I am please today present tonight Leigh Montville. The team from barns noble have the books for sale. Please do consider purchasing the book and help us bring more great authors in st. Louis. So tonights presented by the author series, the program was started in 2004 and presents authors of politics, history and sports. You can visit the program for the list of businesses and organizations that sponsor the west fall series, our next west fall event will be next tuesday may 23rd, first fiction writer when jeff shara will be here. Hes a writer who writes sort of military history, history base but their novelizations. Its about the korean war. Onto tonights program, Leigh Montville former columnist, wrote New York Times biographies, babe ruth. Tonight he will share his new booflg of one of the most celebrated and and trough eial athletes, muhammad ali, appropriately titled sting like a bee. Subsequent legal battle that took him all the way to the Supreme Court. Its an inspiring account of the highest and lows of an exceptional individual and never fails to capture the charisma and complexity of muhammad ali. Please join me in welcoming Leigh Montville. [applause] thank you for that nice introduction. Its nice to be in st. Louis. [inaudible] [laughter] from nautica discount outlet. The first time i bought new pants i walked out along the side of the pants, a long thick that said, 32 by 20 by 30. I was very thinkful. Muhammad ali, this should be like the greatest book talk ever, the greatest book talk about all time because we are talking about muhammad ali, you say theres a million books about muhammad ali and why should there be another book . Why is this guy writing this book in at the last book i wrote was about evil canibal and i finished that and i was talking about what i should do with my publisher, obscure story that nobody knows, sea biscuit kind of thing where america discovers the great story and falls in love and so i proposed a book about a guy named will who is a writer at the bothon globe when i was there. He had some mob connections and things like that and told Great Stories and probably the most charismatic guy i knew. Could you write a 25 page proposal on this and i did, i wrote out the 25page proposal and he turned it down in about five seconds and he said you need to write about some iconic athlete so i wrote a list of iconic athletes and i wrote johnny, bill russell you know e, walter and all seemed to have been done and books on this guy and i put down muhammad ali, i said, thats the most iconic guy of all, hes the most iconic guy thats ever been in the United States and been in the world and i said maybe theres something in there and the time period that i came up, the last big book on muhammad ali was written by the editor of the new yorker, david and it was written in 1997 and it covers the time from when he was born in louisville till he won the title and it ended right there and i said, well, what if i take the time period that went from there and had the trouble with the draft word with the government and kind of go with that and i said that to my editor and i gave them the proposed muhammad ali versus the United States of america, he said, could you write me two paragraphs on that and i wrote the next two paragraphs and the next day he said, we have a deal, we are going to do this. Thats why im doing it. I found out theres a couple of reasons to be doing it. Im 18 months younger than muhammad ali was, i was going through the same stuff, i got married around the same stuff and draft problems came up around the time my draft problems came up and so that i hooked in on that. The vietnam war changed a lot of lives. Just about everybody my anal was affected somehow. I knew guy that is got married to stay out of draft. I knew guy that is started careers in education when they had no reason to be in education and theyve been in education all their lives because of the draft, because you debt a deferment. I myself, i would have gone, i graduated from the university of connecticut, i would have gone to paris or somewhere like that and bummed around like that but you really couldnt do that so i went to 15 Different National guard outfits and said, gee, i would love to go there and i found some outfit that needed somebody and i wound up in fort jackson. The first time i flew an airplane fort jackson to st. Louis. We hitchhiked once to st. Louis, Washington University and then we went to hitchhike back and got stranded. [laughter] we stood by the exit there six hours waiting for somebody to pick us audiotape and finally a guy came and he had a truck that only that third gear was strip and he chugged over when he picked us home. I promised to god that i would pick up every hitchhiker that i saw. Im i broke that promise. Im sorry, god. Muhammad ali, the first thing that happened with muhammad ali when he was listed, he was called off to go to his draft physical at the age of 18 and he went to physical and mental test and he flunked the mental test. He couldnt read very well or write very well. He was dyslexic, i think. He had a score of 16 on the test and and that was underneath plus he got married. So he was out in two Different Things. He was married. He got listed the second time, got divorced, joined the nation of islam because the wife wouldnt conform to the nation of islam and dress like that or follow the religion. He now is eligible that way and vietnam was chewing up people and so they dropped, they dropped the test and so now his 16 passed the test instead of flunked the test and he was called in to to be in the service and he was called he was changed to 1a and that happened in 1966 and i will kind of read you what he said when that happened. When he was reclassified 1a and reporters stood around outside, he had gone to training and fight turrell in chicago and came out in front of his house where he was living and reported, put on the cameras and stuff and he said, he said this, i cant understand how they can do this to me. Why be anxious to take me, a man who pays a salary of at least 200,000 men, you hear, i cant understand all the baseball players, football players, basketball players, why seek out me thats the worlds only heavy weight champion. Why are they so anxious to pay me 80 a month with two fights pay for six new jet planes, im fighting for the government every day. Im laying my life for the government every day. Nine out of ten soldiers would not want to be in my place in the ring. Its too dangerous. For two years the army told everybody i was a nut and i was ashamed and now they decide im a wise man, they embarrass my parents. Doesnt bother me a bit. Now testing me, they decide i can go in the army. So he said all that stuff and more and the next day he gave the quote famous or infamous around the country was i dont have any quarrel with those vietcons. The war was picking up. He was aligning himself with the enemy and popularity went down in a minute and the fight with earnie terrell was canceled in chicago and he took a big Public Relations hit and the reason he objected to the war was because he was a member of the nation of the islam. That was his total reason. He was a true believer in the nation of islam and the nation of islam was sort of an offshoot with with a different, a different kind of theology on the side of the white devils and pressing the black man and and just a different theology and the idea is why should a black man fight in the white mans war. Head of islam, he had served four years in jail during world war ii and a bunch of members of the religion had received time in jail for not going to korea and muhammad ali was in that line in his religious thinking and so he applied for Conscientious Objector status which entailed a bunch of things. He had to learn, a big lawyer for malcolm x in the nation of islam up in harlan, he was called jaco the giant killer because he had beaten the government on a bunch of things and they saw filed for Conscientious Objector. As part of that, he had to go see a special judge. They brought in a retired judge. This is part of the apparatus for applying Conscientious Objector. They brought in a judge to decide whether or not he should be a Conscientious Objector and this is alis one time that he could state his case and the guy was 65yearold lawrence and he was in louisville, kentucky and he wasnt known as a bill silver whites guy, he was a country club in louisville and you wouldnt think ali would have much of a chance and he had a new lawyer now, a guy named hayton who had been defender of jehova witnesses, success. Lawyer ever to appeal cases to Supreme Court. He had gotten a lot of the jehova witnesses out of receiverring in the army and a lot of case about jehova witnesses refuse to go say the pledge of allegiance and stand and salute the flag and things like that. Ali, stated his case. Judge went onto decide on this and after three weeks, judge decided that ali should be a Conscientious Objector and he filed his thing with the Justice Department and it was a nonbinding decision and the Justice Department said, well, thats very nice what judge brownman said but we think you draft word 47 really should consider muhammad ali 1a and he should be drafted. The Justice Department overroad what he overwrote what judge said and where eventually ali was called for induction to the army in houston and refuse today refused to step forward and that caused him every state, started with new york heavy weight commission and every state rescinded championship and took it away and the Justice Department took passport suspended. He was out of a job. He got married again to a 17yearold to the nation of islam, grown up in the nation of islam, schooled, the parents were friends with the honorable elijah mohamed. She probably knew more about the religion than anybody and the two went onto figure out life. He was making them money. He sent all of his money and wound up doing College Campus things and went around to colleges and presented his case to college kids and he wasnt he wasnt the draft apparatus, protest of going against the draft, he was protesting mostly for himself, hi wasnt with the kids burning the draft cards, with the brothers, blood on the draft records and all of that stuff. He was off kind of protesting on his own and he wasnt a civil rights guy either. The nation of islam belief was separation and not integration and he once said f he voted, if he voted he would have voted for george wallace. He wanted a segregated society where the black man would have they would give him a state or something, a couple of states and it would be almost a separate country and so he, in fact, you know, he would he would call the people that were marching under reverend Martin Luther king. If people dont want you, you shouldnt be force yourself upon him, you should go off on a different direction. He had a very different viewpoint than he had later in life and he was very tron controversial. The funny happened he was doing all these kinds of dates and 1968 came along when Martin Luther king was assassinated, Robert Kennedy was assassinated. It was that convention with merrick in chicago and just the whole bunch of stuff, a guy tried to assassinate andy warhal and muhammad ali just didnt seem that controversial anymore and as the war had ground along, more and more kids had convinced their parents that maybe this wasnt the greatest war in the world for them to be involved in and had had kind of rebelled against and slowly but surely the National Perception of muhammad ali had become much different and when he funnely got to the end of 68, 69, theres the great thing. He was on firing line with william f buckley, i dont know if anybody remembers that show. The guy with the big words and the whole thing and he was arguing with muhammad ali, muhammad ali was very good against him. He had gone off and perfected with draft and gone with college kids and he was very good at that show and Different Things alone those lines. He showed up on Johnny Carson and griffin and the mike douglas show and he became more mainstreamed and appeared in a play on broadway and surely but slowly the idea came that maybe he should be back fighting and a guy in new york, a young civil rights lawyer named michael, he filed a whole thing in new york to get his licensed back, he said ali really hadnt been convicted of anything. He was still in appeals process. How could he have lose his job for something that he wasnt convicted for, that wasnt an american kind of thing. In georgia it wasnt the state boxing commission that licensed fights, it was the city boxing commission, under the nose of wester maddox, probably the most segregationist governor in america, they pushed through the thick in thing in atlanta and he fought jerry in 1970 and new york thing had opened up and he fought oscar he beat jerry in three rounds, kit him cut him up pretty bad and he fought oscar in Madison Square garden. That fight went to distance, 12 rounds and he won the decision and then he decided to fight joe frazier, frazier had become the champ ownership and ali considered himself to be the peoples champion and probably the biggest sports event in 20th century, in north america, each fighter got 5 million which was an unbelievable amount of money at that time. Owner of Washington Redskins put up 10 million and they fought and ali for some reason despite of his life, comeback fight of his life didnt train that hard for it. He spent most time talking to reporters and in the meantime frazier was grinding away, grinding away and alis wife told him, youre going to lose to this guy. I dont even want to sit in the good seats, im going to sit way in the bad seats and sure enough frazier ground away and in the 14th round knocked ali down and frazier won the fight. He won a decision and about two months later the case finally came before the Supreme Court and had gone to the Supreme Court once and the Supreme Court had refuse today rule refused to rule on it which would have sent ali to jail and a second thing came about wiretapping, the fbi had wiretapped some of the conversations of muhammad ali, just five of him without his foj and knowledge, so that brought him back for another chance to go to court and go to the Supreme Court and it reached the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court marshal rescued himself. Eight judges were voting, the vote was 5 to 3 that ali was convicted and he was going to go away after joe frazier fight. Judge was given job to write opinion that muhammad ali was going to go away and he, of course, assigned his his interns, law clerks to write the opinion and the law clerks really were they were part of the young people who had, you know, changed the mind about muhammad ali and they figured a way to convince john holland that muhammad ali should have got a deferment as Conscientious Objector in the beginning when the Justice Department had turned over what lawrence, the judge had ruled. So john to his credit kind of believed the clerks and went back to the Supreme Court and he said, i changed my vote. Now its 4 to 4 and its a tie and muhammad ali still would go to jail with a tie but one of the other justices stewart said, what kind of decision is that, people in america will look at this famous guy, famous case and say, oh, my god, the court cant make up his mind and he still has to go to jail. They set up about looking for a way to get him out to change the vote and to get him off the hook and they found some wording in the Justice Departments decision on lawrence and 8 to nothing and ali was off the hook and thats the whole time period thats covered in the book. It kind of ends right there and as we know, theres a whole bunch of his life that was lived afterwards. I had problems figuring out what the introduction was for this book. I was doing it for a couple of years and i tried out a few introductions and i couldnt do it and then ali died and and there was such an outpouring of emotion, it was like like gandhi had died or mother theresa and, you know, the funeral was shown live on television and, you know, Billy Crystal and all of these people were talking and and it was all great stuff but it kind of you didnt see where the edge was, what was going on at the time, where the friction was, what was happening and i said, thats what my book is, showing where the edge was and what the friction was, ali, at the end of his career he became sick and he just for the last half of his life was more of an inspirational figure than anything and he did wonderful stuff and i think a lot of qualities were assigned to him that he had in the second time of his life that maybe he didnt have in the first half when he was a much more controversial guy. Hes a fascinating guy and i think forever be the most interesting athlete and iconic guy that weve ever seen. Anybody want to ask some questions about . I have a microphone for the questions. About muhammad ali, evil canibal or whoever ive written books about. How were the funds provided . Well, thats a good question. A the guy who did the work to get his license back in new york he did that pro bono. He was a Legal Defense guy too. Can you address the rumors that have persisted about ali not stepping forward to be sworn in because he feared for his life under the threat of perhaps being killed by members of the nation of islam if he was drafted . Theres one thing and a book about sugar ray robinson. Sugar ray robinson talked about ali coming to see him at the lows midtown motor in the night before he was going to fight and saying that he was terrified and everything. But he truly, i dont buy it. I think he truly believed in the nation of islam and was very strong in the nation of islam and for sure there were some tough guys in the nation of islam. They did kill malcolm x and they did some things to karim abduljabbar also but i think he was just a true believer, i really do. You know when you got the olympic goldmedal he was backed by this group in louisville of 11 white businessmen and they hired Angelo Dundee to be a strainer and send them down to miami florida. It was all good. He was a great trainer but he went home at 5 00 every night and here was this 18yearold kid down there trying to figure out and make connections and meet people and do things and thats when he felt enthralled with the nation of islam. It really became his life, you know. I dont think he was afraid. See that you never talk to him. A covered five fights of his but they were after this time period. He was kind of out of it. So talk about the directory search. You have a lot of newspaper accounts and things but what about the direct interviews . I talk a lot with his wife at the time linda boyd. Her name now is khalil a ali and she had a good point. She said all the ali control the narrative better than anybody control the narrative because people would just listen to ali and he would give them so many great quotes they would never hear anything else from anybody else. She was very interested and she was kind of tough on him because their life ended badly with this womanizing and theres a famous saying where the thriller from manila, she was home with the kids in chicago when he was with veronica porsha was his girlfriend and they went to see Ferdinand Marcos and he said your wife is a beautiful woman and ali said thank you very much. She went right to the airport and got on the plane and flew right to manila and came to the hotel room and raised a huge ruckus and turned around and got back on the same plane that she had flown. They were refueling the plane and she came back to chicago and that was kind of the end of their marriage. She had interesting things to say. Valasco. Other questions . [inaudible] the nation of islam once the honorable Elijah Mohammad passed away his son change the nation of islam over to like a sunni muslim kind of part of islam and ali went with that. The reverend Lewis Barrett can three or four years later reinstituted the nation of islam when he broke with Elijah Mohammads son so he became for lack of a better word and normal muslim for the rest of his life. Which was what happened with malcolm x. Its when malcolm x got into trouble with the nation of islam because he had become a regular muslim. Yes sir. Howard cosell and ali always maintained their friendship. I think they were friends but i think it was a business relationship. I think they both got a lot out of it for me to their perspectives. Howard afforded him a stage and he afforded howard a stage to work on. I think they were friendly but i dont think they went out to dinner a lot. A ali was walking out of one of his court dates with one of his lawyers and he said to a reporter, he said i dont have any white friends and he said your lawyer is a white man. Is he your friend . He said hes my lawyer, hes not my friend. [laughter] they were friendly but you know they didnt go over to each others houses all the time. Of the abc studio the fight between him and frazier, without legitimate . You never knew with him. Early on when he came back from the olympics he thought the streets are going to be paved with gold and he would just start to fight and there would be sellouts and people would gogo crazy but he had to fight a whole bunch of people and most sports fans didnt know about it. He built up a record and he wasnt getting crowds at all. When he did he met Gorgeous George who was the wrestler and Gorgeous Georges whole thing was our day. , arent i good looking and he had peroxide hair, wore bobby pins and he had a valet that would spray perfume on him and things like that. He would just pass these arenas and people would go crazy and ali looked at him and he said well thats how you do it. You get people to come out and he kind of added fats to his act and thats what he did with sonny liston and the bear, beat the bear. He made himself into a villain which was all well and good but when the draft thing came up he became villain plus you know because he had said these things that most of america didnt like at the time. You know you wonder if ali were around today in his prime what would he be like, you know . And isay if you look at Colin Kaepernick and you say people have a lot of problems with Colin Kaepernick, they would have had 10 times the problems with muhammad ali. Colin kaepernick wasnt doing anything. He just wouldnt stand for the national anthem. He was just protesting so he would be a great controversial guy today. Yes, sir. Was he ever reimbursed financially for his loss of employment during that time after his case was ruled upon favorably and a twopart one. Were there any other conscientious object or cases that followed order his case set a precedent for it. The answer is no and no. The first know, in a way it was reimbursed in everything was so big when he came back. If he hadnt gone away for three years would he and frazier gotten 5 million to fight each other . Thats what made that whole thing, him coming from the desert and frazier being here and just colliding. I remember watching that fight. I lived in boston and there was a nightclub, caesars monticello in framingham massachusetts and it took my wife. It was 9 million guys and they were all half drunk and tiny tim had walked in. Everybody was tiny tim, tiny tim. He was just a crazy time. Frank sinatra took pictures for life magazine. There were no precedence. If muhammad ali was just another guy, he got celebrity justice singled out because of things he had said so he was kind of singled out and classified eligible for the draft but at the end he got saved with celebrity justice because his reputation was such. Its an odd dating the way it all went. If he had been another guy he would have been either in the service or at leavenworth i think. He had lawyers to back him up. Any more questions . I will come over with the microphone. I remember his later years and how weak he looked from parkinsons disease. Did he ever talk about that and how boxing had affected the rest of his life . Well i mean, you know its an easy top medicine kind of thing to say that boxing is what happened. The ropeadope and all that where he was just letting people pound on him and the effects of all of that. The moment where he in atlanta was a huge iconic moment janet evans gives him the torch and i think america watched him with a whole bunch of different emotions going on. Part of it i think his guilt, that youve got so much enjoyment from this guy and he was so interesting and the way he talked and the way he acted and the thoughts he made you think. You kind of led him to this in a way because we cheered him on as a boxer. I think there was some guilt and definite devotion. While he wasnt part of the Antiwar Movement per se and he wasnt part of the Civil Rights Movement per se, he certainly got a lot of people talking about that stuff and people kind of used him as a model for action comic you know to stand up to the government to kind of go for your rights. In the end thats what his image was. In your research did you ever come across anything on joe frazier being in the service or having served in the service . Joe frazier had a lot of kids real early and that kind of kept him out but he was always very patriotic. Like five or six days after the fight in 1971 where he beat ali the one time he was in the white house with nixon and ali, before the fight ali said that. He said nixon wont have anything to do with me but that was part of elliotts rant about the whole thing. I was at the airport many years ago and a flight from atlanta came in and guess who came off the plane. We locked eyes very briefly and without even thinking about my hand went out to him and he put his hand up to me and we shook hands. The most famous guy i will probably never meet. He was very friendly. He wasnt put off fish or anything like that. He had a great curiosity about people. He was buried pleasant. My big memory the first bite i covered was when he flawed chuck wepner. There was a movie that just came out about chuck wepner. I was young and i went to richfield ohio and it was 45 minutes from cleveland so i went to the car. It was there for the boston globe and i drove out the day before the fight. I didnt know the media mostly got on the bus and went out and they got taken back on the bus. I drove in the car and after the way and everybody got on the bus and i was still there. I said maybe i should go to muhammad alis dressing room and check it out and i can get something different. So i went and i went and and there was no security, nothing. I went in and there were maybe seven or eight people in their and he was stretched out on a rubbing table and his back was up against the wall. Billy epstein the singer, that old black magic, james brown the singer, and red fox was there. Red fox was telling dirty jokes. Red foxes from st. Louis i guess and he was telling the best dirty jokes i have ever heard in my life. Everybody sides were just splitting and tears were in her eyes. Ali would say tell another one and he would tell another one that was even more dirty and even better than the last one. It was like the moment you know, in that moment i said i wish this could go on forever. Maybe james brown will start singing or somebody else will come in. I kind of peeled out of there. I was just a little howdy doody guy standing there. I peeled out of there and i went over to Chuck Wepners dressing room and chuck and his wife were there and they were all by themselves. We talked and it was nice. The famous quote from chuck wepner before the fight he brought his wife a flimsy negligee and he said i want you to wear this night when we go to bed. He goes in the fight and he but it gets cut up and he goes to the hospital and get stitched up and 3 00 in the morning he gets back and his wife is sitting there and shes got this negligee on and she says well is he coming down here or am i going to go to his room . [laughter] i was interested in your comment pair phrasing ali was the most iconic athlete in u. S. History i think you said and you have written about ted williams and a number of others. Quickly, who else do you list as iconic and are there any quick answers for your response why ali is number one and decided that what were your impressions and did you respect evil . Okay, one ali was global. Thats the difference. Ali was global you know and everybody knew ali. He was probably one of the most known people in the world right up there with president s. He was the biggest. Iconic, i dont know. We all know those people that are famous athletes. I suppose iconic is attached to your age. If you say Johnnie Unitas maybe that says you are a certain age or Walter Payton or jim brown but all those people are iconic in their own respect. Evil knievel was a bad guy. There was a lot of talk about narcissism today. He was a narcissistic guy with big bears so i dont know how you want to relate that to our present situation. [laughter] do you want to take one or two more . Anybody else . I was just curious to know if laila ali is the daughter of or someone else . Lalo was later after veronica bush. He had some children that werent with any of his wives. He did a lot to propagate the future of america. Is there one more question or for should be sign books . Thank you so much. Such a privilege. [applause] the book is for sale in the back of the room at barnes noble and leigh will be right at this table and we will get you some books. [inaudible conversations] congressmen will heard republican of texas what is on your reading list this summer and why . I just finished reading American Gods by neil gaiman. I read both books at the same time and i like to read fiction and all they banned derek got. That was an interesting read. Im also reading market disciplines, marketing disciplines. Its an old book from 1985 that talks about branding and Brand Management and im finishing a book called against the tide which is about economics prior to adam smith wealth of nations and then after. All of them our role into whatever im doing and whatever im working on at the moment. You have to economic books in there. Why is that . Oneness with nafta and trade and nafta is important with my district. Its always good to have a grounding in some of the basics and its interesting to hear what people are saying prior to 1776. Sounds a lot like what people are saying now which are one of the takeaways and the other one is i think its important to read something about your craft and being an elected official my job is to get a message out. I tried to read about things like marketing and branding and communications. Is there a biography or history book that you have read in the past that you would recommend to unger at other congresspeople . I would say there are two. One is oh jerusalem and this was actually written by tude journalists. If the account of it starts the day that the United Nations approved the creation of israel and it ends about three days after israel became a country. Its a wonderful narrative about that important point in history and i think its important as we talk about the middle east and the world having that grounding and what happened really on day one. And the prose is amazing. It reads like a novel. It reads like a novel and the authors have written other books that talk about how right after world war ii when hitler ordered that the german army earn basically everything in paris, why that didnt happen before u. S. Troops came. Its a pageturner and again its a part of history. Those are the kinds of books on history that have an impact and then theres a book, i should have done the research before i came here but its a book when George Marshall did the Marshall Plan and how that happened here in congress and the impact and why that was so successful and the rebuilding and the rebuilding of europe. It really brings home some of the points on why our diplomacy efforts, why usaid in organizations like that are so important to stability in a broader world. Do you find that you and your colleagues discuss books . I do and one of the things thats interesting is congress does a lecture series almost every month in an author comes in and talks about a book. I have the opportunity to see a gentleman who wrote a book on lincolns second inaugural and the address is only 800 words about a page and a half. It was interesting hearing his perspective on such an important piece in our history. Like Mac Thornberry gave me a suggestion to read a book by mark lowdon about vietnam and coming from someone who i respect and look up to. Thats in my kindle already. Will heard republican of texas thank you for your time. Thank you. I had the great honor and privilege of just needing clearance moses l. Who was arrested in 1987 and wrongfully convicted in 1988 of sexual assault. He was sentenced to 48 years based on the victims dream. In 1995 with the help of gary shaq and the Innocence Project in new york the courtordered dna to be tested. Moses and fellow prisoners who believed in his innocence raised a thousand dollars to have the dna tested to Denver Police package the evidence including the victims rape kits clothing and bed sheets and put it in a box marked in big letters do not destroy. The policeman permanently destroy the evidence by throwing the box and a dumpster. The judge ruled that the mistake was not grounds for a new trial. 2013 moses received another letter from the person or a major crime. Professor alcee jackson was one of the people whom the victim originally identified to the police in 1987 as a possible attacker. Elsie Jackson Jackson was housed in the same detention facility and was doing a doublelife sentence for a 1992 double rape of a mother and her 9yearold daughter who lived a mile and a half away from the first womans home. The blood type of the attacker match that of jackson. The District Attorneys Office did not interview jackson until 18 months after his confession became public and they have five rigorously to prevent clearance from receiving a new trial despite the confession and matching blood type. A colorado judge vacated the conviction and ordered the dna, the d. A. To retry the case were dropped the charges per clearance was released in december of 2015 at the denver District Attorney has decided to retry him and he was finally found not guilty on all counts in november of 2016. Can we please give a big hand to clearance moses elle. [applause] welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. First up, heres Garry Kasparov on the potential for artificial intelligence. [applause] hello. Pardon me while i get the microphone all set up. Good afternoon and welcome to the Commonwealth Club of california, the place where youre in the know. You can find the Commonwealth Club on the internet at commonwealthclub. Org. Im holly kernan, Vice President of news at kqed in san francisco, and ill be your moderator. And now it is my pleasure to introduce todays distinguished speaker, Garry Kasparov