced. And others past performance and a third one is Small Business. These dudes had the Small Business thing nailed. Another thing, investigated this case, past performance of the dudes, they said it was terrible, they defaulted on 12 contracts, 14 contracts in iraq, everybody was defaulting on every contract in baghdad, the place was chaos they should 12 billion in the one hundred dollar bills, handing them out like footballs. The idea these kids were singularly bad but the truth of the matter is when you line up past performance with their competitors the nearest competitor was 200 million bucks higher. One of the ironies of this thing is the government for the first time maybe ever was getting a great deal and these kids that ushered them into this great deal caught up in the world in joy of the New York Times, it is true there hasnt been a case like this of fraud. It is true these kids were singularly defiant and rage in high reaches of Law Enforcement and politics. It is just done by adults and the biggest failure, the reason this broke his they had millions of dollars by then they didnt hire lobbyists, didnt get a next general to sit on the board phone call solve this. They tried to do this inside the pentagon painfree, out and got to get this up to the head of the entire middle east command, and soldiers sending incendiary emails to the United States, you cant do it this. I you idiots . This will cause severe shortages. These prosecutors these authorities in the pentagon, they imagine themselves and this statement on how pathetic things are, this is a great case stopping saddam from shipping ammo when winning the global war on terrorism, this is how it is discussed in government. I dont know what to say to try to hide it. Who wants this stuff out . I hope people will engage with it and as for what is going on now, talking to an editor of Rolling Stone, she said why dont you write about this some more . No one covers this. The prestige, things to do is to get a dateline on an Aircraft Carrier or to get an interview with Donald Rumsfeld or secretary gates or Something Like that. The prestige thing is to have a seat at a press conference. I am not getting a seat at the press conference. I am not inviting joy the back room to seek technical plans and treated like half a buddy. That is a failure of reporting. Being they took the fall for this, after effect. The United States government we get the numbers wrong but 70 million rounds of ak47 from china, that specific piece. They accepted it all he shoots it all it was used in war and they refuse to pay for it. Efraim diveroli got out of prison is suing last i heard. 20 million. You cant take something, use it and then say it works, i dont know how else it will turn out but it is a good way of sampling the insanity of all this, but in terms of what happens to the dudes, Efraim Diveroli got out of prison. I didnt get prison time in this end. David packhouse has gone on from be guitar pedals machine basically you play the guitar and drums at the same time with solo performers it is killing it, an interesting. The other dude is more like another guy who feels be not buy it is because he did marginal things wrong, never made a time out of it and wants to be a political activist and a felony offense is a big obstacle in your life in your 20s so easy to forget the wound this puts on people for these political purposes, these are real people with real consequences. The other thing i would like to mention is Ralph Merrill a utah businessman who was the finance year, he is still in prison. This guy spent 1 million and refused to plead guilty, they tried him, had a hung jury and try again. This happens when the the part of justice decides to go at the u. N. Is only going one way. It costs them nothing. They get up in the morning and not spending a dime. Is costing you everything you have. He spent his personal fortune and continues to serve prison time away from his family. The most straitlaced utah guy you ever met. We have time for one or two more questions if anyone has them. How much prison time did Efraim Diveroli serve . He got four years for this crime but he has the misfortune, i hope the is learning from it, being a heedless kind of a guy. While he was awaiting his time in prison he continued even though he was a convicted felon federal felon to be involved on the edges of the arms business. He was trying to go up to the edge without breaking the law and the atf stumbled into the fact that he was doing that and had his high profile potential target on their hands so he kept saying i cant i cant deal with guns but i can do this or that. The atf is more frustrated because he refused to break the law in the end they threw a gun at him and he caught it and that was breaking the law as well and he got in the two years for that but before he did that this is how the book ends and that is inappropriate moment to end this conversation the atf agent says come and look at my online weapons yet opens the trunk of the car and the parking lot in south florida, he hands Efraim Diveroli again and Efraim Diverolis favorite line was once a gun runner, always a gun runner. Please