And be so kind to identify yourself to our guest speaker. I do see that you subscribe to the extent evans school. He always argued the 1964 california primary and the 76 North Carolina primaries were the two most important primaries. Absolutely, very much so. Gives me an opportunity to Say Something i dont often have the chance to say, and it is that we have some heroes in the conservative movement. We have the Barry Goldwaters, Ronald Reagans, jim demint and others. But we also Unsung Heroes. One of them, my friend morton blackwell, most americans have not heard of him but he is a person we all stand on the shoulders but we are deeply in his debt. On a short list beside beside mf Unsung Heroes is inane named tom ellis who was a. Of former senator jesse helms in North Carolina. In my opinion, ellis almost and randomly elected three of the best senators of the 20th century. Jesse helms first election 1972, john east in 1980 and faircloth. Tom is still active, a lawyer in North Carolina. And tom ellis and jesse helms literally told Ronald Reagan and his team in 1976, by the way, reagan before he got to North Carolina had lost four or five primaries. They lost the florida primary, New Hampshire primary, and things were looking really, really dark. And so he wants to come to North Carolina, and tom ellis and jesse helms said the coming. We dont want you here. We will handle the campaign. Well take care of it. Dont coming. However, if you insist on coming and you have to do four things. And jesse helms and tom ellis told reagan these four things. The four things work you must attack forward, attack kissinger, tag to give what of the panama canal and you must attack detente. Reagan said im okay with that. He did that and it leaves North Carolina and that afternoon of the election, ma flying to wisconsin to a friend of mine on the plane who shall remain nameless, great conservative today even, said that they were riding reagans withdrawal speech, that is going to choose to consider withdrawing when he got to wisconsin. When he got to wisconsin they learned they scored an upset victory and one by 5247 in North Carolina. The next primary is not for five weeks in texas. Reagan probably couldnt have held his Campaign Together that long, and so it was huge. The texas primary came along in early may. Texas has 100 counties, reagan carried 100 counties. Thats how he became president. The other ironic aspect is, goldwater in 64 and reagan in 76 both lost and then they also one. Its not original with me. Maybe george will said it, but goldwater was the most, senator goldwater running for president in 1964 was the most consequential loser in american political history. And george also said Barry Goldwater won the 1964 election. It just took 16 years to count the ballots. Before hanging chad. Any other questions from the audience . Morton . Im supposed to wait until i have the microphone. If you dont raise your hand, you wont get it. And knowing you will have a statement anyway. No. Im going to ask the question but im going to lay the groundwork. In 1980 when reagan showed up the nomination, George Herbert walker bush was the last surviving serious opponent to him and reagan so did a. If you defined everybody who supported reagan at the time that he sewed it up, and you call them reaganites, and those who are not supporting reagan at that point, dont qualify as reaganites even though many of them did support him when he became the nominee. Since reagan, the Republican Party has nominated a number of other candidates for president of the United States. It happens that none of those nominees met the definition of reaganites which i just gave y you. And heres the statement. I think its high time for us to nominate another reaganite. The question is who should that be . Thank you, martin. Well said. In this very building, some years ago, dr. Lee edwards had a Panel Discussion on one of his 20 plus books that he is written, and i remember frank shakespeare, great conservative, ambassador frank shakespeares in the audience, and frank asked a version of the question, morton. He said in all of the years weve had the conservative Movement Since the early 50s through now, weve only thrown up from the grass roots one principled conservative, Ronald Reagan. Why havent the conservatives done a more successful, better job . No one had the answer. I certainly didnt at that time. I am very, very encouraged, morton, going forward. Since 1984 we have seldom had a major top tier conservative running for republican nomination. Weve had some good conservative but quite frankly many of them if not most of them werent top to. In 2016, i think well have a traffic jam of limited government, constitutional conservatives running for president. Now, without giving away who my favorite candidate is, and i would be happy with any number of them right now, what i do is market and thats what ive done for 50 years is market. When youve got a product, a cause, you have to position, if you want to be successful, your product opposite the competition. If we assume our competitor in 2016 is going to be a washington insider, i. E. Hillary clinton, i dont think you want another washington person to run against. I think the strongest candidate would be somebody in the states. So we have many, many good governors, mike pence, scott walker, bobby jindal, rick perry, rick scott in florida. We have many, many to choose from. And i think that would make the strongest ticket in 2016. Now, probably shouldnt say this but i think its important for us as conservatives to chart the future to understand it. Back in the 60s, there was an element in public policy, politics that was going to take over the conservative movement, the Republican Party and under the leadership of bill buckley who successfully fended off these people and their identify, known today as libertarians. The libertarians are back stronger than ever, and in many ways thats a good thing. We dont agree on all the issues but there are many things we do agree on. I think that is important for conservatives to find Common Ground with the libertarians. And i think if we dont do that its going to be difficult for us to win president ial elections as well as many governors and the senate elections. In my lifetime i have not seen a finer principled conservative for a major office than Ken Cuccinelli run for governor in virginia this past november. A libertarian candidate rant against them, got 7 of the vote. Thats an outrage in my opinion. So in order to have a strong united voting base as we can, i think conservatives would be well advised to look to maybe come back to washington for Vice President ial nomination, take a good look at rand paul. Rand paul has a large following. Not only libertarians, young people out there. You bring a ticket together like that i think it could be just unbeatable. Mostly i was on the right side. Your question, you refer to traffic jam. Isnt that part of the problem . In effect the last three or four election cycles weve had three or four strong conservative candidates who split the vote on the right, republican primaries, online casino, moderate established figure to basically prevail with 40 of the vote. Remember it is the primary. Exactly. You are exactly right. Im not sure that a lot of the conservatives who have recently run were top tier, but we had some good candidates there. And that is a serious problem. The primaries, and morton knows 1000 more about this than i do, but the early primaries, many of them are in the northeast and it is winnertakeall. So with 30 you get all of the delegates. When you go down south is proportionate for the most part. So if youre a conservative and you get 30 of the vote, its divided otherwise, everybody else splits the vote so the moderate, a jeb bush, a Chris Christie type could get a good number of votes and 100 of the votes in the east. It is a problem and hopefully the conservatives will unite behind one candidate and avoid this problem we have had in the past. Let me mention one thing here along that line. Periodically, people asked me, richard, why do you think that john mccain is not a conservative, or what you think mitt romney is not a conservative . Ive developed something i called a foolproof test whether youre a conservative. Foolproof guarantee. I never saw Ronald Reagan in the late 60s and throughout the 1970s, and i slam a fair amount, but i never saw him except i saw the friends of the conservative movement around him. When you so reagan, theres and niece and theres Morton Anderson and his dick allen and this judge clark and paul axel. So as not to when reagan became president january 20th, 1981, conservatives moved into the white house within. Not enough, but some of us are meeting with a president ial candidate, i guess i should not identify him here, in the past, and he goes around the table and he says, 20, 25 of us, and this is morton, what is your issue . What is your issue . Tony, what is yours . Gary, what is yours . Im towards the last of the table and he says richard, what is yours . I said with all due respect to my friends, governor, they are all wrong. No one has talked about the most important issue. The most important issue is personal. We all have learned from many years ago, personnel is politics. I explained that to the candidate and i said if youre fortunate enough to move into pennsylvania avenue, if youre elected president and all that moves in with you, fortune 500 ceo types, wall street types. Our issues are over with. We have lost. Personnel is policy. When somebody tells you theyre conservative, look at them. Who is around and . Who do they walk with . Some of these governors that i talk to, certainly mike lee, rand paul, ted cruz, they walk with us. Some of the governors to do the same. If you havent walk with conservatives for the last 15, 20 years, if you move into the white house you are not likely to all of a sudden surround yourself with conservatives. I have, our company of 77 employees, our president , mark comes into my office with four or five other executives and said richard can we study this from and we think it should go over your. Im not likely to say no, youre all wrong. I trust these people. Ive congress and the judgment. They suggest i do x. , i am highly likely to do x. Same for the president of the United States. So personnel is policy. Speaking of mark fitzgibbons. Richard, the tea party emphasizes the constitution, you talk about rand paul, ted cruz, mike lee. The three of them have in common their emphasis on the constitution. In distinguishing between the conservative movement and established republicans, what role do you see the Constitution Place in the debate for 2014, 2016, and how we can move America Forward to essentially reclaim the constitution . Well, im really hesitant to have any conversation about the constitution with my friend mark, who is a worldclass constitutional scholar. But maybe theres no more important issue out there than the constitution. I dont think i said this line into in my prepared remarks, that the Democratic Party entirely has come unhinged from the constitution. Most of our Republican Leaders are unhinged. Can you just imagine that republican, Democratic Leaders of congress analyzing something with this foreign bill. Is this constitutional . Is this legislation pass constitutional muster . Its highly unlikely that the thought ever cross their mind. We all remember Nancy Pelosis famous comment when asked where in the constitution is obamacare allowed, permitted, and she said, are you kidding me . She had no interest in that. But, mark, that is one of the things that has launched the tea party, their faithfulness to the constitution. I think too many people in politics have forgotten about it. We have probably seen, heard more about the constitution and the last five years or so and maybe in the previous 50 years. So its very healthy. So i encourage all of you out there, emphasized the constitution, make sure that the candidates that you support, but you get involved with, that they understand the constitution and that theyre going to be faithful to the constitution and our founding documents. Marcus taught me a lot and one of the things he likes to stress is madison in federalist paper 44 were madison talks about there is a remedy available to the people and that is called elections. So madison said if we are heading have politicians who are not faithful the constitution, there is a remedy in the constitution and we can vote them out of office. Let me make one additional comment, john, about what morton said earlier about bush 41. It reminded me that there were those reaganites, like morton and 76 and all through the late 70s, 1980, and in my opinion president reagan, he wasnt saint reagan. He did make some mistakes in his first decision after he got the republican nomination was probably his worst decision, and that is when he selected george bush to be his Vice President. George bush campaigns, george h. W. Bush campaigns throughout the 80s and says trust me, i am a conservative. If im nominated, elected i will govern as a conservative. 1984 Republican Convention in dallas, texas, im there with Howard Phillips, the president , chairman of the conservative caucus, and dan rather introduces one night on television. So he asked us about the Vice President we explain hes not in our opinion a conservative for this reason, this reason and this reason. The next night dan rather has the Vice President on and he says, mr. Vice president , last night i had Howard Phillips and Richard Viguerie on and they say you are not a for these of various reasons. What do you say, mr. Vice president . Are you a conservative . Yes, dan, im a conservative but im not a nut about it. And he certainly wasnt. He is sworn in at noon january 20, 1989. By sundown that very day every reaganite in the Reagan Administration that could be identified was fired. Not in the coming days or weeks. That day in the first five hours by sundown they had politically executed every reaganite. If you supported reagan in 1980 primary fight, you were fired. So remember, conservatives, who you walk with. Personnel is policy. Question in the back. What are your thoughts on how conservatives should address the changing demographics of the United States . This isnt the same country it was when goldwater and reagan ran in 84. If you look at the results of the toward the president ial election and a line for the fact that mitt romney was no conservative given by any stretch of imagination, 59 of the white vote, but was wiped out by substantially other ethnic and racial groups. You mentioned of course you in marketing. How would you market conservatism to the new demographics in the United States . Thank you. Thats an excellent question. I got asked that question last night on the lou dobbs show. In terms of the minority, hispanics, asians, there are many things we need to do. In my opinion, number one above everything else, lets say how to get the hispanic vote . Very simple. Ron hispanics. Go out there and look for the marco rubios, that ted cruz and susanne martinez. We have many, many ethnic conservatives out there any think we ought to showcase and put them forward and that will go a long way towards communicating through these various minorities that we are in sync with them. I am a big believer that weve got to change this, the rhetoric of course, is how we talk about people here who are here illegally, illegal aliens. By think that these people for the most part with her exception dont want to come here but theyve got their economy and their own home country that is disaster, governed by a socialist or a marxist, and whatever we can do within the constitution to help these people get a free market rule of law established in their own country, their economy is going to improve. We are seeing fewer mexicans can over because their economy is improving and they are instituting some free market reforms in mexico. And so weve got to make i dont care how high you build a fence. People will figure ways to get over, around, under. I think where to go to the root cause of why these people are coming here. They dont want to come except the economy is so terrible. But another problem is that for the most part, the people who americans are seeing as republicans, they dont talk to people who are part of the country class, versus the ruling class. Ruling class does not to talk to average americans. We put the ted cruz and the rand paul and the mike lee, out there, and mike pence and scott walker, they will communicate quite nicely our views and our values to unmarried women, the hispanics, asians. So as long as our message is going through the John Boehners and the Mitch Mcconnells and eric cantors of the world we will have a problem. We need to change the messengers that people dont have a problem with our message. They have a problem with the messengers. Thank you, john. [applause] im always pleased to learn something at heritage and one of our somewhere in between the lines of the 44th federalist paper is, its the primaries, stupid. Ive learned that madison knew what he was talking about. I thank you again for joining us. We do have Copies Available in the foyer for purchase, and our guests will be appear, glad to sign any of them and carry on our conversation for the. Thank you very much. We are adjourned. You are watching booktv on cspan2. Heres our primetime lineup for tonight. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. Its booktv at book expo america. The publishing industrys annual trade show held at the Javits Convention center in new york city. Over the next few hours we talked authors of soontobe published titles, sit in on panels about the current state of book selling in the publishing industry, and the interview publishers about some of the books they plan to release in the coming months. Tava smiley, april 1967, Martin Luther king, was he doing the year before his death . April 4, 1967 to be exact, he is here in new york at the Riverside Church delivering the most controversial speech of his entire life. The speech was called beyond vietnam, a time to break the silence. And nspg cannot as yet before but in a speech in this gathering of 4000 plus people inside the church with all kinds of antiwar organizations and individuals opposed to vietnam war, king delivers his speech beyond vietnam and he used a phrase that gets him demonized by the American Media the very next morning. The phrase in his speech is this, he refers to his country, the u. S. Of a. As the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. Strong and principled brilliantly laid out argument for why he opposed the vietnam war and how these bombs are dropping in vietnam are really falling into ghettos of america here that fraser, the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. Heres a guy who has been very involved in Voting Rights and civil rights but when you Start Talking about foreign policy, there was sort of an undercurrent that negro, we dont give you license to talk about those issues. Stay in your link if you dont talk about foreign policy. They would you come out of the a Nobel Laureate at this point that you call your country at the height of for the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, the editorial pages the next day gripped him, and from that date april 4, 19671967, to a u2 the day later, april 4, 68, for all that we celebrate today, he was persona non grata in this country. Everybody, everything turned against him. In your new book, death of a king, the real story of dr. Martin luther king, you think he turned down two invitations to the white house prior to that speech . He did because he knew that lbj who we famously know which will be good at want to get in a teteatete with him about the vietnam war. King was opposed to our involvement in this military excursion. And he didnt want to get into this sort of arm twisting back and forth. His principles were clear. We do not need to be involved in this vietnam war. His alter ego was about nonviolence and it wasnt just nonviolence for american children. It was nonviolent for vietnamese children. So hes sitting in a restaurant one day looking at a magazine, and he sees the bodies of vietnamese babies who had been napalmed to death, and hes in the middle of his meal and he just stop starts eating. One of his aides say to them, doctor, is the food, you want to get Something Else . No. This food or any other food will never taste good to me ever again. If i dont do everything i can to stop this war in vietnam. And it becomes a crusade for them. So in the last year of his life hes talking about what he calls the triple threat, that really will destroy our democracy. The triple threat to king was racism, poverty, and demilitarization. Racism, poverty, and the tourism still the same issues that threaten this very democracy and right now the conversation that we are starting to about poverty is a real conversation. He was trying to do with this. When he died the last harris poll in his life taken, almost the records of the American People had turned against him, thought he was prasanna nonproduct. 57 of his own people, black people had turned against him. When you read this book and you see with head of the naacp said about dr. King, roy wilkins, what the head of the urban league said about dr. King, what Thurgood Marshall Supreme Court justice felt and said about dr. King. He was the nose the most controversial figure in the country including inside of black america. He was murdered on the stock in the in memphis a year to giving a speech, he died not having any idea of the monument and the holiday and the postage stamp. It took a long time to come to term with the department is the reason i wrote this book is hes become so sanitized and so sterilized and even lionized that we will havent come to terms with who he really was and what he really wanted us to address and we tried on him on the cheek if you will but we still havent come to terms with addressing that triple threat of racism, poverty and militarization. What you know be on those issues every day. How did you research this book . With the help of a young man named jared hernandez. One amongst a people who i want to give a shout out to. A lot of good research, to pull these facts together, number one. Number two, david rich did a wonderful job on this. Number three, and i could have started with this because i want to give them all the respect that again and they deserve, three principal biographers, taylor branch, David Terrell and clay von carson have all appeared on cspan. Clayborne carson, David Carroll and david branch have done so much of the heavy lifting about the life and legacy of king. And, of course, the person to work with king have all written their own individual books from andrew young to Dorothy Cotton to Clarence Jones to so many people around him but it was a matter of taking so much of the scholarship and the facts are already there that are kind of hidden in plain sight and coalescing them to tell the story of just the last year. Thats what this book is only about. It is one year. The last year of his life from april 4, 19 seek to 70 when he gave the speech, and a nation turns against them to literally april 4, 68, 12 months to the day later when he is killed. Conspiracy theorist have had years to toyed with and to try to unpack what april 4, 67 as compared to it before, 68, what does it mean to her of other things i think we read into that but i responded to delve into why this speech was so controversial and what price he had to pay for standing up so courageous in coming out against the war and what the white house did to him, what the media, the liberal media. When you read this book, the New York Times and Washington Post had to say about him and and White America turns against them. Black americans against an. Thats a story about jane we dont want to do. Its so much easier, again, to put them on a postage stamp and given the monument, to have a holiday. But how did we come to terms with israel legacy of justice for all, service to others and allow that liberates people . His message is so unsettling that we dont want to come to terms with it even 50 years later. Was he aware of the impact that speech was going to have . He knew going into it, peter, that theyre going to be some consequences and repercussions. He did not know that the fallout the next day was going to be so universal and so damning. He did Something Different at night and hed ever done including when he delivered the i have a dream speech in 63. This speech beyond vietnam, april 4, 67. Four years prior in august in 63, and i have a dream speech in washington, team did not deliver he did not the strip advance copies of his talk. For the beyond vietnam speech because of laying out such a point by point case of why we need to get out of vietnam, the editor board of all the major papers, they need to have an advance copy of this particular speech. They distributed a copy of 14 mounted the podium at the church. He was told by his people that that just a vision of the speech in advance would help him get his message out. It did the exact opposite because every major paper in the country had the speech in advance. The next morning every major paper in the country, liberal to conservative, completely rips him to shreds. So he never had the experience of one day one time in every major paper in the country been so demonized. And again when you read the liberal papers like the New York Times, the Washington Post and how they dismissed him, said he was a discredit to his race, he outlived his usefulness. Its hard to see in this moment how even the liberal establishment could have been so turned off to dr. King. Did he meet with president johnson in the last year of his life . He did not in the last year. They did not have occasion to me. King didnt want to get in the arm twisting and they canceled a couple of weeks before he gave that speech but i could give a speech the white house wanted nothing to do with them because they saw him as an enemy, as they tried to put the communist thing on the. What the white house did do as the white house always do is reach out to their friends, their surrogate circuit city weo after dr. King. The president said a few things here or there that were start or core, Lyndon Johnson core, Lyndon Johnson guided someone asked about dr. King, but they went out of their circuits. They went to the circuits to go after dr. King. Thats where the story gets sorted and quite frankly disappointing and just depressing as the white house engaged the head of the naacp, the head of the urban league, went to these black leaders and they were saying to martin, have you lost your mind . Lyndon johnson is the best friend weve had since Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. He passed the Civil Rights Act in the Voting Rights act. What are you going to bite the hand that is fed us . You cant anger, you cant get on the wrong side of the president who is our friend. So these black leaders came after him even in a way that the white establishment did not. Everybody piled on dr. King. We all know 50 years later he was right about the war in vietnam. Robert mcnamara, defense secretary at the time told a book before he died telling how wrong he was. Its amazing to me 50 years after the Voting Rights act and the Civil Rights Act, how courageous Lyndon Johnson was. He doesnt get the credit he deserves for the good that he did do. On the vietnam front he was going wrong. We recognize that now all these years later. Johnson doesnt have a whole day. King does. Johnson doesnt have a monument. King does. We see was right 50 years later by king paid a serious price for that. Last year of his life he was drinking a little heavier. Smoking a little heavier. He couldnt stop the habit, kind of like barack obama. But his life in the last year was just so, the visual impact. When he guided the autopsy on his body, he was assassinated at 39. The autopsy revealed the inner parts of a 67 year old man, distressed and the pressure on them on the outside is 39 but inside he is in his 60s. He wasnt going to live forever anywhere but that kind of pressure and stress on his organs were taking a toll on him but he never thats what makes this book with all the pressure against him, with all of the pressure he is under, he never ever wavers. He stands, he tells his truth, he is speaking the truth. He stands on the truth. He never wavers but even though he cant get a book he couldnt get a book deal in the last year of his life because his message was so unsettling and on housing that people didnt want to deal with them. I know its hard for us to even imagine that now. When he died on the balcony he died believing and knowing according to the polls and all of the pushback he was getting that the whole cosmos had turned against them. How significant, at the white house on her career . She goes to the white house, Lady Bird Johnson for a ladies tee. And long story short, for those who around remember this. Famous black entertainment, challenges Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson about the war in vietnam. For a black woman to be invited to the white house for a ladies tee, you know, the perception enemy he was and the spin on the story was that she was so disrespectful, she stepped out of her lane. She had violated the sanctity of an invitation to the white house when she got in the first ladys face, and the president s of face, to talk about this excursion that was killing our boys in vietnam. So the media just rip her to shreds after her appearance, after statement at the white house. So dr. King reached out comfortable he sent her a personal telegram and then he reached out to talk to her to tell her how courageous he thought she was for standing up to the president , respectfully, standing up to the presiden thed the first lady and telling them that this vietnam war was wrong, needlessly and unnecessarily killing american boys. But his words, his spirit, the loven his heart, the hope in his soul i was introduced to at age 12. And though he h q long since been dead, i was facing a life threatening situation at the age of 12. And by being exposed to dr. King, it really saved my life. It brought me back. So hes dead long since, but he helped bring me, as a child, back to life at the age of 12. And since i was the 12 and got introduced to him, ive studied him, i will be 50 later this year. Ive written, ive read and interviewed everybody who knew him, who worked with him, his wife, Coretta Scott king, a friend of mine. Rosa parks, i mean, ive talked to everybody in his circle while he was living over the years in my broadcast career, now 20 plus years. But only now have i decided finally, peter, to actually write a book about all that ive been gathering and learning and researching for all these years because weve gotten to a point now in American History where were celebrating all these seminal moments; the Voting Rights act, Civil Rights Act, march on washington. All these 50th anniversaries soon to come up on the 50th anniversary of his assassination. And im just so concerned about the way hes being, again, sanitized and sterilized and dee yoked rised and even lionized. The truth has to be told about who he really was, what he was really trying to say beyond the fact that he had a dream. Host what was that 12yearold experience for you . Guest i had, i wrote about it in one of my previous books, what i know for sure. I was severely beaten at the age of 12. My father in a moment of rage whom i love and adore, weve gotten past this id been falsely accused of something. He beat me so severely, i was in the hospital for almost two weeks with some injuries that were pretty severe. And as a child, i couldnt understand why this had happened to me. Why was i falsely accused . Why did my father, in this rare moment of rage ive never seen him that way since or before, that one moment, he just lost it and so severely beat me that i was in the hospital almost two weeks. Someone who was a member of our church bequeathed to me a box of king recordings on lp. And at the age of 12 when i had a chance to hear, again, that love and that hope and that possibility in his voice, something just connected with me. About the fact that whatever happened to me has happened for a reason, and ive got to figure out what that is. And once i figure out what that is, i want to find a way to do whatever i can to take the love that i felt coming from him and use it to make the world safe for his legacy and find a way in my own work to try to love and serve people. I had no idea then, but that love and service would come to the form of writing books and being on Public Television and being on public radio. All i try to do now is to seek the truth and to speak the truth as best as i can. I dont have a monopoly on the truth. There is the truth, and theres the way to the truth. Im always on that journey trying to get to the truth. But i think my work at its best on public tv and public radio is about doing the same thing cspan does with its, you know, unbiased coverage, which is to help us be empowered with information. That will help us live better lives. And you put that information out there, it will challenge peoples assumptions. It will help them expand their inventory of ideas. Cspan does at its best is give opportunities for persons to be heard and to introduce americans to each other in this multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic mix where we can be introduced to the ideas, the aspirations, the dreams, the hopes, the fears of other people. And, thereby, check our own assumptions about what kind of nation we are. All that courtesy of dr. King when i was 12 years of age. Host and weve been talking with tavis smiley about his most recent book, death of a king the real story of dr. Martin luther kings final year. This book is out in the fall of 2014. [inaudible conversations] host well, booktv is at Bookexpo America which is the publishers annual trade show, and one of the publishers thats here is wnd. The founder, formerly known as world net daily, is joseph farah. Mr. Farah, what is wnd, first of all . Guest world net daily, but its a lot easier to remember three digits, three letters than it is world net daily, that voluminous title. And, you know, our philosophy is basically were a multifaceted company. First of all, wnd. Com is one of the largest web sites in america and one of the largest news sites. And it is the oldest independent news site on the internet, 17 years old. In internet years, thats about a thousand years old. And we branched off many years ago, began publishing books more than a decade ago. In that time, amazing story of wnd books is that we have the highest percentage of New York Times best sellers of any publisher in america. Any publisher in the world, for that matter. And subsequently, weve begun doing a lot of movies, especially documentaries, and were having tremendous success there with wnd films. Host who are some of the authors that you have published already . Guest yeah. Well, weve published many members of congress, for instance. Senators tom coburn and members of congress, probably a dozen of them over the last 12 years. But, you know, probably our best selling author and most well known, threetime number one New York Times best seller is michael savage, the radio talk show host. Weve also had a number of number one best sellers by jerome course city whos a staff writer for us. The secret to wnd is we publish books a lot of other publishers would be afraid to publish. [laughter] its the philosophy of wnd, you know . We started as a watchdog news agency kind of with, you know, the tradition of american journalism where, you know, minute needs to be the watchdog somebody needs talk about the watchdog on government and other powerful institutions. And weve translated that into books over the years by printing , publishing edgy titles. By the way, both christian and secular. Weve had a lot of success in the christian field, because a lot of christian publishers dont like controversy. We love controversy. Host what are some of the authors you have coming out this fall . Guest well, we have one very, its been a secret, so this is a scoop for cspan. Remember todd aiken . The biword todd aiken, well, hes been very quiet for the last two years. One of the things we noticed is that every day we subscribe to google alerts like everybody else does, and i always subscribe to todd aiken to see what people are saying about him. And it has never stopped. The criticism, you know, hes treated like a pariah for an interview he gave which lasted all of about 20 seconds was the controversial part. And, of course, he lost that senate race in missouri as a result that everybody, you know, putting distance between themselves and him. Well; hes coming back after two years of being very quiet, and in july he is going to come out with a book called firing back published by wnd books. And i have to tell you, i think its going to be you know, weve done some preliminary work with the media. So far theres not a single news agency, network that doesnt want to have todd aiken on to talk about it. [laughter] what im talking about, peter. So thats coming out in july. Weve got a very interesting and diverse series of books. Phyllis schlafly whos one of our authors is coming out with a book in september called who killed the American Family . Weve got a book by three women, gorgeous women, which is called what women really want. Morgan britney, famous for dallas series and dr. Gina louden and anne marie merrill. Three interesting, very articulate conservative women with a very different view of, you know, whats going on in the world. And i think thats going to be a very, very big book. And who else do we have . We have host well, one of the books that i saw on your display here is former congressman james