Bookstore first event of our pall season were happy that all of you are here tonight. You probably noticed the cameras. Cspans booktv is here tonight as well. So tell your friends who could not come out to watch on television later. Since were filming, when we open the floor for questions, please hold the questions until youre given this microphone. Also, please turn off your cell phone ringers. I appreciate that. Tonight, were here to celebrate the release of kevins new book, a force so swift mall truman and birth of modern china which was released today. Hes a better and Foreign Correspondent who has reported from around the world. He spent a decade as Senior Writer and bureau chief for newsweek magazine. He was a finalist for living stoun wavered for Foreign Affairs reporting and was part of a tell that won the National Magazine award in 2004. His first book titled lincoln in the world making of a spaceman and dawn of a megyn power named one of thedale beast best bocks on president lincoln. He has also written for wall street journal foreign oles, and politico magazine, hes countrily a visiting psychological is particular at the program in International Relations at new york university. Our other guest is Scott Anderson hes a contradicting writer or the New York Times magazine. His most recent book is lawrence in arabia war dephotoand making of the modern middle east. It was short listed for National Book critical award and mr. Agedder son raised in east asia attended iowa writers workshop. In his 33 years as a worker correspondent hes covered conflicts in egypt, israel with, lebanon, Northern Ireland and sudan. So clearly were in for an interesting event this evening since release date of kevins book we want to make sure you have the complete author of that experience is tonight. So heres what im talking about first you came to the store, sit through a very boring introduction, thank you. [laughter] after that you hear two insightful men with an interesting discussion and then after that we open the ploor for questions and you can get more many directly involved by asking your question. Sound pretty good, yeah someone more thing a looming pile of books over here. To get the complete author of the experience, i recommend you are pick up a book get it signed purchase the book and then you have done the whole thing. Cool. So lets get on with it. Have a good time guys. [applause] [inaudible conversations] had in here tonight i was thinking it is a kind of cliche when youre trying to promote a book saying it is like ripped from today headlines and this is first time i think literally that is true and how much of a big how it is this morning that the u. N. With president trump. Just the first question i want to ask you is how you came it a long time in the making before both china were fronter and cenr of the world how did they come to that . I wish i had that crystal ball i start ised this four years ago, and had no idea what would be going on today. But i started this, you know, when i finished my last book a few years ago cia declassified its secret internal history of covert operations around the chinese. And this is their couple of copies about this thing one kept in a vault and one circulated as a kind of education tool among operatives for whatever reason in response to a freedom of information act request by a veteran of vea officers they released this so some of this had trickled out over the years. But there was an immense amount of kind of new granular detail about these operations made for great read when you have new stuff like that, you know, it was, you know, makes for good history, and this is also kind of kind of like 2011, 2012, so also when Harry Clinton wrote essay about pivot to asia, and so you know in beijing they saw the pivot to asia as containment modern day containment so im thinking at this you know this point and time you know beijing is worried about containment we have more information than ever before about what containment really was at the origin in 1949 thats how, that was my original conceit and shame a little bit. The book is are really 1949 is the leadup to the korean war, and it is also about how you deal with a rising china whether it is engage and cold front but become a timeline in different qais. Takeover and it seems at least outside world were not seeing a lot of attention seem to come up out of left field. Can you walk us through how how that all kind of unfolded sure. But with the history in the time but it was a sense is of how it happened. Yeah, so my book starts in 1949. The chinese civil war is really over. Maui won at point and hes doing cleanup operations hes slowly over the course of the year taking over beijing and then shanghai. But u now the civil war had been going on in one way or another for 20 year. These guys had been adversaries for 20 years going back to the 1920s, and you know there were at one time they were both kind of, you know, i wouldnt say allies but they were kind of peel low travelers in this effort to modernize china in the in their reaction to the regime a dynasty rolling china since mid17th century and they were both trying to modernize china and then beginning in the 1920s, they slowly began to kind of fled mountains and took over nationalist government, and then there was this kind of interesting period where japanese they were both occupied with the Japanese Occupation of china during the 1930s and world war ii when they kind of they never stopped clashing or fighting, but the kind of their focus shifted to the japanese and then really after the collapse of japan, and after nagasaki end of world war ii conflict reigiited civil war simmering for years came to its end game thats where story starts right at the beginning of that eared. And may answer huge military blunders error that hastened along. Can you talk a little bit about what this whole strategy in ventura. Biggest thing he went on offensive in vench ventura kind of a couple of different times and 1947, 194 when he probably shouldnt have. He made some military errors and mow this whole debate about why he lost chinese civil war and one theory that he made errors at the point and so that was, you know, thats one reason. Another thing, though, was that he had a very difficult task in the wake of world war ii, i mean, world war ii devastated china. There was 15 Million People died in the fighting this were leak 80 to 100 million refugees during this period the economy was completely e devastated. So he had a tough job too. Yeah. You know what i grew up in taiwan talk about that in main but one thing that struck me despite in taiwan is how little and im speaking for myself how Little People know about what happened in now taking over in china so if any of us were paying attention all in school you know quite a bit about Russian Revolution but chinese seem to kind of come and go even at the time it it didnt get a lot of attention why are do you think that is. Is it because so many other things happening around the the world was it because there was this perception in had country that asia wasnt that important . Why, why do you think that it has always been this sort of tucked in to history i mean it depends where im not sure about taiwan with at this period but i think part of it might be this nationalism. I mean, somebody said essence of the nation is all of the people have a lot in common and some have forgotten things so theres this process of forgetting that takes place in any nation whether it is taiwan or Mainland China or in the United States that i think might be a play there. Sometimes people want to forget, it is helpful for nationalism i tell you, though, in china in Mainland China it is very revolution is very present. You see things theres actually a complex in beijing that that i walked past that is called 1949 complex that has got numeral and they felt a brewery inside and sell a beer called air pock lips the price is cheaper for the beer depending how bad the smog is but in the 1949 conflict. And you can go, i mean, you can go back to shiba kind of in southwest of beijing which was the last base camp in china. And you know, tourists pay, you know, couple of bucks to sit in replica old chair or pose with, you know, rifles standing beside sangd bags so a element of memory both remembering and forgetting that takes place in all of these kinds of things. I was from 1962 to 1969 and one of my distinct memories my child had and one of the distinct memories was the 10th, the 10 day to take to this podium in the main square of tiba to give a rousing speech and he always end west side a line being to the mainland this idea to somehow go back to Mainland China to take over. And every child is normal to them mog to it compare it to. But what i remember about my childhood is it was it how utterly militarized taiwan was there was aircraft gun at the entrance to my own interns school, and merle everywhere. Of course part of it was this state of siege and as a kid you didnt realize part of what this was about was keep americans reporting shanghai to no human rights there was americans were not going to bug human rights. But front running state. I wonder if you can are talk so much of history is about personalities. [inaudible conversations] sure, so in this book with, i follow coif a million characters that you could do you can make a russian novel of it. It is one of the problems i had is this finding a few you have to focus on a few characters or you just get too many. So i kind of, you know, i focused on shanghai she can, and american madam by the way who is fascinating first e lady republic of china and amazing character, i mean, no matter what you think politically she just was born in 1897 died in i think in 2003 so she was like 106 years old for lifespan is 20 9 century, she was a genuinely powerful influential woman many the 20th century and you em and read letters she wrote as a as a, you know, as a in her 20s which are at an archive in wealthy college where she went to college. She actually grew up into a lot of her education many the u. S. Its amazing you realized shes very intelligent person and very dynamic very force of the personality so she was one of the characters that i found totally fascinating and what some of the best sources actually you know for biographer a writer of history one of the gifts that you can have is when a husband and wife are parked the period of time that youre writing about because they write letters you know its it like so madam in 1949 was in the u. S. She was kind of lobbying the u. S. For support. He was in china. And so they wrote these telegrams back and forth theyre hilarious theyre like bickering husband and wife emails to each other and she said you know you should give this speech you know tomorrow im not going to give that speech but i wrote it for you just doapght change it. Theres these kind of things back and a forth that give use a window of like 10 of them overt course of this year so yeah for me for me it is always about the people i love thats what draws me in. And now, with nou. I think we have this image as an elder orally people and nixon either the very young revolutionary, or kind of older, you know, obese kind of, you know, somewhat senile figure of the nixon years and in 1949 hes like mid50s, hes not particularly wellhead a condition that his doctors called angio neurosis so kind of faint and swoon at times and he would stay up all hours of the night and one with who would stay up all night kind of on a high and crash in the morning. And these, you know, when my story open at the beginning of 1949 these are heavy days for mo o u as we were talking about before hes been fighting this war for a long time and he had to leave infant daughter behind on the trail during the long march one of his wives was executed by firing squad for mau a long time coming, and you know, and when you read the sources from this period, you know, there were times to start these each day they would start with these kind of euphoric meetings they would all gather in space camp to go over last victory once the biographer talk about how he would play records on phonograph that his wife had bought and shanghai of opera and sing along with opera so you get a sense of a guy who has been fighting for a long time. And hes coming into his own during this period. But, i mean, he had a heck of a task ahead of him as with talking about, these same is things are problem for mou, and so she has a big task after he takes over china of you know of making it work. Right. Once it is over, of course, in this country it is fueled this the whole we lost china debate. Which played right into the growing red scared it was having here, and really accelerated, of course, with korean war in 1850. Who did lose china was it anything americans could have done or what it could have done to prevent it . I dont think so. I mean i think its a bit of a false question. That was the question who lost china, and there wasnt really a lot. China wasnt United States and chinese it was a revolution, and but that question, i mean,s a political issue it became a huge political issue in that both in 1949 and going through, you know, i think mccarthy gave his had famous wheeling welfare speech at the beginning of 1950s kind of the lead up to so very beginning of mccarthyism and one of the statistics i saw was that in 1949, onethird of the onethird of all of the stories on the front page of american newspapers were about spying infiltration so aable fear in the country during this period that there were spies within, within the United States, and you know there was some spying to be honest. U. S. Was doing some spying and others were doing spying one of the interesting, you know, spy tan jengt during this year is that guy bosser burgess he was a british spy was actually working in desk during 1949, so, i mean, its possible that he could have passings in about some of these debates that were talking about to, you know, to stall operatives or whatever. But so there might have been spying but the fear that was, you know, worth spying and later in 1949 soviets exploded their first atomic bomb so i think the combination of these spying fierce and Nuclear Fears lets did a lot of insecurity, and paranoia of americans how does that initially view china does he see as a puppet and see the Chinese Revolution by the soviet union is this some did and some didnt. As far as the administration was concerned by this point they didnt want anything to do with china they were so you have to remember this is like a way, this is a few years after the end of world war ii. And so i mean you have israeli risen to a level and rebuilding young you know secretary of state titled president of creation so that really wasnt so much of an exaggeration but the origin of the International System and so that enormous task of primarily rebuilding, so you know this is after the marshal plan and some of these installments maneuvering, revenge and Eastern Europe so what they wanted to do was forget about china and they have so many other problems that they tried to forget about it, and atchison was not a guy searkts of the state in 1949, he just didnt want anything to do with. Slowly over the course of 1949 that became impossible. It just you know east asia took over the agenda atchison in general we talk about strategic patience you know we hear that a lot people talk about it and new york strategic patience is over. Atchison was basically the strategic patience guy, and he what i say is like of the state department dont just do something. Stand there. He wanted not just a for the stake of action but he saw himself as a pragmatist and you know people too much. Sometimes his lines with the Chinese Revolution we have to wait for best to settle and then maybe we can figure out whatted to and got killed for that politically. You know, people jumped all over it said he was being too passive, and so thats what, you know, thats what enemy were really were. So turning to cia now is the dock you were able to access how quickly did cia start carrying out covert operations against in china. So it was mid1949 in the main driver the driver for this is claire who was he was a helped publish earlier system in china and just a forceful personality and what he wanted to do is he said, okay taking over china. What we need to do is establish what he call the belt of resistance and what he wanted to do is find money and weapons to these prudential leaders on that of china and inside, you know, inside Mainland China on the areas around where out of control and he lobbied hard this is another you can go to stanford in california, and read jamals letters during this period and youre just, you know you realize youre in a incredible permit and as i was reading this is a great example of you know in washington how just kind of force of will can stiewms get things done. But sent letter after letter lobbying people to do this and one of the people whose attention he caught was prank frank who is, you know, scott is now writing a book be about one of characters hes the headf the policy coordination. Pop policy coordination covert action wing of the cia at this point, and he liked this idea he was sure he did. Because these are, you know, as in any kind of bureaucratic battle battling for resources and he sees something he can do and he jumps all over it and he ended up Getting State Department oversaw it was a disicht structure than it is now and they end up getting permission of atchison to launch code word operations, and thats exactly what they did. Thigh shipped, sent operatives to hong kong, and they want bring baskets to trade u. S. Dollar for hong kong dollars and steal wicker baskets of cash and fly big krrk 46 or giant they look like a big football fly from hong kong to Southern China and i had an article reader or say theyre slipping cash to the enemy isnt it more forral . Its not theyre twails just flipping, you know, baskets of cash to enemies. The first cia casualty happened during this period is guy thats in china. Guy named douglas and he was faced in irmchi Northwestern Province he had armies flip over consalate and regroup to tee bet hes strabbed gold cubes on size of sugar cubes to his bid and packed jeep with grenade and ghun and had these one time pads which i dont know one time method things you know coded messages, and he takes off on across the 1500 miles tibet and he guess on camels 1500 miles to tibet and border guard shoots and kills him when he got there if. Why didnt you shoot me before in the dpez desert for is 15 lus miles but theres great sky keeper stories. A group Propaganda Group that got involved in shady operations around the world with talking about funding how these groups who were started and i have a ci alist in front of me with operation, and it was called counterpart front, and Counterpart Funds if there was a Development Project in a country that was being repaid it would be repaid in local concern city that local concern city useless on aerial National Market that sit in fact money in the American Embassy wherever the country was. And interesting thing so i was talking to cia about world league and how the cia funded and i said well who is generated the Counterpart Fund . So we would have been through the food for Peace Program because these big Agricultural Products at the time. Anyway, food for peace Office Officer in dye u won at the time was my father. So a little aside. I realize this is you know, your book kind of goes right up the korean war. But obviously, i know its almost 60, 70 years later before this is coming back around. Walks through what, how the role in up in working with kimmel to give go ahead or if how is that all kind of played out . So korean war was basically a civil war it was, you know, after world war ii, the United States occupied south korea. And so occupy north korea and i think in trips and u. S. Troops through in 1949, from south korea, and you know the civil war was on again and both , you know, north and south were, you know, least had in rhetoric as by the way kim jongun regime is today. Young hanging up service to reunification and fact that you know they wanted to, you know, to resolve this civil conflict unify so the driver, driving force was kimmel son and he really wanted to launch invasion, and none of the great powers really wanted the war. I mean, the u. S. , i mean, as we were talking about before so much beginning on in europe u trow man atchison dont want it and they said as much in speeches and early 1950s at, you know, made it clear that they werent so interested in defending south korea and department want it now either so think about mau fought this civil were at home hes interesting in taiwan, hes interested in invading taiwan consolidating homes but he knew that a war on Korean Peninsula could draw American Intervention and thactd harm his revolution at home. Stallen, you know, kim convinced him to intervene, and he said he told kimmel son if youre kicked in the teeth youll have to ask for help so that gaye a reluctant blessing to kim invasion baa he was wild it be either but he sent troops and not troops but advisors and weapons on the eve of the caribbean. Theyre in the region way you do. What advice would you give the current American Administration about how to confront china and cold front north korea . I mean im not trying to say cold conft or deal with with. But one of the lessons of 1949 is, you know, theres this big debate about do you, do you engang china or do you confront china. Dhowld talks with the new government or try to contain and confront one of the lessons of 1949 is neither of those thing it is really worked. You know, they are American Ambassador john lane stewart interested in holding talks with mau during 1949 he tried he made sol progress they didnt pan out. To be honest truman wasnt interested in holding talks you know of a the end of the cold war from the document. So you know, talking wasnt, you know, kind of a nonstarter. Confrontation was kind of a disaster to that ended up containment you know you can draw straight is line from logic of containment to vietnam war to the korean war to the, you know, all kiengdz of things so i mean, contain itment wasnt a great, you know, success either in some ways so i always think atchison had a nice turnout. A lot of great turn and phrases but used to say people think of Foreign Policy problems as headaches. You know you take a pill and theyre gone and he said you know Foreign Policy problems arent that kind of pain. More like pain of earning a living that stays with us until death i think thats true. You know, kesm junk untoday is that kind of pain and its problem, all of these problem are that kind of pain but things that you have to resolve over time and may not be resolved right away you cannot take a pi pill or rattle say about isers and make them work. One more question to turn it over to the audience for questions but before youre talking about this cia operation it was cut out quota one of the people in my book, is a cia officer who stole ideas 95 years old. And he was cia station chief in hong kong in the late 50s. Prior to that been in yearn europe doing air droch anticommunist partisan into Eastern Europe, and every program wases corrupted, and i acted i asked them about a month ago why, he quit with the cia in 1960s i asked him why and it is amazing story in 1960 early 1960s this is director of the cia, came out and he had all of this station chief in the region at a meeting. And he announced a new program to spend 100 million, 160 million to drop anticommunist partisan into Mainland China, and this is peter. Peter asked to talk to him out in the hall and when they got in the hall he said look we would save so much is time and money if we kill them ourselves he said im done and he had in his letter of resignation that day. So you know this waste and that program did go for and it was a disaster. So last question and turn it over earlier this morning, earlier today trumpled a u. N. General assembly vowed to totally destroy north korea if we have to if for the allies smart move, dumb move . [laughter] [inaudible conversations] no answer to that. I watched the speech this morning, with and the, you know, some of the it was a kind of a lot of that talking about north korea and american first what i found about it there was also a lot of like he was talking about he quoted truman and he quoted he was talking about you know marshal plan, and quoted truman, but it was this this summer you know hes through International System trump very vocal about wanting to tear that system down in a lot of ways. Although one similarity, i asked is some of the guys they dont exist him but theyre poets atchison and george they have a way with words. And atchison is to say about about truman he was like little kid is always stick peanuts up his nose and minute later hes statisticking fee thuts up his nose. [laughter] thank you. [applause] just on regarding now, what do you think was his genesis of taking up communism had is i think really one of the key reasons why we came fearful of china in the late 40s. My want to restore chinas place of greatness after, you know, after a long, a very kind of difficult period it was huge population, growth in china in the 19th century. Modern economics changing a lot touring it this period, and china had had a rough series of game and mau believed one of the courses he said you know hes stalking about the importance of rs it if and he said the the greatest force and popular appeal is now he u saw there was a population bloom and communism was for him a way to harness that force and harness that energy that was happening in china, and during that period. So part of it, you know, it is internal dynamic in china but i think also he was always a dogmatic communist and there were tensions as there were among communists with mau and sol and i think he called mau a margin at one point. You know, he wasnt necessarily always l dogmatic in communism but i think he was a committed communist he read committed marx and under issues also so ideologically you know hes committed to the cause, an also practically it was a appeal to him. All right do you think in looking at the nationalist relationship with the American Congress is madam change was positive force or negative forcement act . You know, in the end i think what youre talking about and what you mean by positive. I mean ill talk in material of effective or o ineffective i think he was uneffective to world war ii and she came to the United States i think in 1943, to give a speech and spoke before both houses of congress, and she got, i mean, she was received like a movie star. You know she spoke at the Hollywood Bowl during this trip in 1943 you know, bob hope said you know, smitten by her and she basically toured country giving speeches. And i think she was effect during that period and she, you know, she, you know, she generated a lot of greece in china, made successful appeal, and the u. S. , you know, from im not sure exactly what picture but true world war period and sent Million Dollars to the nationalist government so i think her appeal is whered it some affect and period im writing about in 1949 she failed. He had going just as the nationalist start collapsing she is flew to to the United States as were talking about before. And she lobbied very hard for additional aid as kind of a last ditch effort to save the regime. And she spent a year in the u. S. She was, you know, tried everything. She, you know, she was tried to create what she Call NationalPropaganda Institution she was getting funds from the staff to do lobbying she was calling friendly congressman trying to get them to make statements of support and she succeeded in getting them to do some of that stuff. But in the end, she if i would and she knew it and then left at end of the year. For for taiwan. I had mention this from taiwan so this topic is interesting to me before i mention my question i want to bring out throw out effect in 1947 to reach china again for the civil war, and [inaudible conversations] force the staff from china it shall and observance it for job in their time. [inaudible conversations] the package is collected by china. Very soon, and he suggested that you not stay promise to keep additional government for the distance being pronounced inarm. So first truman earned you have set with this approach to a person who is just general monster is older with u. S. Government to impose embargo or almost a one yore two initially reach china so result was what the army taking arms and rifle from them while nationalist army was gone admitting u. S. But we all. So my question is do you think that person truman should take a lot of responsible for losing china, and hits man who made that today including how your relationship with a community and democracy china. Thank you. Its a great question and determine why not with chienl but he can ask he said its like staring down a rattle 47 as you pointed out heaves done by this point and a legitimate question to be asked which is Truman Administration said basically as your honor i was saying before and talking about really there was nothing that you could do that the outcool of the Chinese Revolution was beyond the ability of the United States to control i think it was. But there was a column that i came across by walter who is a oppression a lot of oppression you read his column now and wish you could be as a journalist and in 1949 wrote basically he said okay. Truman are entitled to say that we kongts control outcome of the Chinese Revolution but theyre theyre not entitled to say is we could not control our own action so a legitimate question of well if you cant control Chinese Revolution why didnt you spent people oh the case of world world war ii and to taiwan so there are questions of accountability that truman and atchison could have liked to have dodged that are worth talking about in the deability. Theres times in the administration that had them worried about france and that was the frontline of you know in the containment of communist at that point it was synonymous the zone so weird to think that, you know, in the larger view for important than main lanked china and why is that whole period a little bit of an afterthought in the historical record. Was it not kind of the power and i think that because in the go political scheme of thing it was at the time or it seemed to be at the time. Thats right. Thank you very much. [applause] so thanks yall we will have a book signing up here if anyone wants to get their book signed and buy a book. Thanks for coming out. Youre watching booktv, television for serious readers. You can watch any program you see here onis line at booktv. Org. Hello welcome to the cafe my name is melissa, and event assistant here at the bookstore if before we get started can i have a round of applause from anyone who has never been to this bookstore before. 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