We have heard a rumor about the case where they have prosecuted the japanese for waterboarding. We sent a young marine captain out to go dig out the records. I dont think its seen been in six years at that point. It is a story you just described. Of the doolittle raid which was the most celebrated operation of world war ii. It was a story about torture and justice. And revenge. I felt sitting there. I was reading this episode from 1945 to 1946. The United States is prosecuting the japanese for doing all of the things we were doing in the war on terrorism i dont mean to be naive or it just kind of hit me in the chest. With 60 years of time. And im seeing right where im sitting at that very moment. There was a thing in the back of my mind that give context to all of the work that i ended up doing for a number of years after that. I decided. In 2014 to try to make a book about it. And thats how we got the book we have today. I had been talking to michelle now for guantanamo. 2007. One is convicted and hes trying to overturn that conviction. And one is in a creature trial hearing. It was a really weird episode. I thought it was in a peculiar and i got the book the summer and i read it. And i got it. The way i read it as its divided into three portions. The attack. They went on a bombing run. They did not stray to the millions. Most men across japan. To our allies. Including their waterboarding. The trial in the summary execution. This is all like in the first three chapters. And then in part three. After at the u. S. Wins the war. The americans recovered the surviving pows who were held in dreadful conditions he just takes you there. And the United States puts the people proved to to cuba. The reason were having this conversation now as i remember calling michelle up over the summer. Is it written in the language of the military commission. To describe what happened 75 or 80 years ago. Lets talk about that language. You call people highvalue detainees in that book. I think i call them the highest value detainees. Those were that do liberators. You described accurately in the terms of the american reception of it. I never made that connection until you just did. America shows that it can fight back. They all seem to make america feel better. I have virtually no strategic significance. One of the things i tried to do in this book for reasons we can get into. I became fascinated by it. The perspective of the japanese on the raiders. I think you can look at at it with the opportunity to show that we are in this war and we are in it. The doolittle raid was 911. It was the first time that it was ever attacked from abroad. The basic assumptions of japanese life appended all at once. And also outrage. We can talk about how the japanese terrorized the attack. They called a territory. What they focused on was not the bombing of the mitsubishi plan. And for them when they captured the raiders they have their own one tom normal four months later. When they capture them and they tortured them. Bruce is a with food. All of the challenges that we face the immediate aftermath of september 11. To what extent do we act on revenge and the ability to show our power over our prisoners. Verses are ideals. Before working on this book. It can seem to himself as a liberal society. They have prohibited torture. The same excuses that we did. They claim to hold justice as we did. It is just as important to understand their september 11. To understanding how and why we did what we did. They are not the first prisoners of the japanese by any stretch of imagination. They are the first marquee prisoners. The first people that the japanese himself cared about who these people are. Theyre not just some combatants in the philippines. They are the people that perpetrated the attack that created this real turning point in our own sense of national identity. And vulnerability. They became to the very highest levels of the japanese government thats because they have such high values in japan. On page 22 you called it the interrogation was enhanced. Can you describe what happened to the doolittle raider. This is not a book about the war on terrorism. I did choose language as certain parts of the book. To cause it to reflect upon the parallels that i was seeing. The torture enhanced interrogation. Was waterboarding as you mentioned. Also sleep deprivation. And stress positions today. With solitary confinement. In other forms of really incredible brutality that look incredibly familiar to what the United States was responsible for doing. What foods that was poignant to me about that. I kind of grew up in very traditional view of america and americas history. To see the United States behaving as the Imperial Japanese was such a jarring moment in thinking about what the country had gone down. When you get down to the precise methods of torture. Being reflected back in modern day it was really just stunning. I dont think it is over. But it is a language of today. So when i read it and people that had worked on this issue read it i think they see it. Other people i imagine dont even recognize it. See mike i think most of my readers just see the traditional world war ii stories. That was my intent. I wanted to try to wrestle with the ambiguities that i have wrestled with in my career dealing with these issues there are two kinds of history that are very popular. One is a fairytale history which we are all quite familiar with. Also kind of systemic history. Everything the United States does is there. Just kind of this expose can of history. They expose the worst about the United States or any other country that has been written about. I find both of those kind of naive. Naive in our own time as well. Good people do bad things and they do it for good or understandable reasons. And for understandable reasons. This book was in the way an opportunity for me to wrestle with a lot of that. But the distance at least im not having to think about the contemporary issues that we are dealing with. You do work at guantanamo. With cases involving torture. Without risking anybodys security clearance. Some of it sounds like it is whisked from the pages. One thing i would highlight for readers. The narrative in the language. And i can to say that. Has these are i will choose a language choice that i made quite consciously and i do this across the book. I use a modern language. I think readers are going to get confused. One place i have to think about that little bit more carefully. Was that the phrase waterboarding. It was not the phrase used in the 1940s. Waterboarding doesnt really come back into america. Choosy to use the word waterboarding instead of the archaic. This is the same thing. We should get lost in our own euphemisms. Doing it, i wanted to make what whats being talked about as clear as possible. I think when history tends to use that language. Its just lost on the reader. For the same reason i will point that out the 1940s. Have a lot of very casual racism in it. It just comes out of everybodys mouth without even thinking about it. High and low. I kinda made the conscious choice to restrain my use of quotations in which that was included it was extremely jarred. You kind of make judgments about using that. I think its misleading. There is an uncomfortable use of it in the book. I did choose language very carefully. I wanted people to enjoy what they were reading. There are one or two uses. At those moments. It was necessary to convey things like that. Every instance in which i could have. It wouldve been distracting. I mean Something Different today. There are two war crime trials. By any measure of trial. They use the evidence and reference torture. And then the second part of the story is the United States. This what you end up having in 1946 is a trial of a trial. Who are the war criminals in this book. Ill be ready to answer that question. I want to actually hang over the book. One of the efforts i tried to discover is to not presented as a fairytale. At least give you the perspective all of the various people involved so that you could wrestle with these questions. In the same things that i head over the past 15 years doing these cases. These are hard questions and anyone who says theyre not hard questions. When it comes to bringing war criminals. And the responsibility and the victims status to be able to claim that you are a victim. Theyre incredibly broad questions and theyre difficult. And they should be. They are real questions see mike what are legitimate legal targets in 1941. It was pretty influx at the time. Its not like you have there was efforts to create treaties. They never got off the ground. There was a sense. The more people you kill the better. The germans basically took that as well. The United States though have resisted this quite aggressively. There is a very deliberate process with the air force officers. They were directly military in nature. It is fundamentally illegitimate. We dont deliberately try to kill as many people as possible. The industrial bottlenecks. That changes over the course of the war. Never explicitly. Which is its own interesting story. By 1945. First the firebombing. And then the two atomic bombings. It goes extremely high. And the pretext of targeting military targets become more and more pretextual even in the bombing. We are actually targeting the military school. Certainly in 1941 and 1942. The United States took the targeting a military targets very seriously. At least on paper and in doctrine. The one piece of evidence that i directly had for this. Is to make the target collections. They all got together to see that to bomb the imperial palace. Its not a military target. And we dont want to give the japanese cause to accuse us of wrongdoing. Doesnt Jimmy Doolittle if i remember correctly remember or recognize. That they are rally dash mike rallied around royalty. His very strategic in that regard. One of the major express rationales was at the battle of britain had been pretty effective. Until the germans hit buckingham palace. If the king can take it so can we. The emperor is completely off limits. We do not want to give the japanese any opportunity to rally around anybody. We want to make this an above board operation. Can i switch to this. Were these trials open. The japanese trial was not. Was anyone there for the hourlong trial. It was quite a show. At least for the people in shanghai. It was held in secret and the fact that 70 people were allowed to attend. This is actually not in the book but became a point of contention and the army sends words down that it must be held in seacrest. These are supposed to be secret trials. It was held entirely out in the open. That was a big point of pride but appoint a policy. That the war crime trials that took place in the pacific also in europe did not engage in this they have them in public, they were very keen to keep the press there and involve. In terms of relating the facts that were being disclosed about reality but as a transparency measure. Transparency to use a fraught word for you. It was a really important value in the military trials that happened with world war ii. I did have the advantage of the war being over. This is one of the things were up against at guantanamo. The war is ongoing. There needs to be a certain level of secrecy. The american tribunal is done afterwards there were transcripts clearly at this point. I tried so hard to find these. It was actually broadcast on radio every day life in the tapes existed at some point they just dont exist anymore. If they were preserved. The doolittle raiders were heroes. They faded an american memory today. Around all of these other major events that are far more lasting significance militarily in the second world war. It was unquestionably the most celebrated important heroic figures you could name there were two movies made about the raid during the war. And only last about four years. Hollywood was able to generate two blockbuster films. One that imagined the face of the lost doolittle raider. While the work is ongoing. This is right at the front of the line. In fact, its kind of an interesting historical point. The raiders in 1942. As i mentioned. The japanese prosecute them. And the execute three of them. The japanese just publicly announced that they have taken care of those. And they made it into some broadcast inside the United States. In the when the fate was revealed it was assumed they were all killed in this set off a wave of public anger like you hadnt seen since pearl harbor. In 1943. And you have members of congress actively calling for the United States to no longer take japanese prisoners. All of the japanese that they have come into contact with. It was about to his credit. In the war department. Guy in front of this very quickly. And said no we agreed to comply. This is part of the values that we are fighting for as a country. We cannot be seen barbaric late as the japanese. In a way to play kidding or to align that. We are going to find those japanese who participated in this and hold them personally responsible. And so it is the first realtime you have the have of state seriously promising the public that were criminality will be punished and it becomes this way to get the publics desire with revenge. Only those people that were actually responsible. And that ends up becoming over the resistance really of the soviets in the british that becomes the allied policy over the course of the war. By the end of the war whether or not it was at nuremberg. The individual trials like the ones i read about here are now just a firm part of america in the allied policy generally but it was a no means a foregone conclusion. In dealing with the public desire for revenge and justice. At least one of the major drivers. When the war is over. And the americans decide they are going to put the people who did this injustice on trial. What are the prosecutors deciding. I assume thats not the language of the day. The language of the date was that they needed to find those who participated and the problems that they face. As you might expect from our description of the case so far. Thats thousands of people potentially. They torture them all the way through. When this prosecutor who much of the book is about his history. The main problem to confront is who is that. I need to have a person who is a focal point. Why was he driven that way. In part, that one movie that was made. It has an evil village. There is this desire to say who is this. Hollywood has already set the expectation that theres a person who is clearly the most responsible. Ultimately falls to the lawyers. The expectations that theyve set in the mind. We have this very simplistic view of a lot of these things. And the desire to have the villain and to make sure the villain is the one who gets hung in the end. It is true that one of your clients is accused of being the mastermind. They had been accused of being the mastermind of the bombing that was a parallel i could see playing out in the development of the case. You want to be able to tell everyone. This is it. As the book unfolds actually. There is an interesting parallelism. In the rush to find the guy. The guy ends up appearing at the trial in ways that just shock and appall everyone. They are so intent on this public expectation that theyre misled. In the Looking Glass world of the story. Is Jimmy Doolittle the mastermind . I think you would be consider that. He is the one they blame. He becomes an american hero. And the people that they have. The big debates about the trial include the japanese trial. They get death sentences against all eight of the doolittle raiders. The question is do we actually carry out these sentences and there is a mastermind thinking and how it splits. We are to execute going execute the pilots of the two plants. One of the main allegations was they have straight civilians. And that was one of the major galvanizing aspects. The evidence of children being gunned down in schools. Hospitals been strained. Going after the gunners was seen as a all of this is established in a one to two hour trial. Its not trial by any standards. One of the aspects of the trial of the is that they actually dont have that. How does it unfold. They have gotten pretty much any intelligence theyre there to get out of it. About how the raids took off. The military capabilities are in that time. There is a real fight over what to do with them. People like the foreign minister who is a traditional japanese it is as important for the japanese. We dont want to create a free text. The one i focus on in the book. Is the chief chief of staff of the army. We call it to just be executed. Its kind of a show of strangers. And this becomes one of the most violent debates in the japanese cabinet since the start of the war. In the work minister. Ive always kind of thought of it like a john weiner kind of figure. The main job is trying to keep all of these actions from killing each other in the cabinet. He goes to the war ministry and says, we to kill these guys. Is there a way that we can do that under national law. The lawyers come back and say, no, you cant. They go back to the war ministry we have to kill these people. And they are in a claimants can be an accident but no one can buy it. It will be a huge diplomatic and political problem. We can then just sentence them to death. Has extremely broad rules of evidence. Under special treatment. They created a law. After the attack. Our main target. In 1946. The United States punishes the lawyers for unfair trials. And of the key elements that make up for that. It is the use of evidence. They actually called the law itself. An act of terrorism the fact that the law only applies. And non japanese citizens. It kind of violates the golden rule. It is not trial by military commission. They can violate those clauses. It is a pretty contested condition. Not yet. That issue is still banging around. It is the protection argument. His criticisms of these enemy trials. It is a violation of the golden rule. What is interesting to me. Trying to bring this back to that issue. And feeling not in the merits. They never wanted to answer this merit. They bent over backwards to avoid ever having to decide this issue. They come up with procedural reasons why it is not appropriately presented. Its wrong and they know whats wrong. But it is such a challenging and politically such a politically dangerous thing to do. People are being prosecuted for the september 11 trials. They have never said it doesnt apply. They hope some towel. That the issue would go away. And that remains to be seen. The only thing i would regret. Is that we dont have this forum he would have a few things to say. The prosecution of the guantanamo cases is not in any way speaking publicly. We have to present the prosecution case. This is my last thing. One of the things that he does. Not only articulates his argument. They will explain to you. The prosecution position on why you can have a case that only prosecutes. What is the answer. They avoided answering this squarely also. It has come down to two ideas. And they are pretty thin reads. Its not just my editorial. I think its accurate. One is that they dont enjoy any due process. An issue like that is actually in the circuit right now. And the premise of that is that guantanamo detainees. They are not people for the constitution. They use the same argument on every constitution. Even if, these are people. And they have due process with the constitution. You have to defer to the executive and legislative branch. In the determination of what is necessary for national security. Theyve never actually tried to defend the segregation of the parts of merits. That betrays a certain discomfort. Literally separate but equal also separated justice. To try and argue. That they are not only the lawful and technical ways. It is a hard task for other people. I see there are 15 questions. I will bundle them and see what we can do. I think they answered one of the questions. I want you to answer it more directly a little bit. Did you consider making it more explicit that this was about guantanamo. Did actually bomb the school where the boy died. Without getting into too many spoilers. One of the more interesting and satisfied parts of writing this book was seen the defense counsel. And not just because i had been doing that. They are in a far tougher position. Then i was. It was not a lawyer. It was a pilot. In a decorated pilot at that. He was ideologically aligned. With the doolittle raiders. He basically as i explained in the book takes the case they need a reason to stay in shanghai. This was the only ticket in town. Just the absolute worst reasons. I assume thinking that its can be the interesting case. To make it look as fair as possible. What he does and what really strikes me as one of the most remarkable parts of this book he cannot live with himself doing that. He ends up just grabbing the case. It wouldve happily killed him. I owe it to them. The trial i would want if i was captured and put into japanese hands. He does that essentially at the cost of his military career. Ultimately he does go to law school. Many years later. He commits to doing his job. I would actually look to this trial is the first fair trial. Of the post world war. One was the case. Not the greatest moment for anyone. Its done entirely with expedience in mind. This was the first trial at the defense lawyers really came into. We are gonna do our jobs. And as a consequence ended up being a very fair trial. They end up taking positions that in 1946. Were just shocking. For even suggesting. Our conversation i failed to say this is actually a very interesting story of human people in which he tells you about it. Dont think you are going to do that. It is a really interesting read. Most people just wont see that portion. You have to actually had to have that time. Im going to bundle a couple. Did you ever had that. And second did the brutal treatment of the chinese take care of the charges the 46 trial. I got the interview with the copilot. At the time it was 99. He sadly only died a year and half ago. He actually ends up staying in china. They were something that got a third of that place. In the authors note. What he want to write another book about the doolittle raid. There are a lot of books out there. Hopefully i would be able to tell the story in a new way. That was great. On the revenge against the chinese. One of the things they actually make it immediately to safety. And the soviet union and causing the diplomatic incident. But all the rest. Of the raiders not only survived but they make it out of occupied china. And with the help one of the things actually read about in the book is his japans response to this was mine numbingly stupid for one. He always had to be careful with estimates. They are killed a terrorism operation. That they conduct in china after the doolittle raid. Whos the sole purpose every airfield in china. From them landing in china again. I did not get to meet any of the people who were involved. It is a couple hours to the west of shanghai and that was actually the rallying point. Apparently at the chinese teenagers now go to kind of make out and hide from their parent the town itself because it has been the rallying points becomes this brutal target with the japanese and is bombed is bombed mercilessly for weeks when the airfields are in destroyed. To manually break up the airfields. It is a brutal kind of slave labor. There is some evidence at least i have not researched it enough to give you a competent answer. Potentially they just kill the civilians. In the response against the chinese a lot of those revelations did not come out in time before the trial. The american as straw cities. Were reserved for things like that. Those revelations came out through a lot of scholarship that was that in the past 20 years. There is another scholar that worked on some of those problems as well. Is your book been translated in japanese and published in japan . I hope so. I dont know which is the perfectly candid answer. I think they appreciated it. I hope its there. I really resist any kind of effort on the american or japanese side. With the equivalence or the caricature or fairytale telling. I try to take the perspective of the different people involved even when there is a villain there is a whole chapter about someone in the entire book. And it is written from his perspective. He is unquestionably a villain. I do try. I try to find the history that is waiting there. I dont think its history. If youre not trying to actually help to inform people. Its actually history. To what extent. That was a huge influence. The book stops in march and april of 1942. A lot of those decisions coming later. With both german and japanese scientists. You end up getting left on the hook. They actively absorb that. I do write about it because its in the water at this time. There are also individuals that they pick and choose. And for the same reasons. As being too important with the reconstructive occupation program. This is still early in 1946. Is understanding that it is strategic interests. To get japan on its feet as quickly as possible. Soviets you have a lot of interest. But also the chinese civil war. It is kind of a major driver of policy. This is a long answer to a short question so i apologize. One of the things i do try. I found it important to find that history. Now obviously we know. No one knows at the time. It is just a simple war for china. Again no one at the time knows how the story ends. There is a really good question there. Will we ever have a trial of a trial. Thats what we did in that case. I think the questioner is saying currently, is there a possibility. For that. You can look at any number of cases and whatever you want to answer. I will bring you the one example. I think the closest has come. For a number of complicated debatable policy reasons. Decided to not seek accountability or transportation about the issues of the war on terrorism. It was put in charge of that policy. But there were civil suits. And the american citizen. Who was involved in terrorism. He is suggested. For all sorts of things. The courts ultimately dismissed that suit not because he didnt do anything wrong. It was called qualified immunity. You have to clearly show what the government did was wrong. You have the civil suits that had tried to go eccentrically after the warriors. Will it hold up over time. Thats why it is history. We wont know. To bring charges against americans. Really the format would be a civil suit. The criminal court has been investigating afghanistan. Could they theoretically charge lawyers. Its not conceivable. Well that happen, will it be politically feasible. It will even be a good idea. I dont know. Thats why it that is why it is history. One more time to emphasize that the book is not as nerdy as his conversation. Dont take it give it a shot. I think you will find a really interesting read. Its people you have never heard of. You could probably start your own blog week by week. And how it relates to other parts. It really is a good read. What is wrong with being nerdy by the way. It is a page turner. Its funny that you say that. I just want to say i want to read back to something that you say. And then there is just enjoyable history. Okay. This was a wonderful conversation i just want to see a couple of things before i move on. Did you know there is a torture museum in tokyo. Have you been there . And the water board and different kinds torture things that are there. I just thought you would want to know that. You dont have to go. Its a little foot note. A couple of other things i have to say. Every time i watch carol, i watch and i learned. Thats how you get the information that you get. The insides of whats going on. Think you so much for this. Come back anytime. I want to do an advertisement for Upcoming Event on october 15. His new book is coming out on tuesday. Its called undaunted. And its a memoir. I think that would be a lot of fun. I cant thank you enough. I know how appreciative our guests are. And then make comments. We will just head to bring you back. Thank you so much. But tv is television for serious readers all weekend every weekend join us again next saturday beginning at 8 00 a. M. Eastern. Social media website that we envision ourselves as rebooting social media and to make it what it was originally intended which is to provide a free and open platform, a Public Square for free speech. We also have a substantial focus on privacy, protecting individual