Be watching cspan for what its surissure to be an exceptional discussion. This is a special gathering, where we will learn about and if you will rightly celebrate the publishing of a unique book as a colossal event from a fresh perspective, an opportunity to learn something new and profound about the Second World War or the bestselling history the Second World War how it was fought and won. Im the Vice President of the National Review and the trustee [applause] i didnt know they were serving alcohol this early. [laughter] i do this welcoming on behalf of my fellow trustees we have some of the board here and the president of the institute. [applause] the National Review institute was founded in 91 by william f. Buckley junior. It is a journalistic think tank established to advance the conservative principles though championed and to complement the National Review magazine by promoting and supporting its best talent. At the last National ReviewBoard Meeting in 2006, bill buckley ordered, literally, the directors to make the fight against islamic terrorism a Central Mission of the overall National Review enterprise. The institute took the firm directive informed the sense of western civilization which is the home if you were one of the fellows one being Andrew Mccarthy and the other the man we are assembled today to hear. Please visit nrinstitute. Org to learn about the programs. We are honored to call and a friend come and richard lowry, too. The son of california is a reason and almond farmer, the author of dozens of acclaimed book, the anderson senior fellow in residence and classics and military history at the Hoover Institution at stanford university, a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of the weekly column for the National Review online. Professor hanson is also a distinguished fellow in history at Hillsdale College and among others, he was awarded the National Humanities medal in 2007, the bradley prize in 2008, the award in 2002, and the buckley prize in 2015. We will proceed as follows. Professor hanson will give a talk is about 15 to 20 minutes. To provide an overview of some key themes of the Second World War. Then he will be joined by my other friend, the editorinchief of the National Review and acclaimed author in his own right. I recommend all breed of linking unbound and despite his youthful appearance, the man now separating his 25th year at the National Review and i am pleased to chair that. [applause] when he first came to the National Mall review and the fact that he survived that is quite a miracle. He will join victor for some informed qanda about the book and while they engage we will collect cards from the audience to further talk with one of the great historians of our time. Writing the National Review it is said that it is impossible to do justice to such a magnificent book in a short review given the vast quantities of accounts of the great conflict, one would think there wasnt much left to say. His fresh examination of world war ii cements the reputation as a military historian of the first order indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a distinct pleasure to introduce the professor victor davis hanson. [applause] thank you very much for the nice introduction. Its different when i go to universities raising grower and former colleague [inaudible] to explain this idea that anybody can say anything new when theres about 7,000 books published per year on the Second World War. The title e. Use is one that trumps questions. I was talking to an editor in chief and explained this idea i had. She said it sounds like the Second World War to me, meaning that is th as the title we camep with. What we were getting at is Second World War coming into currency was used but only sporadically until 1941. Then it was the german border war and france, yugoslavia, greece, all of which germany won except they came to an impasse with britain. At the same time the japanese were creating this post [inaudible] the access had been won because they were actively colluding under august 23, 1929. The british were engaged still in the appeasement until Winston Churchill eight and 1940 and we were isolationists and that gave a misguided view of the strength of the United States and Great Britain and eventually the soviet union. And that land in 1941 to the three events that changed the course of history. I think they were the three most momentous and then they changed what we knew as the war and that was of course the soviet invasion of june 22, 1941 as well as the next day on the singapore december 7 and 8th 1941, and then the inexplicable declaration by italy and germany on december 11. And thats the point, the entire complexion of the boards were exchanged and they prided themselves on earlier probation for the verbosity and the wonderful technicians found themselves in a war they couldnt win with 170 million now against him alliance over 400 Million People and they would have a prewar gdp of six or seven times larger. As historians we dont like to go back and say that was stupid. There were all sorts if you were german number japanese we dont have time to go through them all, but very quickly sherman wasnt able to be defeated in what is now the European Union by 1940 and late june so the idea is we could be immune from the blockades and people said krantz never dated a friends collapse this time around. Theyve been very unimpressed. It was wrong, misguided impressions that he had been eager and surrendered in world war i earlier and they were right for the plucking and that distorted the idea that if they ever fought a global war they had no idea beyond. 80 of transportation was by horses and at that point it was just a question of time to get up the full strength. The second position is even more explicable because why would you attack the unite United States n gdp during the 20the gdp duringd 30s often during economically diverse and unpredictable times have been anywhere from ten to 30 times larger than japan. It produced 70 of the worlds oil and the idea was if he were a Japanese Bank or that they havent done anything during the blitz and their key ally meant they were wide open. There was no more friends or east asia that could be conquered and that there was a dispute whether you should go into the philippines or bypass the harbor, but like the german impression, they had run wild, they would run wild. They didnt have the wherewithal or didnt know about the ship program in progress that would make a fleet within two years but was larger than all that had participated in world war ii put together. So, again, what causes the war is this impression of what enemys capabilities are both spiritual and material. Hitler declared war in the United States and partly it was because he felt the uboat even though we have ten or 15 active could ship to miami with ease and more importantly the impression that the Japanese Navy would occupy the americans and they would never be able to get across the atlantic again. Again the misimpression because a member in world war i, we have transported people and produced more artillery shells in france and britain supposed started a war against the new alliance that the access could end when. We cooperated more in fees ideological that dont trust each other so when they say wheres pearl harbor and the germans just declared a pact with their enemies and they did the same with the germans. The theme would be to finish to question 1942 would they fight in world war i if they didnt settle for the armistice. We cant do this because the oversight treaty was partly to blame for the present war was punitive and debilitating but i didnt address the problem of emasculating german aggression. This time we were going to rome, berlin and would impose a surrender in the existential war. More importantly, we have the wherewithal to do it. The United States and britain have the longrange bombers and the idea was the soviet union would be supplied 20 of the material needs and destroy two out of three soldiers. Out of the calculus came the idea that the allies were thinking when you get into the war you have to address the manpower and the reserves of the enemy. In the war with britain, he has no lift capacity, they were incapable of defeating and then he declared war on the country he couldnt reach new york punchless detroit or san francisco. What was he thinking that it makes no sense other than hed livehedoes in the world of the battlefield efficacy spiritual excellence all of these intangibles and practicality and reality. But again, because no ability to reach and there have been more than 700 miles. They didnt have a single pair of carrier. The japanese, what were they thinking when they attacked pearl harbor . Bathos that we wouldnt use the resources of our potential disposal but more importantly, they thought we put in tree act anin the way we did. The question after 42, could they pull it off when we were in this room the answer would be yes. Within a week they were cutting it off. The japanese had the battles off the guadalcanal. It is successfully invaded australia would be cut off, they were barreling 70 miles an alexander on the way to the suez and then it vanished. Within three months there were 300,000 people surrendered in february 1943 and algeria and morocco they couldnt build and supply as americans could and it was just a question again on the Unconditional Surrender because to do so you have to deal with 15 million access soldiers and these economies were still not damaged so the story of world war ii was how much blood and treasure are you willing to expend to defeat fascism and impose a different constitution that would preclude the resurgence of this martial ideology. World war ii became the most deadly event in history. 65, sympathy 60 now because the chinese and russian archives that might have been 70 million. It was the first major war where the losers lost more than the winners by the margin there were far more civilians. 80 were civilians. If you look at the war in the reductionist terms, average people who were killed the story of the german and japanese soldiers killed unarmed and armed uniformed people in soviet union and china, 50 million i think that should remind us a little bit when we worry about the firebombing of japan dropping the atomic bomb it was still if you look at the 27 million that were killed in russia and 16 million in china, eight or 9 million if was still the story of people who said they were the greatest warriors in the world and yet they killed 50 Million People who couldnt defend themselves and they took on three major powers that humiliated them and ended their way of existence. When you look at the people that participated the United States would rise and the question but can remember was the only country to fight and not because it was a surprise country they were far more mobilized. There was the bombing of Manchester Liverpool during the entire period dayold produced the spitfire productions, so at the end of the war they almost outproduce all in almost every category. Japan got off easy in that no nations army killed more people had suffered fewer losses given the carnage and get they were the only country that wasnt invaded. That wasnt really the story. The story was that he got in his way we would have on april bombing was because it had been open in three months. Can you imagine having 15,000 bombers. It would have made the carnage childs place so they were necessary not just in the American Invasion but to save lives from a campaign that already destroyed. You can imagine 2,000 more. I will finish with questions it a leadoff off easy and nobody gets off easy when you lose half a Million People but they have been an ally in world war i and the only country with mussolini and the only country to have a homeland fought over for more than three, two years. We kept the soviets out and it was considered that they suffered. We occupied in a very benign w way. Whatever the faults of the allies that we left Eastern Europe to be subject to the totalitarian subjugation, that is one of the reasons they went to the war, added to the list we have to be good, we dont have to be perfect, so the primary aim is to the fascism and not to let it come again and Everything Else after that was considered a. I will open up for questions now. [applause] we will see what Victor Hanson has to say about this. Could you immediately strike off a column which i believe he did and the email wasnt working that day and you can imagine it was a compelling read once a week basically for 16 years since then and now victor has written a book that is grand military history in the tradition of Martin Gilbert and i have to say that for davis hanson. So congratulations on this monumental book. There is a wellknown book [inaudible] we will discuss a little bit and then in the form of note cards please scribble them out and they will be passed out of here. We dont have a lot of time so my question may be redundant. Lets discuss the points of the war. How close of a battle was hitler to knocking the british out of the war . Then the cabinet deliberations were happening. Late june he thought there were people that made it impossible and he had a very great insight. He said to the generals napoleon may invade britain but they almost did but they cannot defeat and then he said it is inevitable they would do that. The idea i cannot have my enemies homeland. The turning point was next year or 43. If you look at the point that it wouldnt be able to go against the premier army they didnt mean a sort of optional but sort of like a defeat and nobody really got out of the army of over 300,000 people. About 11,000 survived. So is it too simplistic to say they were the ones who defeated hitler . They did kill two out of three. It was soviet blood and the knowhow and experience but in our defense they were able to concentrate because we were supplying the tanks and artillery. Second, the soviets were onedimensional. We conducted the campaign. 10,000 of the best were away from the Eastern Front. We contacted a Circus Campaign and supplied all of these and they did it at a cost of 27 million. We should remember this was from normandy to the there were. 03 and we invest about 45 of the budget without two to 7 . We were very versatile but they wouldnt have been able to off offer. Discussable but more if you dont mind, why is it wrong to be a material determinist when considering conflicts of this time . It can be impossible for the north to lose and there was this industrial phase and we are going to wear down the confederacy. You can hear this when we talk about your not going to conquer russia. Its taking on too much but the leadership matters, spiritual factors matter. What is the balance among all of those . You have these parameters and sideline and material conditio conditions. The sidelines were going to be hard to shift into diversified us a. Splitting the forces and declaring the war on the United States. It took about an hour of maintenance for two hours of operation. All of these investments meant when they started the war, they had no margin of error with the case of the british, we could go into the marine division, which we did and then they compounded that with china where they lost 700,000. Our losses were not catastrophic and if they were, we had a margin of error. Lets talk a little bit without weaponry. Was there anything characteristic or typically about the tanks to. Theres better armor, better guns, were selected. But if youre going to build 15 will they ever see so they have one hour or ten hours of operation to take up the transmission of two hours in case you have to send it back to factory. The factory. So the question is the same thing they called the 72,000 because it was so expensive to operate. The americans said japanese you made the best destroyer in the world you could have made 40 destroyers. By 80 for the cultural and political reasons were much more pragmatic and they build things that were large enough for the t. 34 tank or a p. 51. Final thing, the industry was across so they factored in the idea that they had to be transferred. So you dont want to live to 60,000 when you can do two or 30. [inaudible] it became best fighter and when they got to normandy and said we didnt know what youre going to do basic lets put a 17pound gun into wha his basically 70millimeter and hitler didnt share the technology with japan or italy and they would add on to. It was a power cut cooperated and consulted with. What was the japanese theory of what the endgame would be in the war against the United States . The warnings that we are going to get bogged down and never when it was the theory of how they would when . We created and formalized in 1940 sort of what china is doing right now, and the americas havent done anything. When we look at the chance british and frencdutch andbritie military assets commensurate with the colonial ambitions anymore. The fleet isnt quite comparab comparable. We feel its in a decline. The japanese attache growing up in portland had the opposite, so they didnt understand but spiritually or politically or culturally the willingness with match the resourcewouldmatch thy admit were there and they would say they can 3,000 miles and we didnt know it so they also thought they were going to get the three carriers and that would be the end of the subject fleet and they could hang around hawaii. They didnt finish the job that was basically the idea is the european power after they lost and you guys are going to quit after these obsolete battleshi battleships. You discussed this in your remarks of whats come up with some questions from the audience. In terms of the dropping of the bombs in japan and elsewhere and people forget we killed 100,000 people and tokyo one night. Is there an attitude that and an existential struggle with evil adversary who is killing in a way through Human History and you just have to win by any means necessary . Yes and no. Curtis was the architect who took this bigger than the Manhattan Project that was designed to fly with impunity down to 6,000. It makes it impossible we are going to use it to advantage the single deadliest day of all conflict but we have to remember they were killing four to 5,000 people a day into the prison camps were killed and they wouldnt quit. We had an ethical battle but i grew up in a swedish family and my father flew 40 missions on the b29 and he said he could smell human flesh but his brother was the First Assembly adopted after the last day in okinawa, so my grandfather whom i remember very well what to say they have the atomic bomb and they tested it in july. Three Million People its going to be okinawa, and the only thing i can say is lamay said you dont need to use the Nuclear Weapons because my fire bomber and the ones ill got from the european theater will burn japan down. My view there was a utility not that it just precruded an American Invasion have been bloody, but it precluded an incineration of japanese civilization which have would have been a stan on our character and killed seven or eight million japanese. Host no more fear so many sentences than if curtis lamay had gotten his way. Let hit quickly on the key military key political leaders. Does Winston Churchill deserve the exalted opinion and one question from the audience would we have been better off without him by 43 or 44 given his military schemes. I think we were lucky to have him. Some people close to british, had chamber lap been removed and other people like halifax taken over, which was a real i think they would have cut a deal. Hitler was willing to offer them india and the British Empire intact if they would sanctify the occupation of europe, and i think the hole cust was not product of going into russia. It would have happened eventually, and churchill precluded that. That was know noh way he would cut a deal and he had confidence we would come in and hitler would eventually fulfill the tenets of mein kampf and go east. By 43 he said their cert thing wes criticize now. Going the islands was foolish there is no soft underbelly of europe. Most people attack italy from the north, going through sicily up the spine never worked and never worked for us, never got into austria. That said, he had an idea that the soviet union was necessary, would cause problems two or three years ahead of americans, and he was adamant we do not land in normandie in 42, or 43 or early 44 and he did it because he was trying to tell us, youre doing enough. Youre bombing. Youre losing 80,000 airmen. Youre fighting in italy now. Youre fighting the japanese. Dont buy thats from stalin we have to invade and destroy a whole army because we promised a second front. Spiritually, if you look at his speeches in 43 and 44 nobody could articulate what the allies were fighting for. They were wilsonon streaks in Roosevelt Roosevelt was a much better domestic politician but didnt have the Historical Perspective or the rhetorical skills churchill did. Fdr and someone asks how hashly we should judge his naivete about stalin and what affect that had in drying the lines of the cold war perhaps further west than need. No doubt roosevelt was naive about uncle joe he called him and no doubt he triangulated in a petty way against churchill atality yalta. That being said people around roost said to him the soviet union has 500 divisions, and we only have 100 in europe. And if we get on the bad side of the soviets, one of two things are going to happen and theyre both bad. Either going to not fight so well and slow down and make us go all the way into germany, would have been better in the post war sense but we would have lost more. But were going to stuck with a billie coast bellicose power thats going to absorb germany and we had in the nuclear bomb but we didnt know to what degree it would work. So its hard to adjudicate what seems to be apiecement and nye teach day with the fact that having been bellicose and trumanlike truman was that way until he switched that we had the wherewithal or desire very hard to tell the american people, youre all saying pro russian things, were supplying them with billions of dollars do by the way now theyre the enemy and we are going to fall george patton. That was almost politically impossible. Lets focus on the military decisions. What accounted for the mistaken decisions he made repeat lid, irrationality, ideology, imbussiveness . I think a lot is you mostly mussolini did the same thing. Went into greece, went into north africa, depend have the wherewithal to do that. Mussolini was a corporal. They had not been on the Eastern Front in world war i and had no administrative sense, and so their idea was blood and soil, tough men win liked did the allied commander, stalin, had been a munitions logistic cal administrator, churchill was first lord of the admiralty and they look at a global sense and then administrative sense so they asked questions that hitler would never ask. Hitler would say i want to pay them back if want to pay them back for the bombing of hamburg, where are my vengeance rockets. Dramatic. But people were trying to politely say you should have let is build a fourengine bomber. This 177 is a disaster. Emphasize on politely. Whereas roosevelt and churchill delegated authority to people who were very competent in economics and logistics and administration, because they had that experience. So when you turn the war effort to men like william knutsen, gm or henry ford or henry case ir, they rule find a way to do it, find a dui build a liberty snip 36 hours and build a b24 every hour, and hitler didnt have any conception of that type of capability. It was all not all but a world of fast. Want a tiger, i want a wigger tiger, i want amoles thats 200 tons if want a rail gun thats 150millimeters. I one what that 300, 400, 450, and they said that 7500 people, the shell alone will only fire only fires 70 times, it will wear out the shell. Its not practical. Lets build 5,000 80millimeter, the disease of gigantickism, defined that bigger is better, is lethal in war, which she remember when we are wilding 177 million airplanes rather than i dont know 5,000 drones. Would it have been better for germany to win world war i and save lives and avoid the most brutal conflict in history or have germany lose and ill add on a more conventional take, what role did the settlement and n world war i and its allegedly punitive nature play in world war ii. I cant accept the people mills of the question. Believe world war i could have happenin 1913 with the moore rocco cries could have happened in 1915 not that anything is inevitable but germany, since the unification and the victory in 1871, the problem was what you do with germany. Its got an ideology that predates naziism of racial superiority, and that has this myth it was never contaminated by roman multiracialism because it was on the other side of the danube which we think loud to a barbaric streak. They thought it made him that pure. Wanted to final the colonial status come miss rat with their economic power so they were aggressive and the racial dock trips in naziism had a ped agreeing back to 19th century. Second, when they were out in 1914 and thought they were woo knock france out in six weeks, professor riesling had a september program. You look at the peace he envisioned, its annexation of the Atlantic Coast ports of france, annexation of belgium, and annexation of what hitler occupied in world war ii, 50 Million People, million square miles. If we look at versailles, the problem was that it was rhetorically hugh humiliating on the germans but had no mechanism to enforce them. Didnt occupy the country. It allowed them to pay reparations in soft cash so they can pay in marks rather than gold. So what they said was, you started the war, youre bad, you caused 17 million deaths, but you know what . Well be nice to you and not occupy your country, and that led to this milt of hitler and others, we were on the march, we were 70 miles into belgium and france, already knocked russia out of the war. He we imposed a strict peace on the russians, we had beat them in 1870 and guess what happened . A bunch of jews socializes and communists stabbed news the back and not one allied soldier ever sit foot in germany, then they took 30 of our territory. Nobody ever said that was mild in compared to what you did in the 1877 and what you did to the russians in 1918. We said were sorry, were not going punish you for the militarization of the rhine, and maybe the well, the czech state was a bastard stayed so we apieced them when we should have said you came off lucky and youre not going to come off lucky because we have an alliance now and going to be a million soldiers lapped in france within six weeks, three months if you try it again. But instead as marshall, folk and general pershing said the versailles was a guarantee of peace but the losers are so traumatized never want to go through that again and that was all the difference. The counterfactual, would a more powerful german finish assault in the northwest enable the capture moscow before the winter of 1941 . I dont the so. They pulled up within ten miles of lenin grad. Had they made one million russians died, and they almost obliterated the city, but army group north, which was the best led and it had the shortest route, on european roads through the baltic states, failed, and if that failed, everything was going to fail because that was what they thought they would wipe out leningrad, very quickly and then they would join behind moscow. This problem with the whole idea was that they had the they counted german troops and didnt count russian troops. They said we have 31 2 Million People, the large e largest invasion in history. To the romanians will fight well, the hungarians will do well, the finns will come in but they had preconditions and limitations. Having a division from spain or two divisions or three, 160,000 from italy, didnt mean that you could defeat a country that was 1600 miles to the that was only a third to a fourth of the soviet union, and it had a nonaggression pact with the japan so very quickly freighters from seattle or portland would load up with american goods, flip the flag around and go right through japanese infested waters who were killing americans and the japans would wave and a good on and theyd land. How do you defeat that . So, remind me one diwhen i was farming plumbs, we had a huge crop which meant the plumbs wouldnt size and i was just spend my grandfather came downed and what are you doing and look at the plums of the ground, he said look at the plums on the tree. Theres too many. People in wore hitler kept saying, we killed 250,000 or wounded and captured enemy france. When are they going quit . We have already killed four or five million. He kept looking at casualties and they said, theres another 100 divisions. And when they japanese did not participate, which the germans, by the way, didnt want. They wouldnt let the japanese pick our carcass, then 20 divisions were tran federal i right before moscow 0, so there were too many russian divisions that kept coming and too much supply. Not to put you on the spot bus here the request. Tonight my tenyearold son will ask what i did today. This event wilt be a lie highlight, please give me a cool world war ii story to share with a tenyearold. Two World War Two stories . A cool world war ii story to share with a tenyearold. People ask what book to read, my favorite, if thats the right word for such a somber, is eb sledge with the old breed. Its a symbolism of the whole allied approach to war. A doctors son, upper middle class student, from alabama, joins the marine corps, 135pounds and doesnt want to be an officer, doesnt want an exemption and fineds himself in the first marine division, and thats the death sentence when they put you in a place like okinawa, and he ends up on okinawa and writes a memoir to the people who were killed and its one over most moving things and ends the everybody thinks its antiwar but its not. He says at the end, so war is going to go on forever, and this is a tragedy, and its a tragedy because people dont understand that you have to deter people before they go to war, but once war happens, people like me step forward and we did some things that were pretty tough, basically he says, but if it wasnt for us, we wouldnt have won the war and it pretty much destroyed his life during that period, but how can you take a kid from alabama, 135 pounds, upper class, suburban, ship him 4,000miles and fight people with veterans of four years in china and have him win in two months. Astounding. The other story is personal. When i went to high school, my dad went into the barn and got weird things, briefcase and a louisvilleville slugger bat. I said im going uc santa cruz and id come home. Hed say, okay you studied greek and think youre really good, but at your age, Victor Hansen i, the first victor hundred send was already killed in okinawa. He was 62, football, had a b. Spartan said how will you live up to that legacy . So everything you say, everything you do, is going to be jumped by your namesake, and thats why i named you that. He said to me good, luck, because its not going to be easy. I thought of that my entire life and id he writes a letter to his swedish grandparents and say im going into oak na where and okinawa and the boys says you youll do well if you have a. 45 automatic and theyre not enough money to give everybody one help said will you dried around dish saved up my money and sending you a money order for 50. Then you have this halve broken english hansen, dear juniors, were doing our best, just went to a pawn shop and found it and this going to get you through the war and they send him a. 45. Today you would have a congressional investigation and when he died, one last story awrote a book called roy ripples of battle and i mentioned him a man called me up, 93 years old, and he said, i carried your uncle down on sugar loaf hill. Said, wait, this is 2004. That was 1945. He said here a picture, and he side youre a romanhartan, i said sort of. He said i cut the ring off his finger and ive been waiting. I called your grandfather in 1945 and he said i do want no more to do with the marine corps. Do you want it in i thought this was surreal. Next dayed shot up in the mail. So i still have it. So these stories keep going, very tragic that these people who joined at 18 and 19 are almost all gone. We owe a great deal to them. Victor, some people have questions that wanted to take the lessons of the war forward and questions with contemporary implications. So, if President Trump were president of the out toward world war, would he rein the war and what would he have said about hitler and mussolini on twitter. Would it have been worst than better question, worse than what we said about hitler we being the people who were in the war church chill said churchill called him a jackle. They either on your knees begging or at your throughout trying to kill you. George patton the story that hitler hung wall paper before the war, said im going to berlin and kill that paper hanging son of a bitch. Said said all sorted of things. He win you go through the history of wars its very hard to find i mentioned this to a group an inadvertent exclammer to or and a halfer to word that causes a war. Were going to get in a war is if somebody indiana very tently that is sober and judicious like dean ache which isson said in 195 we dont think that south korea in our defensive sphere, a seasoned diplomat says to saddam hussein, in august of 1990, we dont get involved in intermural arab wars, or somebody in britain right before the faulkans war says i think that minesweeper is provocative. So usually its a sober and jew dish diplomat who wants to reassure a bellicose aggressor that were not going to be unpredictable but very predictable, so deterrence is material powerbut i think what were trying to do with north korea is in a very careful inincremental way, you have to know were much stronger than you. Look at the assets around the korean peninsula. You must know that although were sober and judicious and, theres a streak within us and we have marine carriers, a history that you wouldnt want to encounter again and were very unpredictable on any given day. That translates under rocket man but we have sober and judicious people who can use that, and im not saying its a scripted bad cop good cop but the National Security time with mattis, h. R. Mcmaster, tillerson, and mike pompeo, all really seasoned people and they understand history that you want to have a little bit of unpry tickettability and rationality. We have two minutes left. So quickly, another question that piggy backs on your answer, you describe a gee political vattime in the the germans and japanese stepped across. There is a similar risk today from u. S. And western retrenchment . Im worried because if you look what the chinese are doing with the islands or what theyre til telling our eye lies when they gooshire spay, they Say Something we went over your air or wears and the United States is in decline. It really doesnt feel that youre under their nuclear umbrella. This is very similar to what the japanese did in the 30s when they said that colonial people are spent and the americans are isolationists. Doesnt mean we have to have opening got involved in optional wars but deterrence is very easy to lose and very hard to recapture. It takes decades. I think what were trying to do now is say, after the red lines of the stepover lines or the deadlines of the iran deal or the pullout from iraq or libya or reset on the separateley spratly island, were trying to tell the world is were less utopian, less apologetic, and we take we accept the world also it is rather than the way we want it to be and under the new doctrine of prison principled realist were saying all we can do is protect our friends, hope you dont attack me, but dont let our enemies attack people. A final thought, i dont want to ill be very quick, the United StatesForeign Policy has ethical elements. Very good people in the world that cant defend themselves, and my favorites are the kurds this israelis, and taiwanese, the South Koreans are meanans and the greeks. All have historical enemies and theyre surrounded and very fierce fighters and follow the rules. Dont build missiles to send to other countries proliferate Nuclear Weapons but they wouldnt exist because of the out and they exist tomorrow because of people at the department of defense and the uss reagan and we need to remember we have certain obligations and a moral doesnt mean we go into lebanon or armenia or tell the turks, if you fly over it one more time well attack you. It mean wed tell people there are principles. So its principled real jim, not just a slogan but a reality. Victor, congratulations on the book. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] the most important part of this new broadcast, is a look back on it, and as i wrote, is that don hewitt was so humiliated by the circumstances around the evening news, and i cant tell you how big that was. Walter cronkite six six was nothing. It was difficult and he convinced a lot of very smart people, who worked on the cronkite show to come to work on 60 minutes. It was new, there war parts that were exciting him was an exciting figure. But the evening news was it. And don hewitt spent the rest of his career, 35 years rung 60 minutes, trying to prove and proving to those journalistsistd the murrow boys he noter good journalism, he had been paying attention, he knew what they stood for, particularly fred friendly. Who he did not like one bit. And fred did not like him. Which is why he fired him. But don hewitt, until his last days, always said, i learned more from fred friendly than anybody necessary my life, and he did. And so many of those things are part of, i think, what makes 60 minutes special today. Because weve changed, weve involved significantly over the years. Almost every decade, and its different now and ill get into that in a little bit. But the fundamentals have not changed. The things that don learned from fred friendly, the things that fred friendly cared about, these are thing wes practice to this day. And theyre all about different aspects of what we do, and i think they are a huge part of why were still successful. I dont want to talk about numbers a lot but this past sunday we were the most watched nonsports show of the week. I think that says something. That still people, that many people, 141 2 million that night, were willing to give up an hour and watch 60 minutes, more than any other program on all of television that week, except one football game. And some of those things, which are simple, are directly from fred friendly, such as we near underestimate the audience; yet at the same time we know that we know more bat story than they do. We never talk down to the viewer. We always assume they know more. Than most people do. Most broadcasts do. We care so much about how we tell a story. We pour ourselves into it. Its intense. And its always been intense and always will be intense if never forthforget the time it was in a doon hewitt screening, steve kroft and i, my fifth or sixth story and all communist poll land going capitalist, and the story was over and the lights came on and don said, where do you want it, right between the eyes . It wasnt personal. It was a great learning experience for me. Because don then proceeded to help me and steve make it a much better story worthy of air, and that is how we collaborated. So its a huge part of what we do. Heres the most important thing. This is what stands out to me to this day more than anything else. We never, ever do Audience Research to determine what stories to cover. Ever. Now, that, especially in this day and age, says a lot. Because we dont know what the viewer is going to want. The onus is on us to make the story so damn compelling that you just have to watch it. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Up next on booktvs after after arks Jeanette Conant recounts the career of her grandfather, james connellant, administrator of the director of Manhattan Project and later profit the hard varied harvard university. Jennet conant this author of book about her grandfather, one i found incredibly compelling, very lively, engaging and difficult to put down. Would you please encapsulate the life of your grandfather briefly because he seems to have compressed four of five lives