Transcripts For CSPAN2 Capitol Hill Hearings 20130814

Afghanistan. The discussion hosted by the Stemson Center in washington, d. C. Included analysts like stuart bolin, Inspector General for iraq reconstruction and his recent report arguing that a the u. S. Does not have a well executed plan to implement and oversee the reconstruction efforts. Defense department and u. N. Officials also participated in the discussion. This is an hour and a half. Good morning everyone. I am Ellen Laipson and im delighted to welcome you to the Stimson Center for this muggy of this conversation about war and peace new tools for messy transition. We are gathering at the time that we can see the end of both the iraq and afghanistan engagement, and this event in a way is pivoted around the offer by the special Inspector General for the iraqi reconstruction to present some of the findings for the final report so the special Inspector General office created in 2004 is now completing its work so it is a moment of reflection and looking back at what are some of the lessons of iraq, but we know that iraq is such an out liar and may be such an exception in the kind of engagement both the United States, the other parts of the International Community to prepare for a smaller scale in places like less strategic consequences of the United States to be struggling with the question of Stability Operations , cose conflict, stabilization and how to do state building, peacebuilding, etc. For a generation now. And we have on our panel i think three people who bring distinct and in valuable perspectives on how to think about these issues moving forward. We are going to begin with stuart ms. Wrapping up a decade of distinguished service of the special Inspector General for iraqi reconstruction. In his prior life he is an attorney who worked in several capacities when george w. Bush was the governor of texas they had a long affiliation and we are really delighted that he has developed such innovative and attractive materials to understand. I think it really does help the theres a lot of visual presentation of the lessons of iraq and the very complicated story of funding what didnt work so well and how we can do better the next time. So, we have invited stuart bowen to make his presentations first. We will then turn to jim schear who finished his second tour as assistant secretary with responsibility for the civility operations in his earlier career kube is a Research Scholar at the National Defense university, director of research and works throughout his career on the questions of the stabilization and reconstruction including at the u. N. And some of the post cold war Success Stories in cambodia, the balkans and elsewhere. So how did stuart bowen, what kind of responses were there broadly in the pentagon in the Interagency Community and his own reflections on what would be the right tools or the right mechanisms to respond to the post conflict environment and we are very delighted to have lehane smith whos the director of the policy and best Practices Service in that position for years. As a diplomat in a person thats worked on humanitarian law and has worked both in the ngo world and the Government Systems a month legal and diplomatic positions. So we do want to bring and how does the broad International Community handle these questions and allyson who may be decoder sectors of the program on the peace obligations grapple with the same questions. We need to broaden the lines and have both lehane smith offers some operations how does the u. N. Prepare and plan and organize itself for its very broad array of post conflict deployments and responsibilities. So, i think that one last thought i wanted to share is in a way what you are going to hear about today is the mechanism, the governmental practices, the procedures. But we want to remember before any of that gets put into motion there is important policy questions and even political deliberations of our required. What level of engagement and responsibility does the International Community feel it has or should have for some of these engagements. So lets recall that even prior to the decisions that we are going to be talking about today are from very difficult policy decisions that have to be made to put this all in motion. So without further ado, welcome to be stimson century and we are delighted to have you here today. Thank you to the center for hosting this event. Its an honor to be here and to be on the panel with jim and lehane and the thesis today is is the United States interagency sufficiently well integrated to plan, execute and oversee stabilization and we construction operations . The answer is no we are not sufficiently well integrated to accomplish that and that reform is needed. Three premises at the outset that i think we agree on and then we will get into the meat of the subject. One is the Iraqi Reconstruction Program didnt go well. Our audits for the inspection 390 of them demonstrate that fact. But as important or the audits are the Lessons Learned reports and the final one is learning from iraq but put forward seven lessons. The agency should take to heart the most important one is the substance of this mornings talk and the need to form some sort of interagency capacities that improves the current structure. The second point is by definition the interagency is not well integrated at this juncture and the evidence continues to be revealed in afghanistan and the question arises in afghanistan today and it arose in iraq as well. Who is in charge. It is an issue that the special Inspector General for the afghan reconstruction has raised. Its an issue that the commission on wartime contract in raised in its hearings and indeed in a hearing in march and 2010. Jim was a part of the panel that delved into that and the panel concluded or the commission concluded out of it there wasnt clarity and there wasnt a good answer for who was in charge. The third premise is how can we move forward with an effective path towards reform, and the reality is spelled out in chapter two of the iraqi side interview, the americans i interviewed of leadership from iraq, leadership on the hill concord the path to reform must be towards an integrated capacity. The iraqi is repeatedly identified for me in their interviews frustration about the fact that state and defense interlocutors were themselves at work. They spent more time bickering than providing aid. The chief of staff to the Prime Minister underscored this. He said instead of getting help from the state and defense had to observe this constant conflict and indeed the ambassador in iraq in 2010 said that the iraq reconstruction picture amounted to a bureaucratic clash of cultures between the state to the and ambassador jefferies echoed that fact and agreed that we need reform to improve the approach. General austin and my interview with him, commander of the multiNational Forceiraq and the u. S. Force iraq. I said that the approach we have suggested in our reporting is a good one and that we should do it. General Petraeus Inigo wing. So the leadership in iraq on both the state and defense side as it is spelled out in the report underscores the need for reform to move towards integration on the capacity to execute a stabilization and construction operations. How to do it, that is the and there are lots of ideas. Question. Let me firstly out of the current structure is and then identify the approach that is now possible through h. R. 2606. A bill introduced six weeks ago by the congressman stockman and welsh in the Broad Spectrum that is gaining cosponsor should and has an interest on the hill that would implement the kind of reform im talking about. First of all in the inner agency we have today didier of the conflict sterilization operation that succeeded it was called the coordinator for the reconstruction stabilization act the state department, which did not succeed in carrying out the mission identified when it was effectively authorized through the National Security directive 44. The ambassador lead that office for years and he is now a supporter of the proposal but we suggest in learning from iraq and is proposed and h. R. 2606. We have also in this department and usaid the office it is issued and has been around since the mid nineties. Does a good job in carrying out the defense but its largely done through contractors and it isnt for planning significant stabilization we construction operations. At the Treasury Department we have the office of Technical Assistance which as we pointed out in hard lessons did an excellent job with regards to stabilizing the bank and the currency conversion its one of the stories from the early days and one of the few. It does its mission and also creates a response to the stabilization demands of the early 90s, but its not a course in integrated capacity for planning and executing the stabilization reconstruction operations. At the Justice Department it provides aid on a rule of law, the most important aspect under address in iraq and the stabilization reconstruction context and it came forward leader but again it is not an integrated office for planning and executing these operations. Its just a piece of it. At the Defense Department we saw in 2005 the most revolutionary move i think in the 21st century, and that is the creation of sterilization operations now embodied in the Army Field Manual for the dot director 3,000. 05. And that has begun a transformation but its still somewhat ambiguous what the role should be in these operations. The proposal that we have suggested would help resolve that ambiguity. So you have the defense state farm aid, treasury and justice the big five, capacities that operate within the stovepipes, but these stovepipes in endure and prevent. Coordination doesnt work and thus of the oversight is not effective and senator mccain and i interviewed him in Chapter Chapter 2 said that we need to do the kind of reform that h. R. 2606 proposes and would create the Contingency Operations the would be charged with planning and executing and overseeing the stabilization and a construction operations. Ambassador crocker said of this idea it sets the course to correct the failure of the u. S. To the position we construction operations over the past three decades by establishing, the congress will create the lead institution dedicated to planning, preparing, executing pitting it will bring together the best of all worlds and provide unity of correction and uninterrupted divisions of the u. S. Meets the challenges faced in the future post conflict operations. This preeminently experienced in the world having served during the surge and successfully in iraq and then again as ambassador to afghanistan. So he has been there and he has done that. He sees this as a path forward that could work. Ambassador hearst, the other experienced person and as i said, the man that led the attempted solution to this problem at the state department for three years says with regards to this proposal they hire or train people in large numbers first of the operations. This was evident during the engagement in iraq and afghanistan. The experience has shown that we need a dedicated civilian professional in order to conduct these operations. Well, this is where it comes in to aid would provide the first operation ready to respond to the emergency abroad. Finally, the Lieutenant General chief of staff to the multinational corps in iraq says the fact of the matter is the department of defense has been in the lead in the most recent stabilization reconstruction operations. Unfortunately, this has created a situation where the Core Competencies of other Government Agencies and the department have not been adequately brought to bear. This is far from the allocation of the burden is among agencies. The integration of agencies into an entity like the u. S. Officer as proposed by h. R. 2606 would be a giant step forward. So there is a solution on the table. It could fill this empty space. This lack of responsibility for planning and executing and overseas operations. But its a heavy lift on the capitol hill as it is passing any legislation. But the argument has begun and im glad that we are here this morning to continue the discussion and to move it forward. Thank you. Would you like to widen the frame a little bit and get your thoughts on the dilemma that is before us . Thank you so much for orchestrating this conversation. To use the adjective in your invitation, this is a messy issue and we are discussing it at a messy time. As we all know, the oef is fading and there is instability that affects the various parts of the world coming yet largescale stabilization and we construction activities are not well. Others by the wouldbe recipients or the wouldbe suppliers. It is a huge challenge and an enduring issues and a very messy time. Succumb to navigate to words the proposal, let me give a little bit of context. Those of us that have been working on the stabilization issues over the last few years have really been focused on the three urgent issues. Its the retrospective hes looking back at the lessons and here i get a big shot out to stuart and all of the colleagues for all that they have done in the context to really explicate really good, solid lessons for the field. And thats a function not only of your work and fighting fraud, waste and abuse through audits and investigations but more broadly, work from the field, looking at the programmatic oif, how it worked, what didnt work and could have worked better and that is important in those lessons. Second is the prospect of peace, looking ahead. And i would say as we look ahead, we have then come and i think the colleagues still will continue to focus on the preventive peace more and more. And here i will give a big shot out to rick and his team in the state department for their work and developing this civilian response network, not core, but a network which includes a wide variety of expertise, stakeholders from the private sector from the nonprofits, interNational Partners, Civil Society members and local regions and countries as diverse as kenya or honduras or burma. And i think that is an interesting development. And i hope our state Department Leadership and colleagues can put energy into that and further develop it because that is the key to the important preventive activity. So, and the third piece is what i would call a preservation strategy. We need to preserve the of the wise perishable skills and expertise. I will mention something that happened recently. The secretary of defense chuck hagel a couple months ago signed a directive giving joint proponents of for the stabilization and stability to the army. This hadnt happened before. By former office and colleagues, some of whom are here today, have responded to advocate for the constructive mission but not owners. The joint proponents see in the parliament means you own the mission in the sense of working in a joint context to develop the approach on the structure, core functionality is and who does what and responsible to the security fence. That is an important innovation. Theres also an ongoing joint company of assessment we hope will lead to an understanding of what the other wise capabilities are that we need to watch. So, as we look ahead, obviously it is clear we are in a downsize mode. The Ground Forces are going to be cut. We know this. We also know that there is a traditionalist argument which has a history buff on the understand that sro forces are not always prepared to launch back into the combat. At the end of the 19th century, the brits have been fighting the counterinsurgencies in africa. They didnt have a clue on the trench warfare in world war i. In 1950, the eighth army occupying japan, doing stabilization was addressed in south korea and wasnt well prepared to defend against the armor of salt assault. The continued context provides an incentive for the forces especially the land forces to continue to embrace this mission. That your regular warfare context, the asymmetric threats that we find in various parts of the world where the u. S. Military might be called upon to operate does give an incentive to the population centric approaches to operations, to understand. I think that is critically important in terms of preserving doctrine, expertise, training, the devotee to maneuver the contest environments, intelligence, surveillance, cents an engineering keep will become a transitional policing and other things so there are incentives to keep the capabilities. Okay. So let me quickly turn to the proposal. Please count me as a sympathetic skeptic. I think we need to give serious consideration to this proposal. I think we also need to look hard at the political and bureaucratic dynamics which it might shape inadvertently. I will identify three things. First of all, what i would call the mainstream verses the separation issue. Right now our biggest concern is how to mainstream the expertise in the existing bureaucracies. I worry that setting up a separate entity to do that actually in a first way relieves pressure on those bureaucracies that can outsource. Some of you will recall the arnes attachment in the 1990s for what they called the concept of the operations other than the war. And as we watch that metastasize, it became a concern for certain constituencies in the army that to work on other than the war is to get into what i would call operations other than what i signed up for. [laughter] so we dont want to do that and go through that phase again. And im not saying that they would necessarily a the and of that that that is something that has to be considered the second issue is what i would call the field of dreams problem. Field of dreams if we build that they will come. Worked great for Kevin Costner and building a baseball diamond in central iowa. It actually worked for the commander in Operation Allied force building refugee camps in northern macedonia because once they were built the refugees came. The obverse problem though is if you are nervous about using a certain capability, hitting that button is going to be hard if you think that hitting the but in means something is going to happen that you dont want to happen. And i worry that our leaders in the white house and the state department or the Defense Department are going to be nervous about hitting the button when they should be hitting it to do all the planning and preparation if they think it is going to lead to something which at the end of the day they want to avoid. So i think also there would be a great reinforcement from their regional offices in the bureaucracy. So i would be very concerned about what i call the field of dreams problem. Third come im not convinced this action makes the chain of command easier. I think it actually may complex it a bit of i heard one general officers say at the end of the day and embassador will never report to the general commanding general will never report to an ambassador. There has to be the unity of effort. And actually general David Petraeus and ambassador ryan crocker work very well. But i take the point that early in the iraq mission there were serious issue and bureaucratic warfare. Thats the reality that there are ways to deal with that. Im not sure that the results the chain. So where do i end up on this . I think at the end of the day there are several and we can talk about them in the conversation here. We need what i would call the stabilization. We need the devotee to ramp up quickly and that is preserving critical capabilities than the capacity to move up quickly if we can to the large footprint situation which will be rare. But, you know, it is a low probability, high impact and oftentimes a sudden onset type of situation. We also need a valueadded approach. We need to have expertise in formed on a highlevel policy discussions that generally live from the nsf and this was part of a recommendation on the greater nss role. The need to step up to this more than they have done. Its very important to ensure the value added for the regionally focused discussions on what do we do now. And i would actually trumpet the work of the atrocity prevention board in this regard. Its working on the areas where there isnt a lot of visibility right now because all of the focus is on the middle east and north africa but it is making i think useful contributions in helping to foster collegial work between the defense with diplomatic communities and the Intel Community as well, looking at the issues where violence could be longing around the corner. There needs to be a value added approach to this. Happy to turn it back to you. On the department of human peacekeeping operations. Thank you giving u. N. Peacekeeping a chance to share our experience with you. Obviously i think coming from a different perspective and a multilateral perspective its certainly some of the comments already have many similarities there are between what we are facing. Also the differences. You talked about a an ambassador never reporting to a general and in peacekeeping we have over 100 nationalities according to one head of the u. N. In the country and quite often the fourth commander from one country having to report to that so we see some of the challenge is playing out in terms of our restrictiveness and operations. You also talked about the field of dreams concept we we have a similar fee is on the council that give peacekeeping a range of jobs we may or may not be suited and have the civilian expertise to handle. So i got a lot from that. I wanted to give a quick update on what we are giving them peacekeeping in relations to not only how we integrate and try to do things better as the u. N. On the ground but how we get out in a sustainable way. This has become a big issue in the recent years in countries like haiti or the u. N. Has gone and and has gone back again. So we try to understand a bit better what went wrong in the situation and where the gaps were and why get involved than having to go back into the Main Objective is to ensure what we did on the ground is sustainable and the broad peacebuilding objective of the International Community and the u. N. As well. So that is my job largely. I held the best practice peacekeeping and the main function is to try to learn the lessons from where we messed things up in the past or every now and then we get something right and how we can apply those lessons in this situation. A lot of my work right now is looking at the peacekeeping operations that started up. The achieve our objective and get out as soon as possible. We are working ourselves out of a job constantly. If they have an investment and the need to stay to make sure the work gets done. So for the past three years i have been leading some policy work on the u. N. Wide policy transition. As the peacekeepers his prickly i think that we get a mandate from the Security Council and it says to a b and c and when youre finished we just pack up and get out. We started realizing that approach and the transition is not effective and there is a lot we need to do with our partners and side of the u. N. And the whole government and the organizations as well to make sure they are sustainable. We have been working with our missions on the ground particularly those in siberia and he and places we have the feeling presents like south sudan to get a sense of what the problems have been and what they think we can do better. As we build the policy on those lessons from the mission and also based on the pressure for the Member States telling us what happened here. Why werent your efforts more sustainable and what could have done better to reduce of the u. K. In particular has been supportive in helping us build up this body of work. So, the policy itself is about how you in peacekeeping missions transition out of the country. There are a lot of other kind of transitions the u. N. Faces from humanitarian to development for example that we thought there would be good to just start with this particular aspect of how the peacekeeping has the biggest gap in terms of guidance to read the whole idea of the policy is to encourage the management and the planning of the transitions of the Headquarters Level in new york but also on the ground with the u. N. Peacekeeping mission. What we tried to do with the policies developed the roles and responsibilities to make it clear that everybody that has a stake in all of this knows what theyre supposed to do and when and kind of show the response of the key to pick up the mark this debate could difficult aspects of the work. We came up with five principles i thought i might share with you and maybe some of them are relevant to the same kind of lesson of learning approach is that you are having in places like afghanistan. I served in afghanistan from 2005 to 2007 and worked closely in the field of with some interesting places and i certainly saw a lot of similarities with the struggles that you are having and that we are having, too. I think obviously the u. S. Transition to afghanistan is a lot of interesting stuff there for the u. N. To take on the board as a transition partner for the u. S. In terms of work that may need to be ongoing. So we came up with these five principles and i have to confess none of them are brain surgery that was good to articulate them. First is in the transition process, the number one thing we need to do is start planning early so from the day that we hit the ground we need to be planning for other parts. And im glad to see that in a mission like the mission in south sudan under johnson that is a Brand New Mission that started at the outset. Here is our mandate, what are the objectives and how can we benchmark them and what indicators we have to get there and will we know when we have got in there. So we are making some progress on that early planning. The second principle in the policy is about an integrated human response. So, getting the peacekeepers, whether they are uniform civilians to understand they are not in a country on their own, that they are there to work with other partners who are being related in similar work and that the need to be working with them on the transition planning as well from the beginning means, for example, if on a rule law officer in a peacekeeping mission, i need to be working with colleagues in the Human Development programs from the beginning to see how my little part of the pipes is with what they are doing and when i go how do they handle it on. This is a big intellectual shift in peacekeeping. The third principle in the policy is about National Ownership and what ever we are doing surely has to be based on what is happening in the whole country and the government, the society acrosstheboard. So how do we tayler our work and our transition out of a place about the National Priorities of the country that we are working in . How do we make sure the government as a country we are working with appreciates the approach we are taking . If they are not interested in the early departure were staying too long and we wont be effected at all. The fourth principle is similar but distinct. And thats about the National Capacity development. Even though they are not Capacity Development experts, from the minute they hit the ground the need to be working with National Partners both inside of the u. N. Peacekeeping and also in the government and Civil Society they are working with not just to do things for them or tell them how to do things that help them do the things we are doing so that when there is a sustainable capacity left behind. Im sure for the u. S. Government is a similar issue we talk about the capacity default and all the time like its something that isnt easy to do but the societies and governments we are working with them that capacity isnt there so its not as easy as it might sound. You have to identify the capacity and start from an early stage because it takes a long time to do. The fifth principle quite pragmatic and that is how do you communicate while you are in a place and how long are you going to be in a place and how are you going to get out and maybe for the u. N. Particularly more importantly what youre not going to be able to do and how do you communicate that to your host government for the population more broadly and to your own staff inside of the mission whether they are International Staff or national staff. I think theres an aspect of being a transparent and honest as possible with all of those kind of partners that we havent been very good at before that raises all kinds of expectations about what we would be able to achieve. If we were honest from the outset we should have been more realistic. The other principals they operate under and maybe a couple other aspects that might be interesting in this discussion. Something we are working on now is the value of benchmarking. How much can you get out of benchmarking. How rigorous is that as a process . What do you do if it is a set of benchmarks that are not achievable on the political time frame . You have technical benchmarks and the political reality to be and how do you make sure you can bring this together . Were also doing work on the Public Perception surveys so benchmarking as a measure but Public Perception surveys with a qualitative measure how was your average province feel about their own security and how should that impact on the understanding what were up to and how long we need to be in a place. Another process of mapping the work that we are doing. True peacekeeping its amazing how often we dont know what we are doing and how much time it takes into they are working with so when we say its time for peacekeeping to leave in liberia we dont always have a sense of what that means, what tasks there are to hand over, what capacity they have to pick up the task, whether they are in the government or the u. N. Country or with other partners in the bilateral so that is something we are focusing on right now. Another thing that is difficult to do i think is to know whats going to happen after we transition out. We spent the last few years assuming the peacekeeping mission was going to leave and that the u. N. Political mission was going to take over. Before that happened we found there wont be any Security Council for political missions. Will be an expanded u. N. Country presence so we could have certainly done a better job of the Strategic Planning around the scenario that was going to follow and that is something we are working on at the moment as well. The last thing i will probably mengin for this audience is how we get better at maintaining both of the political and the Financial Support for the country that we have been working and after we go. For peacekeepers what we bring to the table is that lens of the Security Council and it tends to bring a lot of money with that. Once the country is off the agenda we find that slips away dramatically and the other partners in the field have a lot less money at a lot less staff to try to finish. The jobs that we didnt get around to finishing. They are the kind of issues that we have addressing. I would be happy to answer any questions. I thought those were fascinating presentations and i will take the liberty of posing a question but that i want to turn to bill and the floor will be open for your own comments and questions. A lot things he said precipitate with how this gets debated in the United States exit strategy to really talk about is there an exit strategy clacks the military wants to know how long as the commitment at the beginning but the flip side of that is worrying about too much communication and exit plan because then the bad guys wait us out and know they only have to be patient another 12 months and then the field will be open. This is an argument made in afghanistan and iraq, too. The power to lead the party in power is for talking too much about the endgame thinking in this kind of exposing a full bar above the. Can you talk because you link the Communication Strategies and the notion the you then does have to set a finite date to its engagement. Does it also worried about talking about the accent means it can exacerbate the situation on the ground cracks that is an important question. We dont talk about the exit point blank. The language we decided not to use. The transition policy and of the work im doing is about reconfiguring omnipresence on the ground. So it may be tricky to talk about it that we but we dont talk about the exit of the peacekeeping mission we talk about the reconfiguration of the presence. And in the same way that interest you have a significant military drawdown but the continued United States presence in the country giving a range of things. So this may be the peacekeepers to believe but for us if youre a civilian agency on the ground probably before him and we will be on the ground afterwards so its a decent way of communicating that message. Obviously you cant avoid the reality is in the Communications Strategy that is how we are trying to deal with it. Would you like to comment on that issue . The first one was planning for departure and then in the u. S. Military as ive heard what does the success like and i think one of the reasons iraq Reconstruction Program lasted ten years almost was that we didnt have a plan that looked that far down the road. We had benchmarks that fell victim to political realities. Youre other point of principle five providing integration and responsibility that in one office blood assigned the duty of thinking about that very important question said that we dont have in afghanistan 12 years to the position we construction operations to the i think you are spot on with all five and i think number one is properly put first because you have to begin to think about the end before it even starts, before the foot lands on the country that is being heated. I have a slightly different question for you since you have been in the kind of learning part of the defense community, the National Defense University Institute for strategic studies and anymore action policy oriented job. So we gather all the smart people to do these reflections on Lessons Learned but then when the reality hits and these deployments are sort of six month turnovers and people are in the field for a short period of time what is your sense of how much learning or do this call orders learned the action folks have to sort of get the cliff notes version of the learning . How much of these insights do get observed by the people who are being deployed for a short tour . Fascinating question and it speaks the importance of Lifelong Learning practitioner education. As one goes forward through a career, scholars and the policy will do live differently and think differently. I call Henry David Thoreau lamenting we all become tools of our tool. You have to understand how they work in washington and downrange and understand that in stuarts world, funding and how to work effectively in the inner Agency Domain what can we bring together. And you have to cast the net wisely and this is a challenge for the stabilization community because you need to be inclusive. Everyone needs to be in the room. That can create a level that thinks that the issue with a future version isnt clear. But the Human Resources peace i think is hugely significant. I do think at various phases of the Career Management capacity and the devotee to understand who knows what and who wins what to the table can be helpful especially if the country team level. The generals dont report to investors, but investors are the leading voice in the country and coordination is absolutely required. Having the country team with a rhetorical skills and capabilities worked quite well in a country like columbia at various points in time for example thats really vital. So i wouldnt accept that theres going to be inevitable differences between scholars and practitioners. But they have to Work Together and that is a challenge i wanted to ask you to comment a little on the cost implications of your proposal. You have spent a decade now worrying about how the taxpayers money is being spent. Did we waste money, spend it on the wrong things, etc. Can you tell us whether you consider the cost implications are you talking about the bricks and mortar new building agencies where would it said in the interagency process . With the defense and state departments no longer do things that would be the Magnetic Pull of where that reside . Because my worry with the new office as logical as it sounds is that it doesnt necessarily compel the other parts of the system to stop doing what they already do. I want to ask about the cost and efficiency consideration. Great question. Thank you. We thought about this carefully and indeed in the bill there is a version that ensures that its budget neutral. The expense is relatively small to with the office would achieve a 25 million a year anticipating about 125 employees it would be scalable along the lines that were discussed. The scale the devotees critical to carrying out these missions. It would sit as an independent office reporting. Somewhat like the director did during the Marshall Plan as a precedent and its also my reporting that worked fine and i think the interest the current reality but the stabilization reconstruction operations. The Defense Industry are going to play significant roles and that is a lesson from afghanistan and iraq. That answers the question of costing and the structure. Youre third point how does it solve the coordination question and is it a leader in the bureaucracy . The answer is no because this spaces and filled. There are five different offices in five different stovepiped agencies that are carrying out different aspects of the mission yet no one is bringing it to get there but for the operation to begin, depend on the serendipitous confluence of the favorable personalities as they occur congenital petraeus and general crocker is not a strategy. Serendipity is not a strategy. We need planning. As eisenhower said planning, the process gets you to resilience and clarity and also gets you to victory in these operations and keep them short and it would ensure that we wouldnt the constant turnover in personnel which more than anything contributed to the length of the operation. Everyone really not staying longer than a year. The analogy would be structurally when fema had their motion declared it had the capacity. It has multi jurisdictional capacity and it has already prepared with contractors and its already prepared with analyzing what the situation might be and therefore when it engages there isnt this long ramp up period that we talk about where you have the freeforall zone as someone described it to me in the first year. That is unacceptable and we can do better and i think we will. I would like to invite my colleague who founded the program on the future peace operations. Any comment or plans you want to make . A couple of comments and claritys. Thank you. Three excellent presentations. Theres always tension between the need for the conflict and the longterm need to build new post conflict political cultures that more conducive to on violent politics than the ones that replaces. So part of the problem is the sheer difficulty of pulling up the damaged or the fragile state and balancing local priorities against history of mayhem and war and that is the policy balances reflecting National Priorities with a very specific caution. So my question is what if the security setbacks are a function of the National Policy and how you will deal with that. As to the military question in the field. Just as the u. N. Military and the field answers the authority and the complex operations, and it has for 20 years, the u. N. Military forces are the capacity on loan for the u. N. They are not the heart and guts of the Foreign Policy shall we say or the International Engagement but the u. S. Military forces are so theyre much more central to the presence and action especially in the conflict affected areas so my question for jim and for stuart. How is this on the status of the military as a defining element of the institution and the country make it harder or easier for us to engage and to be flexible and our engagement. Thats a really good point youre making. When the operation is sent in by the Security Council of the mandate to implement obviously everything can change on the conditions on the ground and the way the circumstances evolves. I mentioned earlier south sudan and the work being done by the mission to set up benchmarks and around with the mission has been asked to do there. As soon as the negotiations between the north and south break down and the wheel stops running and the economy falls apart so many of the aspects of the benchmark just stopped working we then report back to the Security Council and say this is what we were planning to do, this is what happened. We can keep going or we can slow down and recognize the circumstances. And obviously it would be our preference set down until the conditions are right there will always be a political decision and a financial decision by the states that are finding the peacekeeping presence there. If i could add in a related point what he would mention in addition to these policies weve also been working on what we are calling a early peacebuilding strategy. The number one reason peacekeeping gets sent into the places to stabilize and bring peace and security to the new environment for the people but we realize what we are doing is Building Activities so we develop a strategy over the last two years that looks at how our piece fits and more broadly to what other actors are doing and its basically around three roles of peacekeepers. Third is to articulate what the goals of the country are and articulate the peacebuilding goals they have. The second is by the security umbrella we provide to the military and police and to create an enabling environment for other actors to have the space to come in and do those peacebuilding combat peacebuilding work and get that work started. The third aspect of the early peacebuilding strategy there are few roles that the civilians in the mission have that are actually peacebuilding jobs. So working the rule of law with corrections or as the human rights i feel like i was working with the Human Rights Institution that is early peacebuilding work and that is part of the stuff that we need to transition. Very good question and a difficult one to wrestle with. When the u. S. Forces go in, i generally take the view they are seen as i would call partisan peacekeepers. The u. S. Is not there to be neutral and impartial. Its there to support. Its fair to exercise for the influence and i believe in a positive traction torch capacity building, National Capacity development in fact is a critical issue in the exit and wrong word, transition in afghanistan. The taliban wont win by waiting. They will be dealing with a National Force which many have as legitimacy and the desire to hope that is the outcome in the end state. When we go in as partisan peacekeepers we have magnetic qualities we repel some and attract some and when we attract some for the wrong reasons by the way, we have to be careful about that. So, we recognize that. The issue is are we dealing with spoilers who may not have any public support within their Community Despite the revolutionary united front in sierra leone and the british knew that by the way. Or if there is a deep set insurgency reflecting a ethnosecretarian split within the country. We have to be very conscious, but broadly the piece is one that we go in with a very focused concern about because we generally are seen as partisan. I concur totally. With regard to this, civilians must leave the stabilization reconstruction operation. There is a big debate about that in iraq and they point out 75 of the rebuilding contracts were dod contractors. With the policy assigned to the state department that created an insoluble in solvable dichotomy between the policy oversight and contract execution. But the metal piece of the outset is aimed at the rule of law. And the witness to a certain extent or substantial extent early on in iraq and what is part of the call is our policy move from liberating the prewar plan to occupy in and rebuild the post war plan that we were not really systemically capable of executing. Please identify yourself. [inaudible] 1912 napoleon invaded russia, occupied moscow. Things didnt go well after that. Question. Did he get the post conflict stabilization wrong or did he simply misunderstand the nature of the war that he had initiated . [laughter] you are exceeding my scope of historical understanding. It wouldnt be the first time in history that we went to shore and broadly in the International Community there were unexpected perceptions. I recall vividly in 2006a general officer turning to me in the context that said when we went on shore we thought we would be seen as the lewis and Clark Expedition and we were seen instead as the vikings so local perceptions count a great deal. At the fund for peace. I want to address the political context in which all of these initiatives and Lessons Learned are being addressed. It seems to me there are two contradictory trends coming on. Internationally there seems to be a growing political well get some sort of coordinated effort to solve these problems. Every legislation shows that maybe are special Interest Groups have a problem. We are supporting us and we are telling you the truth. The we have addressed this issue in regards to this and a lot of this result is a part of it. Or it may be part of afghanistan as well. But this is part of the local vicinity and we have given us to of view private Interest Groups. [inaudible] this is part of the petition. We do not want to shuffle around with the people. Again, nobody really knows how this is wrong. We have the basics so we can move forward from the basic level forward with these types of citizens. At least a billion was wasted. Another 300 million recovered we need to reform our approach to reduce the fraud and waste and abuse. I think that this is one that doesnt really have a particular Interest Group as you have been to describing and there is bipartisan interest on the hill whether that translates remains to be seen. I just wanted to pick on the point of jim that maybe Senior Leaders would be looking to make use of this office, i suppose because of unresolved policy disputes over what the situation includes. So what would you recommend with syria and egypt. What should they be doing today and how likely do you think Senior Leaders would be part of this . To succeed in a stabilization , there is the history and society. Nor was it in afghanistan. Is there our interviews underscoring a point in the and to substantiate the failure to consult sufficiently about this. With regard to suspicions about this and the world in the house by the general ambassador. This we thought it was an additive and not a subtracted element. The diplomacy ensures the establishment of the democracy and sovereignty in the political field. As the country recovers and moves toward stability. I thought that jims point was very bright. If you have knowledge of the planning creates this inability to acting, can we plan is a hypothetical without predecisions we make a very large military and we dont want to use it in an aggressive fashion. We might have options with National Security. Planning and establishing the capacities is not necessitating the actual use. The gentleman in the yellow shirt . It is so good to see you again. One question, just a comment. This proposal has really be broadened out the sorts of parameters that the officers can actually deal with. As you suggested, there are a number of roles that focus on this planning and the activities when there is a large operation a foreign country. I just dont see how the environment we have now will move forward. So i think that if you think about how you to pitch this is the various audiences, when he think about how you would talk about those various different responsibilities, and then a question which is contributing countries and the limitations. As it moves through the different phases, how do you deal with the two countries and the governments make sure that they are comfortable with the changing operations, particularly in a fastmoving environment like south sudan, and suddenly they are facing this. They continue to step up to the responsibilities that sometimes i am sorry for the long comment thats okay would you like to enter a . Youre absolutely right. I would point to this new resolution in the example of that threat. You know, the evolution since the early 90s has gone to Security Council members to a big shift of the situation there, a lot of them found a developing rule. And now a lot of them postafghanistan include a little rumbling from the European Countries and we are working on a strategy right now to expand this. We are working on trying to develop these standards across the full range of functions. But it is a u. N. Standard as we feel comfortable about what we need to contribute and what will be expected. What we are seeing right now globally is the Movement Towards regional responsibilities and we can call it a distributed model for security. The extent to which western hemisphere countries have stepped up is really impressive and quite frankly its a heckuva lot more to support peace the u. S. Focusing all of these areas is to enable and promote this great effort to what we would call partnered operations where we are training and assisting and enabling and advising pursuant to the law and direction from the president and it will be enabling the problem. A country like molly is a current example. The africanamerican chamber of commerce as where im from. One of the Success Stories was the core program. In one part of that was a very strong leader to coordinate things and it worked quite well. I was wondering if you could just touch on that as it addresses that issue. And are any units which used to be part of the peace training, willet coordinate with the u. N. Peacekeeping guidelines . Thank you, you are right. It was a precursor to the operations because of the strong leadership especially with the provincial reconstruction Reconstruction Program. It brought military and civilian members together to meet the local needs of people and properly oversee properly led differences for the good. That is also true in afghanistan. Both of those aspects are part of the ancestry for these ideas and the success when properly led. So it would ensure that proper leadership exists before the next operation. The proper training accomplished and ensuring that these entities that execute this stabilization are resourced. Just a quick response. We would continue to have expertise and strong comparatives to this. I would certainly like to talk about the cause of this and we took a little bit of heat from the george w. Bush campaign is for not being prepared to wage traditional conflict due to the task force is. This would be the most likely vehicle also in the professional military education sphere. The peacekeeping stabilization operation institute and the u. S. Army war college in the National Defense immigration will continue to be part of this is expertise onto which we can draw. But i do expect good compared to matters. One case study talks about how it took more care can work anywhere. We have about six people so far and maybe a few others to try to fit you all in. Hello, my name is piers martin and im here at the georgetown university. My question is related to one of the main ideas which is to broaden our positions and a conflict that was one of the first reactions from the United States is reaction and the European Union started. Working and building of institutions for Common Security and defense policy. As there seems to be quite a change of discussion right now because the discussions we are having here about building of institutions for several military integrations and even before in the wake of this in 1991 so my question would be to what extent do you also consider the institutions has built up for conflict management . Thats a great question. I think this stabilization is a good example of responded to this contemporary challenge. So we can bring together civilian and military components within the uk to prepare and to be able to execute that ms setting. Much smaller by definition and scale. But its aiming at the same direction as you think other Member States are similarly responding. We are looking at responding in an integrated fashion. As. Lets go over to cannot. Thank you for your persistence. Because we have been working on this a long time. Jim, thank you for the skepticism. Hes talking more on the realities of this because i think this outlines everything very clearly over the years about what needs to be done. The challenges who is the leadership on this. Not only on the congressional side, but in the leaders in this field. We all know about this. It doesnt have regimens and standard campaigns are never popular. But what you do on oversight where people want to know where dollars go in and they see it as a challenge or whatever and they come up with a remedy. As this is prevention and planning in some ways and i dont see how the campaign, which this is, how this is reaching people who need to do it. Before Vice President biden was in the senate, i dont see on the Appropriations Committee as many reports continue to talk about the dysfunction of congress. Not only that, but i want you to drill down on what the reality of doing this is. People support this on all levels but they dont see how this is going to happen in this climate when its needed. So i really want to talk about that. That is a great question. The Appropriations Committee members, also senator graham and they were enthusiastically supported. Other members include senator mccain, senator kelly ayotte, and senator bob corker. Senator joe manchin as well. So they allow this to work. Of special interest is a broad bipartisan interest. Who is the better thought leader that Brian Crawford on this at this time. You know, continuing to lead the public discussion about these social issues. That is a number of people who are interested in this. There is discussion and engagement within the public and private academic communities and most importantly by those familiar with this. The general response has been positive. Thank you very much. I am a great admirer and it strikes me that it feels like we are building a hammer at a time and we dont expect the next worst look like those. The energy and investment that seems to be going through this kind of innovation, one in the future we dont always know how to experience it. What we really need to think about is investing in some kind of multilateral engaged strategy that makes other kinds of institutional changes about this. If we convey this to our congressional leadership, and the best way to do it is to just do a better job of what we did in iraq and afghanistan. So i would really question the value of pressing that direction. It is institutionally critical that we change our course. Yes, the status quo is unacceptable and it is not a presumption that we will have another iraq and afghanistan. I think we had this because they were because we didnt have integrated planning for effective oversight. That is why they lasted so long. I would urge that we would avert a future and find more effective integration because the operations will be more successful. Rather than being nine or 12 years long, it will be much shorter. And we need a vision for the departure and an expectation of what this looks like by ensuring this is the primary duty and not the additional duty. It is the additional duty and not the primary duty of any of them. Especially when it comes to this because they can focus on their primary duty until called upon to respond. So they dont have planning in place in the oversight is not there and they end up staying too long and its too expensive. I would like to invite a few people to quickly ask questions and then we will invite or speakers to make their final comments. Ewan and Margaret Hayes and you in the back. Did you want to answer the questions . Thank you, the number of comments. We have fought the inherent complexity of these operations. My question is how would this affect inherently complex and difficult political incidents in which not all but most of these missions have occurred. The decisions to disband the iraqi army and allow this implementation of the peace agreement, failure to act their, touching off a world war and situations that we still face. Really difficult questions. Thats a great question. Margaret hayes in georgetown. That is how difficult it is to do capacity building, whatever that means and how long. Where we would be building capacity for many years some of the exercises in africa may be the same. So how can we do that less than and what progress can be made. Thats a good question. Thank you very much. That raises a couple of serious concerns of an organizational nature. It allows them to outsource responsibility and i think that that is a concern of an earlier version and i would like to ask them to address this is how it relates to the decisionmaking process is and is not adequately address the concerns that raises . Hello, i am a former colleague. As it is part of the fundamental basis of what youre talking about, which is looking to get out quickly. As i would hold that that is the right approach. Once you focus on the exit so quickly, youre missing you are missing the opportunity to get things right. As i would say that we have made the mistake of planting to have to short term of a vision over and over and i would wonder how that would treat us. Hello, sends egypt has been settled its own phase. The next country is yemen i asked the egyptian generals tommy about their experiences. Should we go into yemen . [laughter] wed like to take a couple minutes to speak about the things that you heard. Why dont you go first. I am not going to step up on that particular question. [laughter] i think theres a lot of great input. Just a quick comment. Very sympathetic to the point in terms of leaving too soon and i would offer that as part of this reform effort when you look at transitions and we need to do stress test planning, we need to look at the multidimensional transitions, like where are we going to have a problem in conveying responsibility to a host nation. There are going to be differences in casualty evacuations in afghanistan as well. So we have to go through each of these transitions according to ministerial level developments and Law Enforcement approach to stabilization and the longerterm development and all of these things that have a concerted sort of forward looking plan. And i think thats really important. And i agree with the presumption when it comes to the question about an assessment needs to step up to this. I think that is very important. This is one of the hottest things that we have right now. But the main problem is the Capacity Development. I was part of the Capacity Development program and i have never been a technical expert in that area. As i am earning 5000 a month and he is earning 40 a month. So we need to be part of training this capacity and i think the second thing is that once we speak about that, if you are an afghan and u. N. How to do something and there are a few of you to go abroad, they are looking at incentive structures in their countries and salaries that are reviewing the cost of it. And i think the way that you talk about it is exactly right. We are talking about the financial ability to be there, but planning what its going to take and if that is more about shaping us to be unsuitable we want to do there, i think is that is what we have to do. Planning on what we are going to be doing. s on the complexity, on march 22,003, there is a rebuilding force and it should be relatively challenged. When i interviewed about that subject, there would have been continuity and that equals strength and success these kinds of operations. As it is a huge question. We have spent over 7 billion for it. Part of the challenge is that we didnt focus effectively on the anticorruption capacity. So it shows that that was done before it ever began. So it would fill in an empty space. Planning and executing the reconstruction activities in the inter Agency Management system that was set up on these kinds of questions and so much of the program was part of this. So i envision what does success look like. Another way of describing the benchmark. As you achieve this departure decision, you have this calculus as we have learned from iraq and afghanistan and what it does is provide the preoperation planning which is everything, i think. As if you dont engage in this, the sectarian issue is specific. To be specific about iraq, then the execution tends to be on an ad hoc basis and he wont have what is best to come to you soon enough. We have spoke about this as an important point since the beginning. But what we have been talking about our tools that are functional in the hard policy choices of what happens when unpredictable and unstable political environments occur. That is the decision on whether yemen matters and not some other group that might engage upon us with an equally compelling part. I want to thank you for coming. Thank you for coming from new york we have such a fascinating perspective and we thank you for your service. We look forward to seeing what is happening next and we thank you for bringing such an important perspective to this discussion. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] up next, on this special weeknight edition of booktv, the battle that began the revolutionary war at bunker hill. And then the author that writes about George Washington of south america. In the civil war battle of gettysburg. Tomorrow a military briefing in east afghanistan. We will talk about violence in the area and live coverage begins at 10 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan2. Tomorrow night on the encore presentation of first ladies. Is unusual but im sure that she will tell you about this and i think that having read this and read about her, she was a very happy girl. And she goes through the official title, which wasnt normally part of this. The encore at a first ladies. An original on cspan. The first battle of the American Revolution is discussed by Nathaniel Philbrick in his book bunker hill a city, a siege, a revolution. He discussed it in brookline, massachusetts. Thank you, it is an honor to be introduced. Both of the kids were educated by them and it is wonderful to see you here at brookline. Corresponding with the Massachusetts Historical Society which has been an institution that has been absolutely essential. Every archive ive done has been information that has come from there essentially. Many of the characters in bunker hill a city, a siege, a revolution i delve into. It is just an organization that is essential to anyone in this country. The genesis really goes back to the summer of 1984. My wife and i had just moved to boston fulltime and we were living on Princes Street in the north bend. End. At that time i was a feeling journalists but my primary responsibility was to be a home with almost 2yearold daughter, jenny. So i have a lot of free time on my hands and i would push the stroller through the crooked streets of the north end. And it was a favorite hangout. It was there that i began to say, okay, what was it like back then. So then i thought of the book that i had read in middle school with many of my generation that captivated me as well as the movie. And what was revolutionary boston might. Mike. I began to look into the history of boston that year in 1984 when alyssa was at home, i would go to the Boston Public Library and began to look into the history of the city. Soon we would be on nantucket and my growing interest to my new adopted home went towards that path. After writing mayflower, which begins with this voyage but ends with the bloody war between the english native peoples of this region, i began to realize that i wanted to complete the story of the mayflower. Edmondson 1676 and even during the midst of this terrible battle is amazing. An agent from king charles the second, that the king would be wise, if anything in america. It seceded anything they were going to get from parliament. It was kind of like what we talked about a hundred years later. And at that point i thought, okay, i want to continue the storys and do something about the revolution. Including the battle of little big one, the last man. It was working on now that i began to set my sights on the battle of bunker hill. All of my books are about communities under an enormous threat. Whether taking a passage into an unknown new world. What interested me was what happened to the people of boston in the revolution and i knew that they were going to be dependent point. That i should start after the Boston Tea Party when britain responded with a dumping tea into the boston port. Which basically shut down the town commercially and sealed off the poor. And they began their with the arrival of the military governor and his regiments of regulars. Never take the story to the uptake of pension as they became a militarily occupied city of bunker hill is coming from scrimmages into allout battle. It was realized that this was going to be something more that could be dealt with diplomatically. This was going to move into a terrifying direction. What a lot of people think of is boston as the center of his patriot defines. But with the arrival of the general and his growing army that would go to almost 90,000 by the end of the occupation of boston, it became something that was turned inside out. Particularly a wave of panic not just bostonians and begin to assist the people who lived around boston they began to flow out and they became most of their inhabitants and this was truly an Island Community that has a yearround population. To think that boston was basically an island connected as by a neck of land that was now 100 yards at high tide in some places as in it was this island dominated by three holes almost a mountainous proportions with a smalltown crammed into groups of houses to the north and south end and this was an island and it was the patriot inhabitants that flat out and there would be about 2000 nonmilitary people left in the city. Most of them refugees most of them decided to stay so they could look after this. So they became part of the patriot militia that conquered towns well beyond cambridge and roxbury on either side of boston. Surrounding the city and boston was now a british garrison under the patriot fees. The point was to cut off the city and this wasnt going to happen in boston because the english had continued with men of war and others throughout the harbor. The town of boston is not the city of boston and its almost unrecognizable to the way it was. Many of them were shaved it down and it came in much closer than it does right now. As you go in the back, that was the neck if you come in from the south end and to boston. As this was an island in one of dozens of islands that occupied gigantic Boston Harbor. In the and they had their men of war and other ships scattered throughout the harbor. And they kept the entry open so that they could get provisions whether it is from england or canada. Even though they were completely surrounded by land, garrison was not going to starve and they became a stalemate that erupted into violence into the battle of bunker hill and this was a battle like none other. It was a terrifying spectator event for those not only living in boston, but those in towns around because all of the rooms were filled with people watching. Many made their way across the harbor and began the assault and so this was something viewed by everyone there. Then they would settle into a stalemate that had George Washington arrived, and that would change everything and then in march of 1776, the british would be forced to evacuate with the arming of Dorchester Heights and we will get to that later. But that was the ark that i wanted to tell them the story. The uptick with the arrival of evacuation. Almost immediately i realized that the characters, because what was happening was that the Continental Congress met for the first time in philadelphia in the fall of 1774 which meant that leaders, many of them were out of town and some of this was beginning to unleash and tensions were escalating. But it was really an act that followed this. Many acts. It robs the town not only of its commercial way of life, but of its government way of life. The town meetings were basically outlawed except for an old one and they had been the fundamental way of life at the time. Also the lifeblood of the Patriot Movement. They were the presiding presence between Great Britain and the American Call me. So there is and unsettling calm and the Patriot Movement was losing steam. What it did was create a network that never existed before in which 21 Member Committees would write up tracks that were distributed throughout massachusetts. What he did it did was transformed town meetings that were devoted to discussing things like roads and bridges on the issue of the day. It was an argument to how the natural rights of man superseded anything they could determine. You know, about why we feel that this is important and suddenly adams had found a network of communications that was independent of the royal government that allowed people throughout massachusetts to talk among one another and share ideas. His letters began to come in from committees and correspondence throughout massachusetts. One book in one response was from the town of gorham, 10 miles inland of what is now portland, maine. What quickly became clear is that there are radicals in massachusetts many of these people saw their current problems not so much in terms of representation in parliament, but in terms of freedoms that they felt had been burned by their ancestors in the blood of the indian wars that have preceded all of this. And i think that the fight for liberty was not about the current frustrations which was about terror that colonized this bloodsoaked land. But our eyes have seen our Young Children while turning in their gourd in their own houses and our dearest friends led into captivity, they wrote in january of 1773. Several people have been killed, several abductive. This was still fresh in their memories. Using our daily bread with our weapons in our hand and therefore we cannot be acquainted with this policy. But we look upon ourselves and we look with the violation of a and many of our women have been used to handling this and the swords which we brighten for our enemies are not yet known. So they had discovered is if these growing tensions should never move in the direction of violence, and the 250 towns in massachusetts where they are. As early as january of 1773, if they were any indication, these people were willing to fight and tensions would escalate. Sam adams, john adams, others were aware and on their way to philadelphia in Early September of 7074. They have been put in an impossible situation. Convincing them to begin to respect the authority of parliament. But when they came up with the Government Act, which meant that royal appointees were replacing people that should have been elected, they went crazy and many of them were attacked and forced into boston and they decided with these tensions they needed to ground up as much gunpowder as they could. Because each town had a certain amount of gunpowder. They were in power houses all around the province. And they were determined to get the powder out in what is now modern somervell. So he sent soldiers of the mystic river. The operation went on without a hitch. They were able to take it to the castle where they were stockpiling it. And it went off without a hitch, except a rumor was spread that spread like wildfire that as the british were there and what was part of cambridge, they fired upon some militiamen spend several people were killed. And so this is Early September of 1774 and suddenly the entire region erupted with a call to arms. Hundreds and thousands began to stream and towards cambridge. And they begin to fill up. He soon learned that there was no violence and there were all these people with their weapons in the middle of cambridge and it was a very volatile crowd. And these were the country people that turned into the rabblerousers. John adams was in there, they needed someone from the Boston Committee of correspondence to show up and try to calm things down. And then a new person began to emerge as one of the leaders of the movement. He was a young doctor that was 33 years old. He had been an acolyte and he had gained more and more of a public presence is and he was a different kind of guy from sam adams was almost two decades older and had a different approach and he had a charisma about him. Id like to read a passage in my book that describes him. He and some others went to try to quiet things down. But it was a key point at which this young 33yearold man stepped to the forefront of the movement and here is a description of his background. Samuel adams was part ideologue and close to two decades younger and possess a personal magnitude and had been formed in the nearby town across the river. As a boy he was seen wandering the streets of boston and the oldest of Four Brothers he was recognized as an unusually gifted boy. When hes 14 he was 14 years old he began to study at harvard. His father was picking apples when he fell and broke his neck. His youngest brother and one of his first memories was watching his fathers body being carried away with the financial help of family and friends, john had finished his apprenticeship and is now a doctor. But his talent for pursuing Extracurricular Activities was inevitable. Early on he staged several performances in his dorm room in the french and indian war was in full swing and he joined the company. An upper story dormitory room was the setting. Who regularly rated graveyards, jails and port houses in search of bodies, illegal yet all in the name of a higher good this game of capture the course was the future Training Ground for the future revolutionary. So this was a leader with a difference and he would be successful in a cooling tempers in what was known as the powder alarm he would be instrumental in writing the resolve which would make their way down to the first Continental Congress be approved by then pushing that congress in a radical defection and they would have gone and the time continued as a leader in the movement he would become a member of the congress that the columnists put together to provide them with some kind of organizational force as they prepare themselves for potential violence. It would be warren who on the night of april 8th would give paul revere those famous orders to tell the countryside the british were headed for concord. He was probably the only patriot leader astelin wallsten. He would cross the river the next morning after the meeting at the kennedy operated as the executive branch of the province at this point. He would then join the fighting along the battle rhodas the british made it to concord and brought them back towards boston. Moran was right there in the midst of the fighting and in fact hes a very stylish dresser and he had a pen that was holding up the horizontal parole on the site of his hair and a musket ball passed so close to him that in knocked out the pen and this was a sign to everyone this was the leader that was very willing to put himself in dangers half. After concord as cambridge and roxbury filled up with militiamen, warren would be elected president of the provincial congress and he was also the leading writer of the committee of safety said that in fact hes a leader of the legislative body and the executive body. He was way over taxed in terms of what he had to do with the standing was so high that people the massachusetts felt there was no one else that could do it. It was a 33yearold man. By this time he has four children and his fiancee and he was managing things in cambridge and during the 60 days he was the one overseeing the creation of the war and as the battle of bunker hill approached she was named a Major General. And so he come from the beginning, he decided if it should turn to war he wanted to be in the fighting at the battle of bunker hill and he would die at the very end of the battle and thus become a hero. Because he died many of us had never heard his story. And just a word on the battle of bunker hill, it began as a mess. It wasnt supposed to be that way. This was a battle named for the wrong hill. It was named for the hill they were supposed to put the doubt on which was the fort the patriots new that the british were planning an attack and in the hope to believe that, they decided to build a sport on bunker hill which is to the north of charleston peninsula half of my all away from where the monument is now but for the reasons that we are on short of even to this day, william press got and more than a thousand people built their fort not on bunker hill but on the hill in the figurative face of the british in boston. When the general will gup the next morning he felt he had no choice but to attack this threat to the shipping and to boston itself. So the fort that was supposed to believe the attack actually provoked the attack and this battle what unfolded causing all sorts of mayhem. And it would become the bloodiest battle of the revolution. More than 2,000 british regulars were involved. They would suffer casualties of close to 50 , which are just devastating. This would be a british victory technically. But as the general on the battle would admit it was the victory brought by too many lines. Washington would arrive and was one of the great surprise to me. It was a great relief to find out he wasnt born and the statuesque person that stands with a thousand dollar bill. This was a young washington who arrived from virginia and was appalled at what he found this group of soldiers none of whom were disciplined or interested in following orders. Washington decided he had no choice but to try to attack as soon as he could and unfortunately the soldiers were not necessarily the best trained and he didnt have the gun powder he needed and his decisions to attack or luckily i think for all of us were opposed by his counsel of the war. But he was always pushing and pushing and he provided a real kind of electrical force to an army that was in disarray after the death of a truce if warren. Finally with the occupation of Dorchester Heights which involves one of the Great Stories of new england history which a bookseller, henry knox going to the fort ticonderoga and returning with the cannons that would be, some of which would be placed on the Dorchester Heights and forced the evacuation of the british. Boston went from being a city that had been occupied to being a city that had to pull itself together. And this had been a devastating experience for everyone. And 9,000 soldiers laughed along with about a thousand loyalists never to return. And the bostonian would filter back and the town had been beat up terribly. Many structures had been burned as the british tried to heat themselves in the winter. But the bostonian is by and large had survived. I would like to end my knee remarks by quoting a passage from a sermon that was delivered by the reverend Samuel Cooper on april 7th come 1776. His first after the even occupation after his evaluation. His community had seen the worst of times but they had made it through. So he delivered the sermon and i would like to read this quote rv the epigraph for my book. Its a short one that i think it is to the point. Boston has been like the vision of moses. A bush burning but not consumed. Thank you very much. [applause] if you have any questions i would be happy to try to answer them. New feature a number of characters that are not household names. You talk about Joseph Warren, his fiancee. You didnt talk about but its in the book, this wonderful cast of key characters. How did you settle what was your process on saddling those historical characters as opposed to others that were either known or maybe you thought of but rejected . Dr. Samuel foreman whose biography was a huge help to me. Thank you, sam. It was a story full of surprises to me. I kept discovering these characters and there is this joyous jr character that appears in nathaniel hawthornes short story of a vigilante that dresses and a costume like an evil that man and organizes patriots and describes himself as the chair person of the committee in boston. In my first chapter i describe the customs agent and was a horrifying affair that happened in january, 1774, one of the coldest days of the winter and then pour the hot tar on his flesh and placed others on it and drag him a around the streets of boston often in a cart and on occasion beating him up until four hours at the dump him at his house in the north end to be in bed recovering for six weeks but he would live but he was a brother and his younger brother who died several years before had been before most patriot. And there in the family you kind of see how much of the civil war this was and how we slash patriots versus the british but bostonian is deeply divided as these issues began to bubble love. It was a truly tragic occurrence hutu one of these days i still have not read moby but i hope to one of these days. Thanks to dr. Forman, i learned this gentleman, Joseph Warren. I never heard of Joseph Warren. My sister was in boston and my family visited every historical site in new england, boston several times. Never heard of the man. They convinced me this is one unique human being. And since then i talked to a number of native bostonian and i am amazed how few of them have ever heard of Joseph Warren. Thanks to your book, which you send me an advance copy of, so i got ahold of it yesterday i apologize. You talk about your book mentions to charismatic man. One from massachusetts, one from virginia. I am assuming i know the answer of the man Joseph Warren. Why isnt it a bridge named after Joseph Warren . Reading further in the book there is a bridge named Joseph Warren. Can you tell me what happened to it . My history of boston past 1776 is very thin, not going to go into that. But Joseph Warren was a hero of his day. He was someone there was a revered icon of the time, but he he what very perhaps have been a founding father if he had lived but he didnt live. So he didnt become a part of that pantheon that we are aware of today. Buchtel loyalists who didnt appreciate Joseph Warrens efforts probably gave him some of the greatest praise where the years after this is as much she said if he had left instead of dining at the battle of bunker hill, washington would have been an of highly respected he was and how pivotal he was to the events that created the country and the city. And you are right. His largely unappreciated. In new york we rename the bridge the robert f. Kennedy bridge. There is a bridge here in boston that i think should be named after james warren. We will talk to our Congress People, right . [laughter] one more question. You have to cut to the chase though. Do you know where the famous statement was made do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes . We have all heard that dont fire until you see the whites of their eyes. It may never have been said the battle of bunker hill. There is no documented so and so said to me. The one reference documented with someone saying dont fire until you see the whites of the half gators doesnt have the same ring but it was a phrase that had been used before the battle so it very easily could. When you start thinking about firing until you see the whites of your eyes and you start looking at people, thats very close. [inaudible] whats interesting in my account of the battle is the was the basic tactic the patriots were using. They didnt have a lot of gun powder and so those provincial soldiers knew that they had to make every shot count some other officers were telling them they had to wait and they also had to aim low. They listened to those orders without council but the devastating results. First of all i wanted to say i enjoy your book in the heart of the sea and secondly im a descendant of mercy, who obviously is actually mary married. My question is your description of the 9,000 troops in boston, british troops in boston. Im wondering before a lot of people left with the population was. In other words were there more than 9,000 boston residents who were surrounded or less than 9,000 surrounded by british troops . Of the city got turned inside out. So the army that approached 9,000. And then there were about 3,000 civilians in the city of the time. A lot of them loyalist and some of them people just there caught in the middle of it. So you have this city that was a population pretty close to what it had originally been but it was largely soldiers. So they had taken up residence in houses and turned the Old South Meeting House and to a Riding School ripping out the pews and spraying maneuver around. The ultimate indignity of the green dragon of the tavern that had been the sort of patriot nurse senator was turned into a hospital. So the city was beat up and was of military occupation. This was a trauma for all involved. Senate i would think so. Yes . When you have 9,000 british troops and this is the land instead they were prepared by the ships coming from nova scotia, why do they stay . They could have gone up the north shore or the south shore. They could have gone around charleston. Why did they stay in place . That is a good question and one the british asked after bunker hill. They said what are we doing here . Boston is in a strategically placed city when it comes to carrying on what is obviously a war. So after bunker hill, he made the decision we should reform and relaunch an American Invasion to the south, perhaps new york and that is where they would go that summer. The Parliament Come under British Ministry agreed to by the end of the summer of the decision had been made they were going to evacuate any way and that is one of the ironies. There are british decided to leave. But the americans didnt know this so prior to all this, the british had made an attempt to sort of show their mind on a naval base this and it said instead of striking fear into the hearts of the new englanders it was to the point this isnt helping our cause at all and what we are finding is what happens to any empire that finds it is conducting a war in which they have to attack civilians. Its hard to feel good about those kind and thus what. Its not something the british soldiers enjoy it did in fact it was a horrible deutsch the end of a become the graveyard of an officers career. I have a question about the primary sources. You bring life to the stories. And this all happened a long time ago. When you go to the Historical Society what kind of documents and how do you find so much vitality in them . For me it is all in the details. Its finding those traits and characteristics that sort of bring a person to lie for situation to life and you have to go to the primary source to find them. In the case of this, the sources are extraordinarily rich. The papers of the family are at the Massachusetts Historical Society and warrens books to alexis on who he was taking care of and at what time, but the prescription was. And it runs right up to april april 19th. It is an extraordinary document. But thats the beginning. The didier these are wonderful when it comes to bringing the past to life. Not only were these people witnesses, but you have their voices coming through. And so those can be of great help. Another interesting source of the newspapers. When you find is the newspapers all had an ax to grind. You can get slides that were not revealed from another source and that is the great challenge is trying to get a balanced account as possible. Thank you for the top. I want to address there were several and anyone in this country whose first name is warren and putting my father is actually named after Joseph Warren is the way people think of jefferson and washington and so forth and i think anyone named wayne could be up the west. I could be wrong. But the Warren Building at the mass General Hospital is named after both Joseph Warren and the entire line of doctors from the warren family. Would you comment about that . Its their first name coming from Joseph Warren. Tom . I cant vulture that but that might actually be the case. Its almost like archaeology. It turns into a war with such a popular name in the early 19th century that got passed on and its a part of the genealogy and where that came from is probably an individual case but if he finds a mgh this was an extraordinarily capable family in this pond generations of leading doctors. This was a person with talent that went beyond anything and he was a victim of this tremendous talent. He was doing everything in those final days of his life as he ran from one crisis to another. All of my books in one way or another or about leadership and its interesting to see washington, a different personality and a different kind of leader come into the leadership vacuum and do things firmly and in a way that sort of settle things down because times have changed. Its gone from this growing revolution into a stalemate that would turn into an eight year war. One of the great whatifs, washington had trouble when it can to recruitment at the end of the year. When i was coming or going to go home and washington didnt have an effective ago between him and the soldiers would have been perfect at that in terms of appealing to their bitter nature but its those that are not a part of history im finishing a book called the billionairess vinegar and it has to do with the most expensive bottle purchased. 1787 bottle that apparently had Thomas Jeffersons initials moved i dont the key made it a habit of drinking of wine but its a funny look into petraeus periods. The second book im looking forward to reading is when the mountains echoed. Its a work of fiction after the two best sellers and its about a culture that we dont get to experience very much and im really looking forward to that. I saw on cspan book tv the litigation trilogy. The will be my history fix and takes a look at the last. Weve got more coverage of nonfiction books and the industry every weekend on book tv and putting this saturday at 7 p. M. Eastern, former mtv veejay. They realized that they could tap into a generation of voters and also, you know, this is the time when if you can turn that passion to politics would be an incredible force off. Regardless if i agree or disagree i like the fact they wanted to engage people and they wanted people to express and learn about their own political leanings and feelings and that everyone saw while i mix it up with them but i thought i was fit the benefit of all because when you challenge one another and you believe what you believe that it will make you a better place not just politically but all around. The Washington Post book editor in chief marie arana writes about bolivar the venezuelan governor the but of south america. She spoke of the politics and prose bookstore in washington, d. C. For an hour. Friends in the audience thought im going to pretend ic sitting by my fireplace at home with john talking about this book. Book its such a pleasure to work on and people find that hard to believe because its not an easy thing writing a biography of a very famous leader. And on whom so much has already been written. Its true that there are 200683 books in the librarye of congred a percentage of those are inspa. Spanish, so im lucky there. Her. But this is an extraordinary ex life and a life that was left in the largest sense. I mean the canvas is huge andhud stretches through most of south america. And a life lived large in other ways. Bolivar was very dramatic and commanding personality. He was called iron ass by hisn soldiers because he wrotee w 70,000 miles to liberate the70,0 country scene m lipread it. Its really an extraordinarilynr difficult feat if nothing else. But it also was a man of the enlightenment and someone who had been inspired at theyounge youngest age by reading r montesquieu and john locke and bame out of that experience pro actually probably about 20, 211 with a very passionate sense of, his country, the colonial yokeoh that it suffered or he felt it suffered under. He was all for liberty andd freedom and greatly admired the United States and greatly admired in many respectspes napoleon although there were aspects of his of the empiree that he did not admire. But this was a man also of flesh and blood. He was a great blood. He was a great womanizer and had 35 mistresses. 37i guess mistresses that we can count. After his wife was greatly beloved to him died, he was 19yearsold when she died and he went on to pledge that he would never marry again but that didnt mean he wasnt going to have a good time, and he did. He was a great dancer, loved music, said that he did his best thinking on the dance floor, and whereas others needed to be away from the hubbub of life in order to get things fall through he felt that a ballroom with lots of pretty women and dancing was the Perfect Place to think through the knots that he encountered and he would go back in the middle of the dance hall sort of happy and elated and sweating into the middle of it go back to the back room and dictate three letters at the time to three different secretaries and then go back to the ballroom again and think some more on his feet, literally. I am often asked why did you choose to write about bolivar and i have to say in my whole career as a writer i have an edit her career for a long time but as a writer my whole career by but say has been to try to explain what america and Latin Americans to north americans and English Speakers to the its not an easy task because there are great differences and great divides of personality and heart between north americans and south americans. But every single book that i have written has been another brick i always say in the edifice of trying to explain who we are and how different we may think from north americans to the you may say as a by cultural person i see many cases of whom i know out there who or why cultural. You also know that you are thinking with two heads and hearts in your living between the cultures and i want to get a sense of the other side which is so different and the history is so different to the north american english readers. And brad is right that ive always been captivated as a child by the battle. I wasnt always a wellbehaved child. And i was very often dragged by my collar to fit in sit in my grandparents living room which was dark and sort of filled with frightening porcelains and things like that and musty books and i was made to sit there in that sort of dark chamber to contemplate my badness and i remember it being on the harvest will although my grandmother now 83 bless her heart tells me it was part of the harvest will but it was a big cushion share. Im not sure about the memory but it felt like a hard chair. I was made to look at the portraits that surrounded me. And one portrait to my right was im sorry, the portrait to my left was my great, great, great grandfather and he had fought the battle and he was a spanish brigadiergeneral and he was the first spaniard to charge and the first spaniard to fall and he was killed with a sword to his heart right away at the beginning of the battle he was at the left and on the right was a portrait was a beautiful young woman who was the daughter but she had never met him. She was born a few weeks after the sword pierced his heart. Bolivar s forces managed to free up through and indeed, by the way, with the freedom, and did all of the spanish rule in latin america. So i always felt that even though i was sitting there being punished for being bad, rebellion was great to be a i had always been fascinated with bolivar ever since, but he is a towering figure and i wanted to give you a sense of that by sword of reading some of what ive written who he is paid by the time he exactly 200 year3 ago in 1813, by the time he began his admirable campaign, il which he wasnt known at all n south america, but spidey end of it, by the end of 1813 he was known really around the world when they agonized over whether that threat was founded on principles of liberty and freedom should support the struggle for independence. In london veterans of englands war against napoleon, mostly irish, not tough fight for boliver. In italy the poet lord byron known named his post after bolivar, but there would be five more years of bloodshed before spain was thrust from latin american shores 14. Im sorry. Forty more years. Im reading in the middle of it. Fourteen years of war and great bloodshed before spain must rest from latin american shores. At the end of this savage and chastening more one man would be credited for singlehandedly conceding, organizing, and leading the liberation of six nations, population oneandahalf times the size of north america, land mass the size of modern europe, vons of which he fought, vast areas of contract wilderness, splintered loyalties of many races would have proved daunting for the ablest of generals with a strong army in his command, but bolivar had never been a soldier. He had no formal military training, yet with the more than will and a genius for being a leader he freed much of spanish america and laid out his dream for a unified continent. Despite all of this he was a highly imperfect man. He could be impulsive, headstrong, filled with contradictions. He spoke eloquently about justice, but he was not always able to meted out in the chaos of revolution. His romantic life had a way of spilling into the public realm. He had trouble accepting criticism and had no patients for disagreements. He was single handedly he sees me, he was singularly incapable of losing a game of cards. It is hardly surprising that over the years that americans have learned to accept human imperfections in their leaders. Bolivar taught them how. Now, as bolivar grew he was compared to George Washington. Called the George Washington and south america, and there were good reasons why. Both of them came from wealthy and influential families, ardent defenders of freedom, i wrote in rule double heroics in the war, but apprehensive about marshaling piece. Both resisted efforts to make them kings. Both claimed to want to return to private lives but were dragged into the public sphere of shaping government, and both were excused, as we all know, do ambition. And there really the similarities between George Washington and bolivar and. The military action at bolivar lasted twice as long as washington. The territory covered was seven times as large and spanned an astonishing geographic diversity from crocodileinfested jungles to the snowcapped mountains of the andes. Moreover, unlike washingtons war, the war of bolivar could not have been won without the aid of black and indian troops. His success in rallying all of the races to the patriot cause became the turning point in a war for independence. It is fair to say that he thought both the revolution and the civil war. But, perhaps, what really distinguishes both men, both bolivar and washington can be seen most of all in their rich and works. Washington is words were measured, auguste, dignified, the product of a cautious and delivered mind. His speeches and correspondence on the other hand remind me much more of thomas jefferson, fiery and passionate and elegance and beautifully represented some of the greatest writing in latin america, although much was produced in haste on the battlefield and on the run, the prose is at once lyrical and stately, clever, but historically grounded, electric, but yet deeply wise. It is now exaggeration to say that bolivar revolution changed the Spanish Language for his words marked the dawn of a new literary h, the old, dusty castilian of his time with its ornate flourishes and is remarkable voice and then became another language entirely, urgent, vibrant, and young. So, you see, this was a man who represented it for me, and if i wanted to build this edifice of explanation of who that americans are, bolivar was relieved because he represented the history that really defines the continent of south america. The revelation that he thought was so different, so in such contrast to the revolution that was fought here. He had to employ when he started, and it was all white mans war essentially. He came from probably the richest family in the venezuela and one of the richest families in all of latin america. A very, very wealthy man. His parents have or his family have been in venezuela for at that. 200 years, and for more. And they had accumulated wealth of cocoa plantations, indigo plantations, copper mines. They own 12 properties in caracas alone. It was a tremendously rich county, and it began as a kind of an aristocratic discontented with the colonial power that the spanish held in south america, and people dont really realize this. Spain was very, very assertive in making sure that the colonies had no contact with each other. They were like spokes of the wheel. If you could not travel from from viceregal one area of viceregal, let america, to another. You could not do commerce. You were presented as a colony of spain from doing any manufacturer and all. You were prevented from owning a mine. You were prevented from any kind of commerce whatsoever. It was punishable by execution. So, you see, the whole business, you can imagine, putting together a revolution in a place that is so isolated by its former colonial power is a very difficult thing. This is what bolivar came up against. It was not automatic that countries will command to liberate them, even though they wanted to be liberated. It was not automatic that the races would all play a part in it. In fact, the races kept shifting in the beginning. The blacks on him so much of the revolution spend it or aligning themselves with spain because they knew what that meant. They did not know what the revolution would bring. That feeling that they already knew the evil that existed in the colonial system, they could deal with it, but they did not know what was coming with the white aristocrats of latin america. So there were very hesitant. It was not until bolivar who had been exiled for the second time or went into exile for the second time because the revolution kept failing the republic, each republic that was set up first by one who himself was a tremendously romantic story fell apart. A second republic fell apart, and he found and self in haiti will come to buy alexander. If you know that history, what happened was they had had a very bloody revolution in which all the lights were either send running or killed, slaughtered. On mass. In alexander had to say, you will never win this thing. You are going back now for the third republic. I will help you, give you ships to introduce you to all of these english commercial establishments and men who can help you. But you must close to the promise me one thing. That is, your next time out this was already 1815, your next time out the moment you hit the shore in venezuela from haiti you must liberate the slaves, and slavery. In bolivar and thought about this for a long time because, in fact, with probably a greater moral instinct than the american founders of jefferson our washington, he could not imagine that there could be that you could fight for liberty, that you could fight for freedom with slaves in the country. He immediately understood and had already figured that out. He needed he was going to have to reach out and get the indigenous and the at that. 300 years into the colonial history. There was a Huge Population along with the blacks and indians to my great slave trade, obviously, from the atlantic slave trade, and he knew he would have to engage those many races in order to win their revolution and to really, really get it going. It was not easy. You can imagine. His there were lots of suspicions. There were lots of come at the time, every general wanted his own country really. The systems were very difficult to fight for bolivar, but there was appointed twitch and it was a very daring point, and i will tell you about an imminent, at which the whole tide of history changed. And that was that he engaged, managed to engage in enough of the people who lived in caracas in out in the planes to wear their horsemen who were able at least to give him the impetus with the courage to think differently about how the revolution should be fought. He had the very daring thought, in the middle of 1819 for the already much blood had been spilled. And the revelation was so bloody that half of the population of venezuela had been killed in the process. Some towns have been completely wiped off the map. He had the thought, well, maybe i will cease to worry about venezuela and hit the spaniards in their heart by crossing the andes and killing tens of new granada which is down columbia. It was a ridiculous thought. It was rainy season. They were on the planes. He was looking at the end these. The planes other parched in the summertime and absolutely flooded in the rainy season. Whole rivers become seized. The planes become lakes, great lakes. And no one would have suspected that anybody would be so foolish as to take an army with the cattle and the women in the soldiers through this flooded plane and then over the snowcapped mountains of the andes. Everyone knows you are taking an army over peaks that their 18,000 feet high. It was a revolutionary thought. And nobody would suspect that he would attempt it. Why would you go to another country when you have not even one liberation from around . He kept his secret. The soldiers did not know where there were going. They knew that they were waiting through water. Sometimes having to carry women on their back. Expiring one after the other. He got to the bottom of the range, the divides, the venezuelan part for the new granada in part. He finally explained what you want to do. The soldiers were for it. He took a battalion, several, army of 2000, 5,000 people with women. And paddle and horses and what not. And with his Printing Press because he carried it everywhere he went to me really did feel that words were the greatest weapon. And he pulled it off and went through the highest point where the spanish have no garrisons for miles. Had he went over and came down the inside in tatters. So many had died. At third of the British Expeditionary force died in the process. All of the cattle were gone. Many of the horses did not make it. But the number of people who came down the other side of the mountain were terrified of the spaniards. It was enough to actually send the viceroy sitting in bogota running. He ran. He put on at grimy hand and led to million pesos on his desk and ran for cover. They were detonating, you can imagine, detonating all of the ammunition so that he would not get at it, so that would not it added. You go into the capitol, to bogota, all by himself. There are wonderful descriptions of that ride which is the way that i sent the book. It is a marvelous story. It is full of adventure, full of romance. I could talk about his mistress, his favorite mistress about whom much is known but not enough is written. She was a great beauty, fierce had, as we say in spanish. [speaking in spanish] which is she said whenever she wanted to say. Very direct, had opinions, spoke up, dressed like a man, she was like nothing. Sullen daughter, despised her, but she was a person who saved him three different times in his life from assassination. The stories are dramatic, absolutely hard to believe that Something Like this could happen in the palace and he sends a messenger to bring her because he is so sick. Every bond around in his as well. The most unguarded moment one could experience. She says im too sick. He sends another messenger. No, you have to come. He is terrible. She puts on her galoshes and goes through the rain, goes to the palace, and he is sitting in the top. He is so low. She comes in and raise them and eventually gets up goes to bed, falls in to a great sleep. She does as well. She awakes for the barking of dogs. A whole organized the assassination of 150 people who have converged to kill bolivar. At this point he is quite famous, powerful. Some of his generals and certainly his vicepresident are very suspicious of his power. He says, what do we do . She said, he does a of a pair of boots boots have gone out for cleaning. He has a sword and pass pistol. He says to my will just go open the door because someone is begging of the door at the point. No, no. Get dressed. He gets dressed. She says put on my galoshes and jump through the window. She puts on his mistresses galoshes, jumps to the window. That would be a great kid away. As it happens, there are no bars of sight. So he is able to jump. It goes to the door, flings it open. There she is. A general of the other side actually several soldiers and the a side describe per as this beautiful sort of the apparition with the sword in hand and hand on hip. Of course the story goes on from there. We will let you read it for yourself. It is quite amazing, at every level. But so you can see my excitement as someone thinking, how do you explain the latin american personality, the latin american character to a latin american reader . You explain it by showing how different the colonial system was, how much history and in this case the six republics that emerged after the revolution command you describe it by this sort of insane kind of the palace life that he left and have it changed from country to country as he progressed liberating panama on the way down to peru which was the hardest of all, the hardest nuts to crack. Have you will enjoy reading it. I want to your questions. This is i hope you will have many questions for me because this is always for me my favorite part. Thank you. [applause] yes. That was a great speech. Thank you very much. I cannot give a buy the book number one because i read five or six fabulous reviews of it. And did not realize you had an inhouse review. I read them every weekend. I cannot wait to look at the book. I have also lived half my life in south america. A lot about bolivar, but i have learned just from listening to you a number of things, including the wonderful stint in colombia and the battle. We hear a lot to commend it irritates me as someone who loves this to hear about the late departed executive to the president of venezuela who used this human bolivar as a tool to badly govern a wonderful people and a wonderful country. To what extent he lived a long time in venezuela, to what extent was hugo chavez distorting history and just doing their usual grab that he did, work is there a serious historical responsible basis for using bolivar as part of the venezuelan package . Thank you for that question. A very good question. There is very little. And think about this in the epilogue. A very little to compare. Except for the thing that everybody since bolivar died, and he died as absolutely destitute. He the data very rich man. But bolivar it is amazing to see people on the right use them. People on the left use in for hugo chavez who, i think, bolivar would have been horrified to see how his name is been used in the republic of venezuela. It has been used many times before. Constantly being brought up by leaders drought led america to argue a different points which is why people live very, very confused the just to bolivar was and just what he began. What hugo chavez and bolivar have in common is this, a bolivar dream of unifying all of latin america. He wanted a unified American Affairs because it felt to be stronger and more influential to my greater, shall we say, counterpoint to the United States, which was growing very strong. Hugo chavez as well had a dream, and he has, you know, the bulgarian nation, ecuador, and, as you know, bolivia and cuba. They all call themselves nations that have very little to do with actual. Thank you for the question. Hi. A twopart question and essay. Could you you married several other, what you would consider to be conceptions about bolivar, bolivar on the part of north americans, how we misperceive his legacy and how we misperceive him. Secondly, any truth to this story have heard about the lockout with George Washingtons hair . Yes. George washington parke hostess, a grandson probably the grandnephew really of washington wanted to send a medallion with a clipping of George Washingtons hair inside to bolivar because see felt that George Washington himself would have wanted to be associated with the name of bolivar, and there was lafayette actually said, of all the people, of all the people in the world that George Washington most admired, it was bolivar. And he said that himself. And so the medallion was sent down. It was the absolute pinnacle of achievement. He admired washington. He admired jefferson. The admired the north american founders, although he knew that his task was very different and that he could not emulate them. He treasured this for all time and actually did still in venezuela. Very much on display. If you go down to caracas, you can see it. The question about biculturalism , the question is misconceptions. You know, bolivar was his whole life was live with people having misconceptions about him. When he was fighting for the liberation of peru, he was making his way back to his homeland. There were rumors you wanted to make a self king. Rumors before by enemies, france, everybody. It was a way of tarnishing his name. He was the furthest thing from wanting to be king. When he meant san martin, when bolivar met the other with the raiders coming from the south, the one thing that really, really turned bolivar against him was the fact that he really believed that south america should have a king. He had actually sent people up to your to find the king to come and rule. And bolivar said, im sorry. We have sacrificed a lot of live set aside to buy precisely to get rid of him. There are misconceptions there as well used against them even by south americans. Im not surprised there were misconceptions about him. Thank you for your question. Hi. Like yourself, i grew up here. I am from guatemala. Have to confess that i know very little about bolivar and am looking forward to reading. As a wealthy the son of a wealthy family, was he educated in spain . Or was the yes . It is a great story. A have to believe that if he was educated abroad coming from a wealthy family he must have at some point find something about history. Of course traversing the andes is similar to hannibals going over the alps to send ground. But that was for two years. Right. Thank you. The thing that is amazing about his education, and area dead man. The could speak, you know, language. He read cicero in latin. He was educated because when he went to spain is the man he would send over the age of 16. Why . Because his mothers family, he was a complete orphan. Mother was dead to my father was dead. Tebow sent over by his family to see if he could persuade spain to actually give him a barren and see or some noble position. And he ended that in under the tutelage of wonderful venezuelan who had lived in spain for a long time. The marquee of studies who prod demand. He had never had a son. He brought a man, taught him everything, had tutors demand. And he ended a really astonished by his own interest in history and literature and music. Eblas, everything from the personal library and also from simply the people who came in. He was really, as i say, a person you change the latinamerican language because he had listened to to the european philosophers at the time. He had read briefly. He appreciated it fix him. He was a uniquely educated man. I will revise that is something of a filibuster. Sen martine and offered to surf hundred and certainly was a hughes the talented military commander. His question, more successful. He also crossed the andes, yes, yet something very similar to bolivar also was that he, too , wanted to unite america. What happened in the process was san martin was very sick. By the time he reached peru he was already very much of an opium addict. He had a terrible arthritis. Soldiers in see was 12, terrible arthritis. Carried over the andes. They actually sat down and met for the first time. San martin was trying to say, come help me with peru. Bolivar was not convinced that he wanted to help this man. The meeting was very awkward. It is famous. No one was in the room to record it, but as years went on there is enough to was written about it by both sides have been held pretty much what went on. But san martin wanted bolivar to come. He even said, i will surrender you. Knew that that was exactly what he did not want big is the person who serves on the you will have a greater prestige than the person who was actually ruling. He said, no, thats impossible. When san martin well, bolivar actually read that in a letter. San martin wanted to serve under me and i knew that that would be a mistake because you would have the moral advantage of having surrendered himself to me. So bolivar refused. He said no send you a few battalions, but san martin at that point left knowing that in order for prove to be free he would have to make himself scarce, which is exactly what he did. He left in the middle of the night, took about, waited a little while the cfe would be called back and then eventually went down to argentina and went into exile. It is one of those great moments in history when you have to live graders sitting in the same room and really buying vying for authority. Thank you. What happened to slavery . Immediately. Immediately. Although a lot of it was immediate in word and not in actual act, it was high for some people. You have to imagine the revolution. They have been told that if they joined the army they will gain their freedom immediately. It is so interesting to me that so few that americans dont realize that it was really the pike forces in the Indian Forces that onehour revelations down there. Then i have had great poets say, how can you speak such rubbish . The white aristocrats who were leading. No. Iblis italian after battalion who actually won the freedom against spain. Can i ask, was there any chance of a united south america . She tried in 1926. He held what has been called a precursor to the oas. He tried to call a conference of all these republics. He had written a whole vision for this greater america. People did not come. The stalled. People die on the way. There were too many animosities. At first did not want to invite the United States. Vice president. There was a kind of it became come as you said, that is when we had this revolution and plant the seed because he could not remove what he really wanted to move which was the unification of all of that and america. Thank you. Very brief. I just would like to have a footnote to your answer about the education of bolivar by including absolutely, one of his early tutors. Yes. And he was tutored by a number of people in venezuela. One of the great literary figures of america, and he happened to be not too much older. He was brought in as a tutor. Thank you. Thank you for that. You mentioned one gentleman, always interesting. Would you mind, just talk a little bit about the person, who he was and what influence you have. And then if i could issue a little, second question, but it might give you an idea, this ladys contrast, is there any correspondence between her and madame blanche who also was irish. In the broader framework of which you obviously rise and operate, operation, the emergence of the females in 19th century latin america as a political leader or as an influence. Thank you. First, you know, win the napoleonic wars were drawing to a close, really you had a militarized europe, a lot of soldiers who came back saying then deny london had no means of income. It was these people who were recruited. Some of them came, there were the equipment was really very loose. It was done by someone who did not know much about soldiering. The venezuelan diplomat who was recruiting like mad. And so people would come and say, oh, yes, i was a colonel, Lieutenant Colonel and he was just described to. They would come over and they were outfitted in these majestic uniforms. Touted all over london. They were given big champagne good buys. And off they would come to this absolutely wild revolution where the soldiers were barefoot and were fighting with spears. They were fighting with sticks. And they were ludicrous, parading around in these fancy, you know, european and they could barely lumber along with all of the heavy equipment checks. Very young. And it he was identified variously and made a general very quickly. And he was really not only one of his best generals, but one of his closest friends and one whom he could confide in. Bolivar really liked having i dont know where it came from or explain it, but he liked having english and irish assistance and generals around him. His tight force of the people who were his secretary and his assistants were almost entirely in english and irish. He liked that. He had spent time in london, and he appreciated, i think, their experience in europe and the napoleonic wars and elevated them. Certainly rewarded by collecting all of his letters. If you go, 302 volume letters and correspondence and speeches, it was daniel who did all, collected it all, annotated it all. It was quite a gift back to bolivar anybody else . Exiled. What i was doing. General obstreperous behavior. I was a pretty cheeky kid. And i fancied myself, you know, a kumble tomboy. Of would say things they should not have. And, you know, they made me the soda of prim little bombing uc appear today. One more question about the irish, many. One about something you talked about. Could you comment on what was going on in chile and the irishman and his role in the planned American Revolution. Of course, the illegitimate son of the viceroy, one of the san martins closest collaborators. And the story is fantastic. Someone should write that. The reagans corresponded. It did not really have too much in common, but they knew that heal people, like san martin and awakens, that part of the continent. And it was very respected, very, very much. The question, if i may, the nine states had a number of agents and let america while this was going on. Correspondence between those agents. Could you comment on the extent to which that correspondence contributed to misconceptions on the part of not american . Absolutely. In the middle of a very rough campaign. He was not only if i may say, he was suffering from him rights , carbuncles, any number of things when he was doing the 75,000 75,000 miles on horseback paraded to this moment of when he is trying to change the tremendous force, i mean, a huge Expeditionary Force under the spaniards who were fighting, in comes this american agent. End at one of home was famously was a reporter, he came down. Freelancing information back to the president and his cabinet. He was not treated well. You can imagine. Somebody coming, i scribbling pen the middle of a revolution. He was not treated very well. The report said that he sent back to washington were skating, absolutely scathing. The little upstart, the man with napoleonic admissions. You could not say anything worse to american than a man with napoleonic conditions. And so it was really true this kind of reporting back that he began to have a very negative reputation. Also remember that slavery was the biggest commerce of foot. The attacking about 1815 and ford. Slavery was one of the as gordon wood describes this very well, it was our gnp appeared. Slavery was huge commerce. It was the worst thing that washington could imagine, on talk about washington, the governing city, the capitol could imagine was actually supporting anybody here use, had liberated slaves and was using them to find a revolution. This was very the reputation began to get worse and worse in the United States because every sort of slander i think was used against bolivar including the fact a lot of people were dying in this revolution. A very bloody revolution. Thank you. Philbrick he discusses this in massachusetts for 45 minutes. [applause] thank you. Its an honor to be introduced by a fellow nantucketer both of our kids were educated by them and it is great to see you here in brookline and its wonderful to be in the Coolidge Center theater with this great bookstore and cosponsored with the Massachusetts Historical Society, which has been an institution that has been absolutely essential to my life as a historian. I sometimes sort of feel like ive taken up residence in the archives there, and every book ive done there has been a Central Information that has come from there but among the more so than bunker hill. One of the characters i delve into, the papers are there at what we call the mhs and it is an organization that is essential to anyone that is looking into not just the history of boston, but this country. And the genesis for a bunker hill really goes back to the summer of 1984. My wife and i had just moved to boston fulltime. We were living on prince street in the north end. I was at that time a failing a journalist. But my primary responsibility was to be at home with almost 2yearold daughter jenny. So i had a lot of free time on my hands and i would push the stroller to the crooked streets of the north end. And it was there that hops hill was a favorite hangout. Was there that i began to think what was it like back them. And what i thought back then, i thought of the book that i had read in middle school along with other people in my generation. That just captivated me as well as the movie. And what was revolutionary boston like . So i began to actually look into the history of boston in that year of 1984. On sunday when melissa was at home i would take to the Boston Public Library in the began to look into the history of the city. Soon after that, we would end up on nantuckets and quickly my growing interest in history was directed to my new adopted home. And i went on that path. But it was after writing quote tome flower which begins with the famous voyage but in this with king philips war, vv war between the english native people of this region that i began to realize i wanted to continue the story so to speak. The mayflower and since 1676. And even in the midst of this terrible battle, it was amazing. The governor of massachusetts insisted to an agent from the king, king charles ii he would be why is if anything to give more liberty to those in america. And their own General Court lacked all enacted by that superseded anything they were going to get from the parliament. It sounded very much like what was going to be said 100 years later. And was then that i began to think we are going to continue the story and do something about the revolution. Then write a book about the battle of little big horn last stand and was working on that book about a very complicated battle that i began to set my sight on the battle of bunker hill. From the beginning i didnt see this as a battle book. All of my books one way or another are about communities under enormous stress. Whether they are on a ship or both boat or taking a passage into the unknown world, those are the kind of stories that i find of interest and what interested me is what happened to the people of boston in the revolution. I knew that bunker hill was going to be the pivot point. It seemed to make sense that i should start after the Boston Tea Party when britain responded with the dumping of three shiploads of tea into Boston Harbor with the institution of the boston port act, which basically shut down the town of commercially and sealed off the port and would begin with the arrival of the Lieutenant General and the royal governor thomas gage, military governor, and the four regiments of the british regulars. It would take this lead to the uptick of tension as boston became a militarily occupied the city to the skirmishes at lexington and concord with bunker hill being the point at which violence turned from skirmishes into an allout war. The battle of bunker hill was that turning point when i was realized that this was going to be something more than a dustup. That could be dealt with diplomatically. This was going to move into the new and truly terrifying directions. What a lot of people think of outside of boston is the look to the revolutionary boston and think of boston as the center of the patriot defiance, which it originally was. But with the arrival of the general gage and his growing army of british regulars to grow to almost 9,000 by the end of the occupation of boston, boston became instead of the center of patriot defiance, it became it was turned inside out as they began to flee the city particularly soon after lexington concord which created a wave of panic throughout new england and not just the bostonian began to leave the city that people that lived around boston began to flow out. They became empty of most of its inhabitants. This was an island. A was truly an Island Community pitting it was interesting for me they have a yearround population of about 15,000 to think that on nantucket to think that boston was basically an island connected by land known as the mac as narrow as 100 yards but there was the silent dominated by three hills almost of mountainous proportions with a small town of 15,000 people crammed into a group of houses in the north and south bend. So this was an island and was easily after lexington conquered as the patriot inhabitants fled out, there would be 3,000 nonmilitary people left in the city. Most of them are loyalist refugees and a smattering of patriots who decided to leave, decided to stay so that they could look after their houses along with the 9,000 soldiers and so boston became a city under siege as the patriot militia who had been involved in the skirmishes in lexington concord and the towns well beyond flooded into cambridge and roxbury on either side of boston. And they literally surrounded the city. And so, lost and was now the former center of defiance was a british garrison under a patriot siege. The point of the siege is to cut off the city and starve to death. This wasnt great to have been in boston because the english had the navy, the british navy with men of war and other ships throughout the harbor. And you know, today the town of nantucket, excuse me, the town of boston is now the city of boston and it is almost unrecognizable to the way that it was. Many of the hills that once defined the high land that was boston or shaved down to fill in the back bay that was water. The river came in much closer. It is now washington. As you walk that in fact was the nec as you come in from now the south bend and to boston. It was one of dozens to occupy the gigantic Boston Harbor and the british had the needy. They kept the entrance open so they could get provisions whether they be from england or from canada. This meant that even though they were completely surrounded by land, boston as a british occupied garrison wasnt going to start. In june of 1775 and this was a battle like none other to it like a terrified young spectator event for those not only living in boston, but in towns around all of the roots of boston were filled with people watching as more than 2,000 regulars made their way across the harbor and the Charles River to the charlestown peninsula and began the assault that would erupt into the battle of bunker hill. So this was something viewed by anyone here and then there would settle into a stalemate that would then have George Washington archive and that would change anything. And then eventually in march 17, 1776, the british would be forced to evacuate the arming of Dorchester Heights and i will get to that later but that is the art i wanted to tell in the story with the attack of tensions with the air rifle of the boston port act and then with of the evacuation. So when i began this Research Almost immediately, i realized the characters i was right focus on because what was happening as the tensions building in boston is the Continental Congress met for the first time in philadelphia in the fall of 1774 which meant the leaders such as john adams and ann adams were out of town when all of this was beginning to unleash and the tensions were escalating with the boston port act but it was really an act that followed this , the massachusetts governors act that robbed the talon moly of its commercial way of life but it is government, the entire province lost the town meetings were basically outlawed except for an annual one and the town meetings had been they had been the fundamental way of life in the town and they have also been the fundamental lifeblood of the Patriot Movement. Because it was sam adams who was in many ways the presiding presence as the tensions built between Great Britain and the american colonies particularly in massachusetts. And was but he had a problem that by 1772, two years after the boston massacre and on selling koln was selling on boston. The Patriot Movement was losing steam. It was in that fall that he instituted the Boston Committee of correspondence and a was a brilliant move because what he did is create a network of communication that had never existed before in which a 21 Member Committee in boston would write up the tracks the were then distributed to the 250 towns throughout massachusetts. And remember this is a time that massachusetts included what is now modern maine. This transformed the meetings of were devoted to discussing things like repairing roads and bridges and turned them in on the issues of the day. One of the first tracks that was distributed was an argument to how the natural rights of man superseded anything of the parliament could determine. They soon got a bunch of responses from the towns throughout massachusetts about why we feel this is important and suddenly adams found a network of communication that was independent of the government that allowed people for what massachusetts to talk among one another to share ideas and the letters began to come in with the correspondence and towns throughout massachusetts and they began to get unusual responses. One of them i would like to read one from the book one response was from the town which is about 10 miles inland of what is now portland, maine. What became clear is if there were radicals in Massachusetts Committee on not necessarily in boston. They are in all of the towns surrounding them because many of these people saw their current problems not so much in the terms of what representation and parliament, but in terms of their freedoms, freedoms they felt had been burned by their ancestors in the blood of the indian war that had preceded all this and i think that this is for the citizens the fight for liberty and now i am quoting from my book it wasnt about the current frustrations with parliament. It was about the anger and violence that went with colonizing of this ancient land. Our eyes have seen our Young Children weltering in our own houses and our friends lead in captivity they wrote to the Boston Committee of correspondence in january, 1773. Just 16 years before it had been attacked in a native rate and several people had been killed. Several of deducted. This was still fresh in their memories. We had been used during our daily bread with our weapons in our hands, therefore we cannot be supposed to be fully acquainted with the mysteries of court policy but we look upon ourselves as able to judge so far concerning our right as men. We look with horror and indignation of the violation. Many of our women had been used to handling the cartridge and load the muskett and password that we have for our enemies are not yet grown rusty. And so, what they had discovered is if these growing tensions should ever move in the direction of violence, ballan militiamen and the two entered 50 tons of massachusetts were there for them. And if the words were in january of 1773 with any indication, these people were willing to fight. So the tensions with uptick. Sam adams, john adams and several other leaders were on their way to philadelphia at the end of august and release of tumbler of 1774. Thomas gage, the british general, has been put in an impossible situation. He might have had a chance at convincing the people of boston to pay for their tea and to begin to respect the authority of the parliament if they had stuck with the boston port act that when they came up with of the massachusetts Government Act that meant he appointees replacing people that from their perspective should have been elected, they went crazy. And many of these appointees were forced to f into boston. And he decided with of these growing tensions it was time to round up as much of the gunpowder as he could because each town had a certain amount of gun powder and they were in the powerhouses all around the province. He was determined to get the powder out the powerhouse that is now modern somerville so in the Early Morning hours, he said some soldiers in boats at the mystic river and the operation went on without a hitch. They were able to get the powder, to get on to counsel william which is where the fort was where they were stockpiling of this kind of thing and it went off without a hitch accept a rumor was spread. And the rumor spread like wildfire that has the british were there and what was then part of cambridge they fired upon the militiamen and several people were killed. It hadnt happened before but that was the rumor. A spread through the counter of massachusetts and this is Early September, 1774. Suddenly the entire region erupted with a call to arms in the hundreds and then thousands of militiamen began to scream in towards cambridge. It began that night and all of the next day cambridge began to fill up with thousands of militiamen that learned this had been a rumor and there was no violence but there were all these people with their weapons in the middle of cambridge and was a very volatile crowd and these were the country people who turned into the rabblerousers. But sam adams wasnt there, john adams wasnt there. They needed someone from the committee of correspondence to show up and try to calm things down. In a samuel adams began to emerge as one of the leaders of the boston revolutionary movement. And he was a young doctor named joseph orman. 33yearsold. He had been an accolade of samuel adams for more than a decade and he gained more and more of a public presence. He was a different kind of guy from sam adams. Sam adams was almost two decades older, had a different approach. Joseph warren there was a charisma about him and i would like to read a passage in my book that describes him as he was because the request went out that he can to cambridge and said he and some other members of the committee went to cambridge to try to quiet things down. They were successful in this but there was a key point at which this young the 43yearold man Joseph Warren stepped up to the forefront of the Patriot Movement and here is a brief description of his background. Where samuel adams was part alladi alana, warden who was close to two decades younger had a magnetism born in roxbury just across from the boston neck. As a boy he was seen wandering the streets of boston selling milk from the family farm. The oldest of the brothers he was recognized as a young and gifted boy and when he was 14 he began studies at harvard. In the fall of that year his father was picking apples from the top of a ladder when he fell and broke his neck his youngest brother had been just 2yearsold at the time of this tragic event and one of the memory is was watching his fathers body being carried away. With financial help of the family friends, he was able to continue at the harbor and serve as a pennant for his brothers particularly for john who recently finished his medical apprentice chip and was now a doctor in salem. At harvard, his talent for pursuing a variety of Extracurricular Activities is evident. Early on he staged several performances of the popular play in his dorm room. The french and indian war was in full swing and he joined the militia companies. The classmate leader told the story how he responded to being locked out of a meeting of fellow students in the upper dormitory room instead of pounding at the door he made his way to the roof, shinnied down the rain spout and climbed in through an open window just as he was making his entrance the spout collapsed in the ground with a spectacular crash and he shrugged and commented that they served their purpose for a boy that lost his father to a fatal flaw it was an illustrative bit of bravado. This was a man that dared to do what should have by all rights terrified him. It was at harvard that he showed an interest in medicine. The great challenge for medical students in the 18th century was finding human cadavers and its likely that he was a member of a club of medical students for which we know his younger brother apprentice remembers who regularly rated the graveyards, jails and houses in search of bodies illegal but all in the name of the higher good this game of capture the corpse was the perfect Training Ground for the future revolutionary. So this was a leader with a difference and he would be successful in cooling tempers and what was known as the power alarm. He would then be instrumental in writing the result which would make their way down to the first Continental Congress to be approved by them pushing that congress and the more radical direction than they probably otherwise would have gone. And then his time continued as a leader in the movement. He would become a member of the congress that the colonists put together to provide some kind of organizational force as a day prepared themselves for potential violence. It would be warren who on the night of april 18th would give paul revere the famous orders to tell the countryside that the british were headed for concord. But he was one of the few, probably the only patriot leaders still in boston he would cross the river the next morning after a meeting of the committee of safety which was operated as the executive branch of the province at this point. He would then join in the the fighting on the battle road as the british who made it to concord and fought their way back towards boston. He was right there in the midst of the fighting and was a very stylish dresser and it was holding up a horizontal curls on the side of his hair and was passed so close to him that mocked of the pan. And this was the sign to everyone that this was a leader that was very willing to put himself on a dangerous path. After lexington concord, a cambridge and roxbury filled, warren would be elected president of the contras and he was the leading writer of the committee of safety so that in effect hes a leader of the legislative body and the executive body. He was overtaxed in terms of what he had to do but his standing was so high people in massachusetts felt that there was no one else who could do it. This was a 33yearold man. By this time his four children and his new fiancee was then forced her and he was managing things in cambridge. During those 60 days he was the only one overseeing the creation of the war of an army. She was named a Major General. And so from the beginning, he had to be in the fighting. He would be at the battle of bunker hill and he would die at the very end of the battle and thus become a hero. Because he died, many of us had never heard the story. Just a word on the bad battle of bunker hill it was a mess. It wasnt supposed to be that way. It was a battle for the wrong hill putative was named for the hill they were supposed to put them out on which was the patriots new the british for planning an attack in the hope to believe that they decided to build the fort to the north of the charlestown peninsula half a mile away from it is called breeds hill where the monument is now but for the reasons that we are on short of even today, william press got and more than a thousand people built their fort not on blabber hill but right in the face of the provision boston. When the general look up the next morning, he felt he had no choice but to attack this threat to the shipping and the boston itself. So the force that was supposed to delay an attack actually provoked the attack. And the battle with untold causing all sorts of mayhem. And would become the bloodiest battle of the revolution of more than 2,000 british regulars were involved and they would suffer casualties of close to 50 water just devastating. This would be a british victory technically. They would take out william general on the ground during the battle would admit it was a victory bought by too many lives. Washington what a riot and was one of the great surprises to me. It was a great relief to find out he wasnt born this statuesque person that stares at us from the dollar bill. This is a young washington who arrived from virginia and was appalled at what he found. A group of dirty provincial soldiers none of whom had were disciplined or interested in following orders. Washington decided that he had no choice but to try to attack as soon as he could. The soldiers were not necessarily the best trained and they didnt have the gun powder he needed. His decisions to attack were luckily for all of us opposed by the council of the war. But he was always pushing and pushing. And he provided a real kind of an electrical force to the army that was in disarray after joseph. And finally with the occupation of Dorchester Heights, which involved one of the Great Stories of new england history of a bookseller, henry knox going out to the fort ticonderoga and returning with the cannons, the some of which would be placed on Dorchester Heights and forced the evacuation of the british. Boston went from being a city that had been occupied to being a city that had to pull itself together. This had been a devastating experience for everyone. And 9,000 Soldiers Left along with about a thousand loyalists never to return and the bostonian is what filter back into the town had been beat up terribly. Many structures had been burned as the british tried to heat themselves in the winter. But by and large, they had survived. And i would like to end mauney remarks by quoting a passage from a sermon that was delivered by the reverend Samuel Cooper on april 7, 1776. His first after the evacuation of the british. Much as we have seen boston in the past few weeks, his had been a community that had seen the worst of times, but they had made it through. So he delivered the sermon. And i would like to read it serves as the epigraph for my book. It is a short one that i think it is to the point. Boston has been like the vision of moses. A bush burning but not consumed. Thank you very much. [applause] if you have any questions i would be happy to try to answer them. You feature a number of characters that are not household names. You talked about Joseph Warren, his fiancee mercy triet it is wonderfully described in the book joyce jr. , the customs of the inspector malcolm. A wonderful cast of characters. How did you settle what was your process of selling those historical characters as opposed to others that you had known or thought of or reject it . This is from dr. Samuel four men whose biography was a huge help to me. Thank you. It is a contribution to all of us. Thank you for the question. It was a story that was full of surprises for me. I kept discovering these connectors. There is this character who appears in a fictional form but in a kind of fog to become thuggish ebal batman and organizes patriots and he describes himself as the chair person of the committee in boston. And my first chapter i described the customs agent and was just a horrifying affair that happened in january, 1774. One of the coldest days of that winter. They would pull the tar on his flesh, feathers on it and pulled the streets to boston often in a cart and occasion beating him up for hours until finally they dumped him at his house in the north end. He would be in bed recovering for six weeks, but he would live. But he was a brother whos younger brother daniel had died several years before and had been a foremost patriot. There in the family, you kind of see how much of a civil war this was and how divided families. We think of it as patriots verses british. But the bostonian to deeply divided as these issues began to bubble up and it was a true weech hermetic occurrence truly dramatic occurrence. Nathaniel, i still have not read moby. I have lived here for about a year and a half now. I made yorker. They dont need my help. Thanks to dr. Forman i learned of this gentleman joseph morgan. My sisters lived here in boston for 40 years with my family and i visited every historical site in new england, boston several times. Never heard of the name. Dr. Forman convinced me this is a unique human being. And since then ive talked to a number of major bostonian and i am amazed how few of them have heard of Joseph Warren. You didnt send me an advanced copy of, so i just got a lot of it yesterday. I apologize. Your ticktocks about the two charismatic men. One from massachusetts, one from virginia. I am assuming i know the answers to the man from massachusetts, Joseph Warren. Why isnt there a bridge named after Joseph Warren . Reading further in your book, there was a bridge named after. Can you tell me what happened to it . My history of boston past 1776 is very thin so im not going to go into that. But he was the hero of his day. He was someone that was a revered icon of the time and what have been a founding father if he had lived but he didnt. He didnt become a part of a pantheon that we are so aware of today. But the loyalist who didnt appreciate Joseph Warrens efforts probably gave him the greatest praise where years after his death, and this is just as much an attempt to take it to George Washington but he said that if Joseph Warren lived, washington would have been ll the security would have been an obscurity. And it shows how pivotal he was to the events that created the country and the city. You are right. He is largely unappreciated. We renamed the bridge the robert f. Kennedy bridge. There is a bridge here in boston that i think should be named we will talk to our Congress People to this and i have one more question. You have to cut to the chase boat. Do you know where that famous statement was made do not fire until you see the whites of their . We have all heard that. It may never have been set at the battle of bunker hill. There is no documented so and so said to me dont fire. The one reference that i saw there was documented with someone saying they are the splash guards on the british. It doesnt quite have the same ring. But it was a phrase that had been used before the battle and after. So it very easily could. Its interesting when you start thinking about firing until you see the rights of your eyes and looking at people its very close. What is interesting and what my account is about is that was the basic tactic the patriots were using. So those provincial soldiers knew they had to make every shot count. They had to a menlo and they listen to those orders without absolutely devastating results. I first of all wanted to say that i enjoyed your book in the heart of the sea. Secondly im gerry familiar with josette or rent and i am a defender of mercy who did eventually marry. My question is about the description of the 9,000 troops in boston, british troops in boston. And im wondering before a lot of people left with the population was. In other words were there more than 9,000 boston residents who were surrounded or less than the 9,000 that were surrounded by the british troops . What happened was the city got turned inside out and so the army that approached 9,000. And then there were about 3,000 shall we call them civilians in the city had the time. A lot of them were loyalist. Some of them people there were just there were caught in the middle of it. And so, you have the city that was a population pretty close to what it had originally been that it was largely soldiers. So they had taken up residence in houses and turned the Old South Meeting House and to a Riding School ripping out the pews and spreading the newer, just the altar met in dignity. The green dragon tavern in the patriot nurse senator was turned into a hospital. So the city was be up beat up. This was a trauma for everyone involved. I would think so. Thank you. Thanks. Yes . When you have 9,000 british troops and this is how i understand they were fed by the ships coming from nova scotia why do they stay in boston . I know they could have gone up the north shore, they could have gone down the south shore and they could have gone about charleston. Why do they stay in place . That is a very good question and its one that the british immediately asked after bunker hill. They said what are we doing here . Boston is not a strategically placed city when it comes to carrying on what is obviously the war. So very quickly after bunker hill, they made the suggestion we should reform and relaunch an invasion of america to the south. Perhaps new york and that is exactly where they would go that summer. The parliament, the British Ministry agreed with them and so by the end of that summer, the decision had been made that they were going to evacuate boston and that is one of the great ironies is they had decided to leave. There was no need to attack but of course the americans didnt know this. In the prior to all of this, the british had made an attempt to sort of show there might on the naval base and have burned the town which is now portland maine. And it had instead of striking fear into the heart of the new englanders, it angered them to such a point that it made it clear that this isnt helping at all to it and what they were finding is that what happens to any empire is conducting a war in which they have civilians. Its hard to feel good about that kind of war and so that is what they found themselves in the middle of and it wasnt a situation that any of the british soldiers enjoyed. In fact it was a horrible duty and would become the graveyard of many officers careers. I have a question about the primary sources that you use. You bring so much life to the stories and its not like they are new sources. This happened a long time ago. When you go to the society what kind of documents and how do you find so much vitality and them . For me it is all in the details. It is finding those traits, corrector sticks, things that sort of bring a person to life or a situation to life. You have to go to the primary sources to find them and in the case of this, the sources are extraordinarily rich. The papers of the family are at the Massachusetts Historical Society. And warren still exists what time, but the prescription was coming and it runs right up to april of 1975. It is an extraordinary document. That is the beginning. Theres all sorts of primary source material. The diaries are wonderful when it comes to bringing the past to life. You have not only were these people witnesses, but you have their voices coming through. Those can be of great help. The other interesting source which is not as reliable are the newspapers. You find the newspapers all had a political ax to grind but combining the newspapers from both sides its interesting you can often get sides of a story that were not revealed from, you know, other sources and that is the great challenge trying to get a balanced account as possible. Question over here. Thank you. I want to address the gentleman from new york, the question about the memorial. If im not mistaken there were several streets. Theres one in britain and roxbury and theres also anyone in the country whose name is warren, the way that people might be named jefferson and so forth. And i believe that anyone named wayne is named after the revolutionary war mike general from the west. I could be wrong on this. And the building at the General Hospital is named after both Joseph Warren and the entire line of doctors from the family. Would you want to comment on that . And i correct in saying his name is Warren Burger of the Supreme Court and they have that name as their first name coming from Joseph Warren . I cant vouch for that certainly that that might actually be the case. Its almost like archaeology in terms that he was such a popular name in the early century that got passed on and its a part of peoples genealogy. And where that came from is probably an individual case. But the point you made is his younger brother, john, found mgh to read this was an extraordinarily capable family. And it would spawn generations of leading doctors. And so, this was a person with talent that went way beyond any one thing. If anything he was a victim of his talent. He was doing everything in the final 60 days of his life as he ran from one crisis to another. All of my books in one way or another art about leadership and its interesting to see washington. A different personality and a different kind of leader, commented the leadership vacuum left and do things firmly and in a way that sort of settle things down because the times have changed. Its gone from this growing revolution into a stalemate that will ultimately turn into an eight year war and that takes a different kind of skill set and temperament. And so, one of the great things is if he had survived how helpful he would have been because washington had trouble when it came to the recruitment at the end of the year. He lost most of his army. The new englanders were not used to taking orders and when they were done they were going to go home and she didnt really have an effective gobetween between him and the soldiers. More than would have been her perfect at that in terms of appealing to the better nature. Such is the of what if that are not a part of history. Thank you very muchthis is just. [applause] thank you. Thanks to all of the members of the atlanta is three center and to the trustees of livingston lecture fund for making this possible and making it possible for me to come and visit here in atlanta, this beautiful jewel of the city. What a pleasure it is to be here, especially at the atlanta history center. Devoted to that is that the of the history of this city, state of georgia, and the United States. It is great to be back again. Up wonder if we could have the lights down a bit because we have some pictures to see. Looking back over 20 years, Alexander Stewart read, declared that the battle of gettysburg was and is now throughout the world known to be the waterloo of the rebellion. Well, certainly, alex red did not have the right to speak with authority but gettysburg. He was 26 when the civil war bulky broke out. Even though this grandson, only six years out of west point, he rocketed up the ladder of promotion to Brigadier General just one week before the union and confederate armies collided in their brutal 3day hammering at gettysburg. And it fell to wed in particular to command the Union Brigade which had been at this spearpoint of the battles climax, the great charge made by the rebels a vicious. He would survive gettysburg and a nearly fatal wound to the head a year after and the eventually go on to become the president of the city college of new york. In his memory the festering in the tree would always be gettysburg. This three day contest was a constant recurrence of scenes in self sacrifice and especially on the part of all ingates on the third and last day eight. For those of us 150 years later it might be possible to wonder if alexander was suffering from a touch of memory myopia, inflating the risk all experiences of his use, under the pressures of peacetime middleage. The name of gettysburg is still powerful enough to register the recognition of even the most reluctant critical as a big box event in american history. But really, does it deserve to stand beside modern . Except, of course, that it does. Called gettysburg, if you like. The high watermark of the confederacy or the beginning of the end, but it really wise the last solid chance to break away seven states had of winning their war and independents. The last ten months, nearly everything seemed to go the way of the confederacy. Abcaeleven Southern States in the American Union wrote a constitution. They elected a president , jefferson davis. And their hastily assembled army defended and equally hastily assembled United States army apple right in virginia. But in the early spring of 1862 the current began to soar. Union armies and the union navy reconquered all but a few structures of the Mississippi River valley and the reoccupied western tennessee. In the east ready lee led his ragtag confederate forces, the army of Northern Virginia to one victory after another of their opposite number. But the victories were all one on virginia soil. And in feeble, the virginia economy even as they defend it. He knew better than any southerner that the confederacys resources or to limited to keep fending off the confederacys enemies in definitely. Only by carrying the war into the union states and only by leveraging of war weariness public into peace negotiations can the confederacy hope to win. But this was by no means a far fetched up. In the fall of 1862 dissension over president Abraham Lincolns emancipation proclamation had cost unhappy voters in new york and new jersey to install democratic governors theyre come a new round of antiwar Democratic Candidates to were due to run in the fall of 1863 governors elections in ohio and pennsylvania. If those states also turned against the war they could force of Abraham Lincoln either to begin peace talks or to resign. So please army, some 85,000 strong struck north toward in the first week of june crossing the Potomac River and sweeping in a long arc up the Cumberland Valley fair in tell the advanced guard was perched on the susquehanna river overlooking the Pennsylvania State capitol of harrisburg. Italys real goal, however, was not harrisburg. What lee really helped was to lower the army of the potomac northwards after him. As soon as the yankees had strung themselves out on the roads beyond their abilities to help each other, to turn and smashed the smuggling of the pieces of the union army piece by piece and even if all he did was to leave the union army of the potomac on im mary chase, he could simply let the politics of disarmament take their encores thereafter. It clearly worked. The morale of the army was never more favorable for an offensive or defensive operation wrote one virginian. A victory will inevitably attend our arms in any collision with the enemy. It true to his expectation, the 95,000 men of the army of the potomac painting of on certain set off after a. M. As soon as he was satisfied that they had frantically marsh themselves into disarray, he ordered a concentration of his own army at gettysburg ready to pounce on the first parts of the army of the potomac which obligingly wandered within his reach. But the lead elements of the army of the potomac got to gettysburg first. And when his own advanced units arrived on july 1st they found union troops holding on to the ground for dear life. True, there were not many of them. Only three, but the army of the potomac seventh infantry corps. And on july 1st his army was able to clear them out of the town of gettysburg. At the end of the day the rebels indeed punched holes in the union defenses. But they could not hold them. Amazed at the failure of his gambit and appalled at the cost in lives lee ordered a retreat back across the potomac. Just on those terms alone gettysburg was an unmistakable sign of confederate disaster. The campaign was a failure, and the worst failure that the south has ever made, wrote one confederate survivor. Now i said something else. [laughter] now, we have a technical person who is now at this moment coming to my rescue. [laughter] i am hoping that cspan will edit this part out. [laughter] well, i saw him gallivanting around and maybe he will come out the other door. [laughter] or he will come in behind me. Ecm . [laughter] [inaudible conversations] that wasnt the question i wanted to hear him ask. [laughter] well, i will go on and then we will let the pictures catch up. Robert lee would never again regain than military initiative in the war, although fighting would go on for another 21 months in the confederate were confined to the sort of defensive warfare that they could least afford. After gettysburg, the sun never shone for them again. But there were other costs imposed beyond defeat and discouragement and disheartening. The army of Northern Virginias purported 2592 people killed. 12,700 wounded in 4150 captured or missing after gettysburg. 20,451 casualties in all. Based on the data that we have collected by the army of Northern Virginias chief medical officer lafayette guild. I see that alexander to and came back and that is encouraging. But the mouse that i was going to click has not. [laughter] [laughter] [applause] its a the powerful little thing, isnt it . [laughter] well, theres our numbers. They look even worse in cold print. Given the inadequacy of military recordkeeping, there were no grave registrations and these losses suffered by virginia may have been even higher than these official things. But even beyond the simple numeric shock of the casualty list, they suffered a body blow to its command infrastructure from which it never adequately recovered. This will give you some idea of the damage done to change the command and the army of Northern Virginia of leaves 52 generals at gettysburg and a third of them became casualties of some sort. In the 18th virginia, 29 of the regiments 31 officers were killed or wounded and the kernel and Lieutenant Colonel and major were all wounded and three Company Captains killed and two captured. John Goods Division lost the kernels of the state of georgia and we saw the South Carolina rejigged killed. They lost a brigade commander, isaac avery, who is mortally wounded in a farmhouse that still stands in the battle her, along with the kernels and 38 of georgia. Robert rhodes sought three colonels killed and seven wounded and two of them were captured and they had the worst hit to the senior officers, four of the five kernels in the alabama brigade were wounded alongside fuel in the georgia brigade. The worst of all was everyone of the kernels and changes brigade was killed or wounded or captured as were all of those in joe davis of mississippi and North Carolina brigade. As individuals, all of these officer casualties could be replaced but then months and years of experience and familiarity in networking and confidence could not. If we want to measure gettysburg purely by the numbers, and the battle and pose imposed even higher costs on the union army. They commanded the army at gaithersburg and decided that 280,834 of his own men were killed, 13,713 wounded and 6643 missing. Two months later he adjusted those numbers slightly and committed final figures which set the figures at 3155 killed, 14,529 wounded, and 5365 captured or missing. In his testimony before a congressional committee, the following spring, they simply rounded the figures up to 24,000 men killed or wounded and missing. And in 1900, Thomas Livermore painstakingly recalculated unit reports for the army of the potomac and put the reckoning at 3903 dead and 18,300 and 35 wounded and 5425 missing. So that the entire butchers bill edged out to 28,063. Michael jacobs was a mathematics professor at pennsylvania college, which was located on the northern outskirts of gettysburg and estimated that there were 9000 dead after the two armies moved on. It would grant jacobs as high an estimate, and he was a mathematics professor and accept a ratio based on the statistics of five wounded for every man killed and we have the record on each army of gettysburg suffering Something Like 4500 killed and 22,500 wounded. Which translates into approximately a third of each army. Dead or maimed in some way. In other words, three times the bloodletting suffered in percentages by the british and allied forces at waterloo and like the confederates, the damage to the upper command echelon was substantial. One Major General commanding a core was killed. John reynolds of the first quarter. And another was mangled and put out of action. Dan circles of the third quarter. But even with those costs, gettysburg meant something entirely different for the union. What did the people of the north think now of the old army of the potomac exalted the soldier in pennsylvania. John white gary whod commanded us wrote to his wife that the result of the war seems no longer doubtful and the beginning of the end appears. The victory at gettysburg gave proof that our days in the art of war were over and that at last we could develop and direct our forces coming as gettysburg dead, handinhand with the victory of vicksburg and lincolns chief of staff, he noticed how public feeling has publicly improved and buoyed up by the recent successes at gettysburg and vicksburg. Lincoln himself was exalted at the white house on july 7 by drawing a symbolic white line between Independence Day and the gettysburg rectory. How long ago is there, he asked the crowd. Eighty some years since the fourth of july for the first time in the history of the world that a nation by its representatives assembled and declared as a selfevident truth that all men are created equal. The victories of gettysburg and vicksburg coming on the anniversary of that selfevident truth have now put the cohorts of those who oppose the declaration that all men are created equal on the run. Even newspapers crowed that any escape from our army will be a matter of great difficulty and the newspapers predicted that if lee was pursued and brought today a great if not a decisive victory over the insurgents, it would follow. But a better way to perhaps measure the importance of gettysburg from granting the union a second win would be to consider what the alternative might have been. The prominent boston lawyer and literary lion believe that gettysburg was the turning point in our history. Not so much for winning a victory as it was for avoiding a defeat, which would have proven the army of the potomac and the unions last defeat. Had he gained that battle, it was written, the democrats would have resumed in would have stopped the war with the city of new york and governor Horatio Seymour and governor told parker of new jersey and the majority in pennsylvania, they would have had to end the contest that they would have attempted it that we at home now. That wouldve been only the best scenario and i do not hesitate to express the conviction that had the army then hit at gettysburg, it would have dissolved. Doubtless some of the other volunteer regiments were held together and made some sort of retreat towards the susquehanna. But the others had simply deserted in much the same way that napoleons army disintegrated after waterloo, leaving the rubble at liberty to go where and do what he pleased. That wouldve been the queue for the mob rule over