Groups in the years of the cold why and government organizations made up of anticommunist private citizens engaged in cold war propaganda and it later emerged that these groups were being secretly funded and to some extent managed by the cia and one group that i really didnt engage with was the american friends of the middle east and it is purposed to do so much with the cold war and as with promoting the arab world to an american audience and it was also antizionists, that having the influence of the emerging israel lobby in 1950s america. This seems so odd and unexpected and i didnt really know quite what to do with it. So i mention it and then put my middle american friends to the one side. So i came back to the subject and story and began to delve into it further. I soon realized that the main office in the main cia officer involved in the creation of the american friends of the middle east was none other than current cameras about. This name might already be familiar to you before this evening because he is as a cia officer who had the 1953 coup operation that toppled nationalist government and restored the rule of the shah and as we just heard he was sort of an american aristocats and the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt and head of the cia middle east division of his command in 1953. Which is of course a classic case of blowback and it that might have averted a crisis at the time and this includes the u. S. And iranian hostility and i guess right away even before i started out i had two questions. First of which was what was the cia doing funniness proarab antizionist group, not what someone would expect the cia to be doing and why was Kim Roosevelt known as the enemy of nationalism and around and he backlist and among other things advocated for Arab Nationalists and i did a lot of research and government records and not so much the cias own records because they either remain classified or have been destroyed. But if you sneak around those in the state department with public records as well for me when a surprising amount of information about this during this time and private papers and interviews with surviving Intelligence Officers of the day as well as family members of my main characters. What emerged from this research was an account of the cia in the 1940s and the 1950s. The cia comes into existence in 1947 and this is also and its been very official with the u. S. Presence there prior to this time. To what we merged with its history and with its core and its partly a biography about him and it includes Archie Roosevelt and another grandson as well and a colorful and rambunctious personality with a very different background from the south from alabama compared with the results on the wrong side of the tracks and he later becomes less person and he was working with the Intelligence Agency on the affairs. This is also the father of stewart copeland, who is a drummer for the police come in case you did not know that. And now together these three men, they really helped to shape the cia and the Early Program in the middle east. As the involvement in the movement of 1953 suggests this involves creating quite a lot of disorder in the middle east in an attempt at the various operations that left a legacy of antiamericanism and that still troubles the u. S. And American Relations today. But at the same time these men were arabists and they knew a great deal about the arab world and they were surprisingly sympathetic towards it as well. Sincerely believe that they had the best interest at heart. So what this book attempts to do is capture the surprising moment when the cia was most definitely proarab and asked where did this arabists impulse come from. And where do you go and why did it become part of this and other u. S. Foreign policy. Well, just a sketch the answers to these questions which emerge from my research, as to whether this originated, to some extent it came from the british who are the dominant western power in the middle east prior to the region of the u. S. During the years of the cold war. The roosevelt cousins were captivated by the example of them, and they both grew up reading the account of his involvement in world war i and they had several pearls of wisdom. Roosevelts father actually knew him and corresponded with him. So they had this tradition of the romantic british attraction toward the arabs. And this is also where the concept came in and they read the British Empire and there is a story about a young anglo indians by in india which really shaped Kermit Roosevelts childhood and his imagination and this is where his nickname came from in his adult life. And i believe that it is from this british influence the cousins in particular, they have a place of potential of heroic espionage games. This is not the only influence. I think it is supposed to be that there was another tradition on which they drew and it was a sort of unofficial legacy left by a generation of american missionary that first started getting hearing in the 1800s and have not succeeded in converting many of the nonchristians or christianity. But they had left this important legacy in the region. They founded schools and american universities and a very important American Institution prior to the 1940s and the 1950s and it was a creation with those who identified with the air of nationalism between this and the creation of the nationalist ideology in the arab world. And in addition to this imperial tradition they are drawing upon this history of missionary engagement with the middle east. Which is transmitted with the cia with the number of people of missionary stock in the u. S. Espionage efforts during the world war ii characters like william eddy and his biographer thomas lippman, who is here tonight. So i think this is the explanation of starting this research which was what was the cia doing funding an organization like the american friends of the middle east and it also explains this within the young cia and why it was that they also organize a covert backing in egypt. So at the same time Kermit Roosevelt is overthrowing the nationalist Prime Minister of iran and he is aiding the cause of the Arab Nationalist leader of egypt and the government that was created in the egyptian resolution against king farouk. And Kermit Roosevelt dispatches a cia team led by Miles Copeland to cairo and his cover at this point is that of an Allen Hamilton employee and that they might be familiar to you because it was a company that employed Edward Snowden at the time of his revelation of nsa surveillance. The involvement and carter suggests that there is this kind of element of advertising or Public Relations and americans sort of know how to convey this to the master regime are not just us but a friend who has a background with the american Advertising Company jw thompson so i called it madman on the nile. It is this sort of mad men performing secret operations with the current element elements my story at this point. And so i wont go into anymore detail about the forms that arabism took and you can read about those in the book. I would like to say a few words about the decline of it. And why are so many antizionists and it ultimately fails and they became estranged from the United States and became quite antiamerican after 1956 and the u. S. Throws its weight not so much behind Arab Nationalists as behind conservatives and the leaders in the middle east. Meanwhile is advocating on behalf of this and it is attacking american sinus and suggesting that you shouldnt be so behind israel and this includes u. S. Identification with arab nationalism and that increasingly gives way to support for conservative regimes as well as foreign policy. And the airbus themselves as a group split up in 1958 and they have both gone to the oil industry and Archie Roosevelt stays there and then he is moved to another region. And so there were various forces undermining the program from the outside this includes John Foster Dulles and the secretary of state takes a strong personal dislike in the british have proved very effective at securing the american supported the antinationalist agenda in the middle east so that the u. S. Starts to go around the u. S. Client regimes in the region and conservative arab leaders themselves will also contribute to this new within the u. S. Foreign policy. And i think there is also the big internal problem with the cia and that is that they are so attracted to the tradition of the great game the resort to the covert operations in order to address u. S. Policy challenges in the middle east as well. And i think that this is particularly true of kermit was about who conjured up the great game. And just to return to that conundrum that i started out with, the friend of arab nationalism is working to overthrow a nationalist Prime Minister in the wrong and i think that pew study papers and you read his memoir of this event and the feeling of the cold war at end Iranian Oil Fields these are important considerations as they were for other americans involved in the planning of this operation. But for him personally i think what caused him to run this operation and see it through to the end was this desire to play spy games and act in the tradition of the individuals that they had inspired and his memoir of the 1953 operation was published rather unfortunately in 1979 with of course the iranian revolution and it almost is like an oldfashioned british adventure is what it reads like and in the tradition of kipling and so i just read this before in these similarities in this memoir of a cia operation. And so despite trying to overcome the British Imperial legacy by supporting Arab Nationalists, he ended up playing an american version of bests. And so what i will need to do with this now, what lessons if any can be drawn from this cia arabism. Im an academic and a historian. So im a little bit uncomfortable reflecting what the Current Affairs to avoid the presentism. And im not sure that the lessons are clear and they suggest that there is nothing noticeable about the conflict between the u. S. And the arab world. And there is an inevitable class of civilizations between americans and arabs. And this is Something Else that reviewers have pointed out and its striking how quickly they crossed to the other side of the road. And then if you can to support prowestern conservative regimes in the region. And aaron and improved a very slender margin indeed. That is that there is a foundational moment in the modern u. S. And middle east relations. From egypt to syria to iran. The origins can be traced to this foundational moment when the u. S. Established this in the middle east when the cia was there and ran the peace operations. So if you want to understand what is going on now, do you have to know about this area of history. So i thank you very much for your attention. [applause] i have two quick questions it was also full of nervous nervous in this area and i think George Marshall threatened to resign. It is very unhappy and these people connected with the state Department People and my second question is about suez. You talk about that in the book. For these three involved and that somehow . Thank you, those are great questions. Between him and the state department would henderson is important here theres another man called and when right it that was a leading state Department Arabist that would coach the young Archie Roosevelt when he first started having assignments in the middle east. And so it is its a widespread phenomenon and there a number of people that believe that an initially opposed the partition of palestine and the u. S. Recognition because it is a battle that they lose because of the power of the zionist in the American Public life is growing and support of the congressmen and so on. And of course there is going american Popular Support as well. And also because of the devastating impact of the holocaust. So it is phenomenal that it embraces both the state department and the cia. With regard to suez, they are not that personally involved except that they all claimed some intimations from british friends of theirs that something was wrong. Of course it should perhaps have presented them with a wonderful moment of opportunity and they effectively intervened on behalf of the arab world and against the british and the french as well. So by this point already John Foster Dulles has really become fed up with nasa and i think that the real story is they are in no way an aberration that are the main stories that are growing with distancing from the arab nationalism. And especially with britain in the region. So behind the scenes they are actually starting to grow closer together and this happens at the espionage level which kind of starts up in british and American Relations that leads to this. And the u. S. Kind of taking over britains imperial burden in the middle east in the years after suez. So thank you for those questions. You may have already answered this. But among all of the person on your book, are you saying that there is not one that thought there might be a problem of basic values and contradiction between islam and the west . The reason i say that is because from 1950 forward there are a number of individuals that saw a great deal of this. So there was not a single figure like that in the personnel of the arabist. Amongst them, no, there is this belief in a christian and muslim civilization to move closer together based with the religions in the way of life and they share so many things in common and for some of the older individuals like william eddy who is perhaps the founding father of u. S. Espionage in the middle east there is almost a mystical belief in the links between islam and christianity as well and he sees himself sort of as a bridge figure between the two civilizations and his happiest moment comes when he acts as the interpreter between Franklin Roosevelt and at the end of world war ii and it is in the book. And so he is the interpreter because he has this. And so im not sure that the roosevelt cousins had quite this kind of intense believe in the convergence of christianity and islam and its still there, i think. The American People are geared towards generating a dialogue and a theological conversation as well, something called the continuing committee on Muslim Christian corporation which the cia is funding by the american friends of the middle east. And so this is also and ultimately it becomes in the eyes of some u. S. Covert operatives in an effort of Political Warfare and funding this against the soviet union in the history of blowback which many of us are familiar with today. I think there is this intense belief and mutually reinforcing this dialogue between christians. You personally are familiar with those voices like john quincy adams. Yes, im guessing that amongst the group that i am describing, they can subscribe to that view. Okay. Hello. A couple of questions. First of all, how united would you say the arabists word when you look at how many different movements you had emerging simultaneously and there was plenty of internal conflict today maybe not quite as intense but fairly intense. How united were they and do you see examples where there were real breaks within the group and then the two roosevelt individuals, asking you about this. What do you say would he have been on their side or do you think you might have been as you call it the conservative standard American Interest side of the equation, if there is even a way to speculate at . I think in regards to the possibility i think that they are fairly concerted in terms of their values and what they have for the arab world. And it is the more inclined to covert action. And they will get a little bit more cautious and even conservative in their approach. But nonetheless even he actually in 1956 and 1957 was involved in the operation to overthrow the government of syria and trying to repeat this that he had performed in 1953 and there is a was a little bit of personal rivalry between them as well and fencing themselves as the main guy in the cias middle east division and that was a role that he currently had acquired. And i think that there was a little bit i think he would occasionally go as well. That this is a personality and so it in regards to the likely views, he saw that he believed that the u. S. Should be the successor in the region i suspect he would have approved of this for manly adventure. And i think that there is a sense that is sort of his attempt to have his own story like his grandfather and what other. There is the ghost of Theodore Roosevelt is always hovering with this generation and a benign presence and also one that he never quite measures up here. So there is this element within the roosevelt family as well. Thank you. Hello. I look forward to reading your book. I wanted to know if youre familiar with the Kings Council . Yes, thats a recent publication . Yes, it was published in 2011 and he was station in the middle east in the 60s and 70s. And he gives an account of the cias role in the middle east during that time. Are you familiar with the book in that portion of the history of the agency during the 60s and 70s if youd like to comment on a . Sure. Seemed to me that one is actually expecting to take it a little bit further and it was a significant year in the sense that it is also a year for the funding of these various front groups are revealed in the media and the american friends in the middle east are revealed as a cia front which is embarrassing. And this zionist enemies as well and so really kind of falls apart. But i think that it is already the process has taken place before then in the 1958, it emerged as the two determinants of my narrative as it were. Because that is either my three main characters move away from the Agency Within the arab world. But i do know that book and it is a fascinating book. And Jack Oconnell had such a presence in jordan. But that the book is about his function as a kind of liaison with an advisor and it begins at the very end of my story as the u. S. And the cia are changing sides and government is more traditionally identified with this in the region. And so i am glad that you mentioned it and i thank you for your question. I might mention that David Iglesias devoted an editorial to the book when it was published. So to filling that gap on the ticket to the next step after your book, it is such a great book. Thank you. Hello. Hi there. Im just curious. But i i read the synopsis and i listened to your speech. And im just thinking that it has to be more geopolitics than anything else and the use of this term sounds more like this romanticization to romanticize it, these young men that wanted to go up and that sounds like complete fiction to me. But if you could explain what order give more evidence of this, i think it is much more likely that the cia was being the cia and this is something that was going on. And you know, the typical thing. Yes. I understand what you are getting out of the question. And this is sort of the course of this mention of it and this includes the desire for them to include they still have access and its incredibly important. Is an overwhelming evidence with this proarab tendency amongst this first generation of the middle east. And its something that others were advocating for and it was creating these citizen groups and against the politician of palestine in 1948 and previous generations as well. He gave this to his service in the cia. And so is very difficultand so s difficult not to take account of this. I was just curious on me behind it. And its just kind of crazy. Well, its where people sort of got there initial ideas because there wasnt this traditional idea of middle east in the same way with the british and the french and it was really the american commissioners in the middle east. And they sort of passed through the hands of these missionaries that were very proarab and working for the office of Strategic Service to have time to cover this as well. During world war ii with the middle Eastern Division that was dominated with this outlook on the region of the u. S. As well. And so that was another influence as well and there are other factors that are immensely important as well and they ultimately win the day. And these are the arguments, as it were. But was there at the beginning as well. Thank you. Thank you. Im curious that the agents were carrying out the policies of the president and the secretary of state and the head of the cia and you can define those as antizionist or promoting an agenda to make the bulk of this better. Or do they support the algerian revolt or the french . Well, Archie Roosevelt longworth many other americans in the middle east during world war ii really quite antifrench and identified with the air of Independence Movement in the french dominated region and he was actually sent home briefly because of his tendency to criticize the french. It was very striking as i was reading his memoirs during world war ii and he had identified with the cause of arab nationalism like them and others during that time. And you also asked about how independent these guys were and i think that they initially have a lot of latitude within the cia and there isnt much expertise about this region and so they had a similar aristocratic background and the cia director from 1953 and he is very much inclined to give Kermit Roosevelt his head, as it were in this field. But then they gradually sat upon this, as it were with his brother as they become increasingly fed up and suspicious of arab nationalism in the context of the cold war. And he very much sort of departs from this agenda and i think that Kermit Roosevelt and his decision to leave the cia in early 1958 was probably because dulles is no longer listening to him. So he has gone from here to there and he was wildly successful in his career in 1953 and he became a sort of cia letter, as it were. But then things started to sour and he is no longer given the latitude that he originally had. So i think the answer to your question is they have a surprising amount of freedom to act on their own and wait on that kind and that led to the departure. Thank you. Youre welcome. Hello. I have a question and you keep referring to them as therapists. Back then in the 50s, did these guys have a sense that the ratings are not arabs or sunnis and they would be offended by that probably. And so do these guys have that level of sophistication or did they lump them all . What is the historical record amount . Archie roosevelt did in the three of them they knew a great deal about the arab world and they were inclined to sympathize with arabs but that didnt seem to really extend to the iranians. Before roosevelt operation in 1953, he was after world war ii with a struggle that takes place in iran in 1946 and 1947 and its clear from his account that he really doesnt have the same personal sympathy for the iranians and in fact see the spam in an orientalist and british type term, racist terms and he writes about this in his memoirs and he already has this sort of element in the same way about iranians as well. And so he is very ready sort of accept the british analysis of what is going on with a weak minded type of hysterical people who will succumb to the influence must begin in it. And so im not entirely sure why that is. I think that it is partly to do with the fact that iran is one clearly a battlefield in the early cold war just as the british and soviets had a great team and see it as a place of adventures. But you are right that there is a distinction that places the advantage of the arabs. Thank you. Im curious to try to determine if there is any link between arabism and the state department in what seems to be part of the attitude that the state department has for the arab nations and the situation in syria is so chaotic as far as i am concerned. Can anyone learn lessons or is there any way of linking the two from that time to the present time but maybe it is too much of a stretch . I dont think it is at all. There are extraordinary continuities between recent events and what was going on in the 40s and 50s and we talked about them today and it is still an issue in the iranian relations and you could argue that their success stabilizes the regime in egypt and the leads to the durability and it could partly explain the durability of military government in egypt and the return to power and the similarities between and bends invents and syria in the 1950s and all of this and they are very striking in particular. I believe it was last summer when i was reading stories in the newspaper about why isnt the cia running covert operations to overthrow this regime. The same things were going regi. The same things were going on although this wasnt being discussed publicly and there were these attempts to mobilize the opposition groups in syria and the cia blocks the assets within syria to be able to do that. Let the manpower and the spy power and whatever is needed to get. Yes. This is something that roosevelt made a point of saying repeatedly which was you cannot bring about regime change unless there is a substantial element of people within the country and a question that are willing to go through that and it can be brought about by external manipulation. And so i guess that holds true today. Thank you so much. You are welcome. I had a question about those that make it happen and when you look at it from todays point of view that they were finding all of these antizionist entities as i recall 25 years ago going to the soviet union and they had these geopolitical maps postsoviet countries of the world and it actually it was part of the newly created israel with socialist ideas on what happy with the arab states and that doesnt change until the late 50s when everything switches around with an attachment to the United States. So looking at it from that element, the soviets have a similar take on knowing who they wanted to support during these crucial years which you discussed. So is it a question of directives rather than the agency that are believers in the great christian civilization and the other one is 67, and is at 191. Well, that is the key question when the soviet union lapses. The whole prism of looking at this geopolitical blends falls apart in the process makes it dangerous because the silly unit is not around anymore and there is no ability to prevent the crisis in this way. So it fits for those as well. Briefly you are right about how it flips the region in terms of the cold war geopolitical calculations and israel is seen on the american side is more likely to fall into this and the soviet camp rather than the u. S. And he doesnt really really have all that interesting arab country. So that changes with stalins death and he sees that the middle east is up for grabs to extend into the third world and they sort of lose the argument and he is known as the chief of counterintelligence and he also runs the israeli account which is a growing espionage connection between the cia as the arab world increasingly becomes very important as an alliance for the United States not just within the middle east but as well in africa for example. And so your point is well taken as well and i dont mean to argue for the insignificance of the geopolitical considerations as compared to this airbus impulse because it is the geopolitics and perhaps sort of wrongly analyzed because John Foster Dulles has this cold war view of the world and it is ultimately part of this impulse. Nonetheless i think the existence is very interesting and a path not taken and its worth studying why it wasnt. I have in my hands todays Washington Post and i will read the headline. John kerry cites progress and admits risk of failure in the mideast. And so besides the confusion, have we ever gotten anything right besides this. [laughter] and maybe that means that we should just get out . [laughter] well, i believe that question hanging there. [laughter] okay. [inaudible] i think that lets just try to end on a happier note. I hope this doesnt sound frivolous but there is this earlier history of a benign presence of the United States in the middle east and the era that saw the creation of institutions like the American University of beirut. A lot of good stuff. Yes. And i think it is worth remembering that moment was a historian of that relationship at rice university, it is such a fascinating moment in on that somewhat evasive response. And i will say thank you very much for your questions. [applause] for more information visit the authors website at americas great game. Com. In 1895 or so, nine different railroads terminated in chattanooga and that created quite an economic base and every railroad had a switch and there was a terminal in the southeast. And so all of that employment and money turning over by the workers provided an economic stimulus to the growing city of chattanooga. And even today the railroads still move at a amazing amount and train after train loaded with grain and going to the seaports on the Atlantic Coast were going to power plants in georgia and theres a lot of commodities that move by rail and therefore they have to come through chattanooga. Next weekend on the tv and American History tv, a look at the literary life of chattanooga, tennessee. Heres a look at some of the bestselling nonfiction books according to publishers weekly. It reflects sales as it is number 29, 2013. Political Commentator BillOreilly Oreilly tops the list with his account in killing jesus. Next, things that matter. Three decades of passions and pastimes and politics and you can watch his talk about his book at booktv. Org. And Guinness World records 2014 allah by david and goliath, a series of case studies exploring why people decide to rebel against authority. In the fifth bestselling book of the week is the secret six coauthored by fox news and don yager and it counts the spy ring during the american revolution. He appeared on the Interview Program after words. The pioneer woman cooks, food for my frontier and a detailed experience of a young girl fighting for womens rights in pakistan. Another Program Available to watch anytime on booktv. Org. And that fantasy comes to print in the eighth book. A collection of personal stories written by cy roberts. And mind is the bully pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin focusing on the relationship between William Howard taft and president roosevelt or go to booktv. Org to see her talk about it at the miami book fair. And finally political commentator glenn beck and his miracles and massacres, to an Untold Stories of the making of america. These are some of the current bestselling books according to publishers weekly. Coming up next after words with the American Society for muslim advancement with our guest Ranya Tabari Idliby in her latest book burqas, baseball, and apple pie. The coauthor of the face club talks about u. S. Culture while she talks about fellow muslims who she says distorts islam. The program is about one hour. When youre on the air. Most people when they look at you not think your palestinian because we have this image that we conduct in our mind. So can you tell me about your sword and where you come from . Often been told they dont know that im muslim and so i am told that it is a double whammy that way and originally my father left in 1948 and he came to the states as a 16yearold in the 1950s and landed in chicago and ended up majoring in math and engineering and graduated from the university of illinois and champagne