Transcripts For CSPAN2 True Believer 20161008

Of how the book subject went from being an idealistic harvard graduate to hardcore columnist to the lessons we can draw from that as we grapple with modern form of fanaticism. Its its a brilliant book that to quote the New York Times window of delusion and narcism that fill the radicalized of any era. Theres another reason that we are particularly delighted to be hosting tonights event at the library and thats long distinguished career as journalist and human rights advocate, you can read about in your program researched and wrote much of this book right here down the hall from where we are sitting in the libraries fredrik and alan room. The alan room are several special places at the library that offer actions to our collection and quiet contemplating place for writers to think and be inspired. Its always a source of pride when we are able to celebrate publications made at the Public Library at the public event as we are doing this evening. Tonight we are proud because our moderateor wrote her own books, strangers drowning and grappling with ideas, drastic choices and urgent power to help at scholars and writers. Strangers drowning which explores puzzling and questions of Human Behavior were finalist for 2016 award for excellence in journalism. So i hope you will all agree that there could be no better moderator than larissa and no more appropriate place to hold it than right here at the new york Public Library. Kati will be signing books after the program so be sure to stick around. Please join me in welcoming kati marton and larissa macfarqhar. [applause] such an honored to be interviewed by one of my favorite authors and i have to tell you that one reason that the alan room produces so much great literature is that there is terrible phone reception there. [laughter] so we have no choice. We have to keep our noses down. Impossible to make a call. Im happy to be moderating this. You describe this book about the cold war, about americans attraction and repulsion to it and a man, could you tell us, set the scene and tell us who noel field is . Its my very good fortunate that he hadnt been discovered except by a handful of scholars of the period and that is because his career as a spy went unnoticed, he was a spy living amongst us in the in the 30s. He was recruited while he was a rising young officer in the Foreign Service in the state department and i know we are going to get the atmosphere and the reason why hes such a bright, young star who aced harvard in two years would be vulnerable to kgb recruitment but his his career ended not by the people that he betrayed, the united states, but by the people that he served. Stalin and the kgb, and when when he was no longer useful to the kgb, stalin demonstrating once again that he was no less ruthless towards his own followers of which noel field was one of a very young age than to his enemies had him kidnapped from his hotel room in prague. He had gone to prague, sort of like edward snowden. One step ahead of an fbi subpoena. And lured to prague with a fake job offer and and there he was kidnapped by stalin and never to surface in the west. Thats the beginning of the story because the story is family drama, an entire American Family appeared in the early days of the cold war because not only was noel field kidnapped but eventually his wife, his brother and his adoptive daughter who all naively wept went looking for him were all in their own dungeon. Thats a very longwinded answer to set the tone. No, thats the broad outline. So to go back to i want to talk about why you think he was vulnerable to recruitment in a second, but, again, a devoted stalinist at this point sounds ridiculous that its hard to remember that a serious person who was not at that point in the late 20s, early 30s an idiot, why there would be an attraction to the soviet union at that point, talk us through that too. By the early 30s, the u. S. Is in the middle of the depression but fdr has not yet come as as the savior and execution had an enormous impact on public life, many very Many American intellectuals were attracted to communism, can you tell us . Yeah, absolutely. You know, larissa, there are so many parallels between that age and our present era, sort of general din disenchantment and noel field who was raised as a quaker was an exceptionally sensitive man. He hes a complicated, sounds very odd to call stalin sensitive but was a man who wanted to write injustices and injustices bounded in the washington of the 30s, racism, antiimmigrant sentiments which were at play in the in the execution which was a watershed moment for this young man and for many people but what makes noel field extraordinary is that he never let go of his faith. I think there are its a type of personality that needs a powerful face. Something to lift him out of his own out of himself and to explain everything and life and to make sense out of it. I compare it in the preface to isiss power today. The power to capture minds and a young mind captured if it becomes a very addictive that faith. You compare it and isis volunteers now. Its obviously too early to know whether isis will have created any noel field who claims that faith for their whole life, but can you what are some of the differences . Isis on some extent on internet outreach mode of recruitment, many people come to them. How draw some of the differences between this, obviously communism and isiss are very different. Yes, the power of the faith and the power of a leader. Stalin, the only thing that a man like noel field knew of stalin was moscows own propaganda and and moscow really invented spin. They really knew how to packaged propaganda just as isis does. You pointed out that at one point the New York Times correspondent was also basically mouthing that was 30s and early 40s. So people we cant judge the era nor these people and i think im pretty clearedeyed in my judgment of noel field who was a very troubling soul in so many ways and guilty of betrayal and betrayed everybody for the cause, the faith, the religion and, okay, with isis its the the caliph. With the early, stalin, the little father of the people as he was called and america really was on its knees. I mean, we have to keep remembering as you said, preroosevelt lifting of spirits. The united states, again parallels of today, capitalism seem to be failing and noel field witnessed thousands of world war i veterans marching down pennsylvania avenue claiming the bonuses that they had been promised for their service and and president hoover had locked the white house gates and refused to meet with them. So horrendous injustice. The spanish civil war. Noel started off as a good guy and and marched with these veterans, and his best friends in washington were not fellow up and coming diplomats. They were african americans. There was a lot to like about this guy until there was its one of the fascinating things about the book and its person, its not even as comprehensible a story as a good guy turns back or idealist who became hardened. He was always both. This is the hard thing to understand that even you describe, quote, many people saying that towards the end when he had, violence and brutality was very obvious. And yet they still described him as a person of radiant goodness. Eagerness, big heart, idealist, he was always both and so how do you how do you it wasnt okay, his ignorance, the reports of violence in the soviet union were propaganda but at certain point he understood the basic facts and yet he didnt change his mind. How do you understand that . Look, after a certain point his allig ands allegiance to this obviously misleading faith was irreversible. He had made so many sacrifices. First of all u he had unlike some spies, he had some scrupulous about spying from his country and stealing documents from the state department, about writing memos about his colleagues for the kgb. He had scrupulous but he did it and and when the opportunity to leave the country and to leave this this uncomfortable situation that he was in at the state department, he took that opportunity, he went to europe, he worked for the league of nations and his assignment, you mentioned the spanish civil war which really was the hinge event not only for noelfield but for the entire generation because it was the first time that there was an opportunity for the western democracies to do something other than talk about fascism but to actually fight fascism and again, those communists like Arthur Kessler and Edmond Wilson and and Whittaker Chambers and others whose face was flagging by now because what they were hearing about what was going in report of stalin, they they, again, rejoined the cause because the u. S. Was so shamefully absent from the antifascist battle and again another parallel today, we were at a time of maximum need for us to take in refugees, principally jews fleeing fascism. But this is already starting in the 30s. Right. The u. S. Tightened its quotas against refugees and this was appalling for an idealist like noel field and again, it fueled his the flame of his faith. I just wanted you to fill this out, he wasnt observing these events through the newspapers, he was he went to spain and helped out with the fighters there and then tell us a little bit about what he was doing during the war that worked for the humanitarian crisis, he saw the refugees personally. To their eternal regret, he got to know many of the future leaders of the of the soviet empire, future communist leaders who were in spain and who noel was helping and who then fastforward to post war era would would many of them pay with their lives for merely having been in the same room with the man. So he became like a curse. But thats im flashing forward. So just to take the trajectory, he went to harvard and worked for the state department at which point he was recruited and then was working in spain during the civil war and then he tell us about his work during world war ii for the humanitarian charity. Another piece of supreme irony and a bunch of boston dogooders uniontarrians rushed in to push the void by government failure to engage in rescuing refugees by setting up shop in marseille. This was before the German Occupation of all of france, and and so noel is hired to run the thing and what he does with with, you know, solid union unionitarian fund is set up aid. Rescue hardcore communists from camp and help them find their way back to their home countries and begin the work of setting up future soviet states. All on the unitarian dime which is not what they had in mind. For a long time it worked. I have all the descriptions of noel field of this wideeyed, wholesome, allamerican, very waspy guy, the kgb had a soft spot for that physical type because their appearance was an extremely good shield against detection. How could such a wellbrought up, wellbroken harvard educated young man be a trader . Well, he was. Its interesting because you described the scene in marsaille, he was involved as im sure trying to bring refugees from europe into the u. S. And constantly lobbying the government against their policy of clamping down no visas, no refugees. Founded the rescue committee on a board which im happy to say i served. He was suspicious he was among the first. Humanitarians were in boston but he was in marseille. What do you think of rescuing only communists . How did that help . Noel for all of his air of humanitarianism was pretty hard core in in selecting only not only communism but stalinists because theres a difference, yes. So you read about, i mean, we all know shameful part of our history clamping down on refugees from world war ii and the, of course, we are facing refugee crisis and theres a lot towards accepting Syrian Refugees and i was just wondering, revisiting that period, has it affected your thinking about our Current Situation . Absolutely. I continually think about that im enormously distressed by that and i think its another blot on on americas image in the world. We have a number of blots on our face at the moment and we dont want to get into that, but but this is actually this is wasnt we cant blame on donald trump. This is this, i think, sorry lack of compassion toward refugees and and how we somehow allowed the war against terror to be conflicted with those fleeing, well, assads brutality and i dont want to get off too far on on what we should be doing, but taking ten thousand refugees when germany has taken a million and a half is pretty pathetic and and im not incline to sign up with any radical movement as a result, but i can see how how somebody with with noel fields inclientation toward wanting to do good in the world and an enormous need as well, he was a needy man. Speaking of him being a needy man, one of the many things that is very unusual about this man is that he met his future wife when they were nine, not just met her but effectively, i mean, you dont date when youre nine, i hope. They were each others closest companions from when they were nine through their whole life and kati has written about president ial mairnls and what that means for a person constructing a political life. What difference do you think it made to noel that he had this unshakable devoted companion who was a 100 with him idea onlyically, emotional, in every way, how did that enable him to take the road he did in some way . Yes, in a way its hard to imagine noel who was very much a loaner and very much a stranger everywhere he lived. I mean, he spent his early years in switzerland. Son of a looming father who died much too soon, filling noel with an image of america that was a fantasy america and so when he arrive today harvard after his daughters death because that was his fathers wish, hes shocked that he is sudden in this utopia that his father had described but privilege and that the alienation growth apace and the alienation was deepened by this extraordinarily almost suffocating relationship with herta who i quote, kgb recruiter because it was so far for two people to fume into two noel and huerta. Huerta would have become a Buddhist Monk if field wanted that. We talk about the bizarre connection between my family and noel field but i will just its relevant at this point to mention that that that my my mother and father who were jailed as as spies, origin of my obsession with spying, my parents were not actual spies, but they were convicted of being cia agents because they were working for the americans from soviet occupied hungary and they did have the only journalists ever to have conducted an interview with noel and herta, one of the conditions, im jumping forward, one of the conditions of noel and hertas release from captivity for five years is they never speak to western journalists, because, of course, how damming it would be for the west to discover what this man had been through. And again, we will talk about that, what he went through is hell. And so my parents were determined to interview this couple and had tried for years until their own arrest and actually ended up being in the same prison. Same cell. Noel field when my father was being led to his cell in january 1955 and noel field had just been released and we will talk about why that happened, but the jailer said to my father, congratulations, youve got the vip cell. Recently vacated by an american agent named noel field and two years later my father is free and he tells us the story. I got the vip cell. Was that a cool place with a nice view. No, it meant that there were more there was more sophisticated bugging than than in the average prison. Thats all but anyway, so when when my mother and father meet mr. And mrs. Field in their hide away in budapest, theyve now asked for political asylum in budapest after they are freed because they have been match today spies during the Whittaker Chambers hearings. Many of you im sure recall that episode which really shattered noel fields double life because he was revealed to be kgb agent. But at any rate, the first question that mrs. Field asked my mother was, what happened to the two little girls because my sister and i had been part of the coverage of our parents arrest because it was unusual even by soviet standards, particular act of cruelty to take both a mother and a father when there are little kids involved. Mrs. Field was aware of that because the New York Times had a picture of us and my fathers impression of herta was that that after the brutality of prison, she was stronger than noel and that she was the one who was keeping him together and, of course, the records from the kgb file, the transcripts, because they were bugged everywhere even after they were freed from prison, even when they were in the hospital they were bugged. And reading those transcripts was kind of painful because, you know, theyre whispering to each other at night and theyre never theyre never alone and host say that he just wants to die and shes saying, no, thats just what the our enemies, meaning americans want you to do. And you cannot give them that victory. You have to keep it together. We have to rebuilt. And they did. It does seem she was extremely devoted to him, i have the impression from some of the things she say that is you quote her that she was just as devoted as communist as he was. Its hard to imagine not living this double life. And when theyre uniting after nearly five years apart they were in the same prison but they didnt know that, although occasionally he thought he heard herta was three cells away from him and he imagined hearing her could having coughing but indeed, it was huerta and the first question he asks her after not seeing for five years, have you remained true, not to me but to the cause. I mean, if thats not a fanatic, but she didnt seem to find that odd. No. Yes. She was right there with him. And then they asked how stalin was doing and stalin, of course, was dead. They both start crying. They both burst out in tears. After fife years in this prison because of stalin. As you pointed that out, i think we need to backtrack a little bit just to get the slot established. So you explained how noel was captured and taken to hungary and in prison for five years. Herta went looking for him with noels brother, they were both in prisons also for about five years or once they had crossed over into the east and then noel and hertas adoptive daughter erika after some time goes looking for them and also captured. Tell us about erika. Shes really the extraordinary heroine. Erika is sort of an ambiguous heroine. She is. She has the most brutal life. She was truly a child of the 20th century, grew up in germany of we jewish background, idealistic parents, doctors go back to spain, volunteer there, the parents are unable to look after erika, noel and herta who are childless offered to take care of her. Childless on purpose . For the cause . Yes. They died divide that too would divert. T better that they not [laughter] that was a good decision on their part. Yeah, one of their better decisions. Yes. So erika is is a bright and and attractive multilingual german girl, age 17 when the fields adopt her and noel has high hopes for her as a communist in the future and she really is the she invigorates the entire narrative because although she hates the nazis who have driven her from her home, she joins the communist party because she see that is the communists are the only ones who are doing anything. In germany . Yes. She doesnt swallow the faith the way that noel does. And noel is crushed when she meets and falls in love with an american gi and sees his dreams chattering. And when when noel is taken prisoner, erika who by now is married to the gi and has two little kids 6monthold and 7 and a half year old. You dont go looking for people and expect to come back. They see the stalin is now hatching a big show trial as as he had in the 30s to get rid of perceived enemies. In the 30s tito the great hero of yugoslavia has bolted from the fold and so stalin is enraged and orders trails in all soviet satellites and who better than than noel field to be the chief witness against all these people because noel field, a, hes an american, so, the new enemy, we are now post post the stalinroosevelt brief alliance. And noel field knows all of these communists from spain and from his refugee rescue work and so the book starts out with his kidnapping from his hotel in prague and then flashes back from that. Erika has friends in the German Communist Party and she goes to berlin. Shes lured there. A trap is set for her. And she too is is tortured into confessing that that she was actual not that she was working for the cia, the way noel field, not a word of truth to that, but unlike her adoptive father, she has an entirely prison experience, so key difference noel field is in solitary confinement which is one of the most brutal forms of punishment, for five years, virtually no contact except with very hungarian guards. Erika is sent to the northern most outpost and in railroad and she makes friends, she has flirtations, she has about a full life as you can have in confinement and so when when the entire family is suddenly freed, not because stalin is now dead but the family is freed not because theres an ounce of kindness and humanity in the kremlin, but because their interrogator, horrible thuggish guy, polish, defects and turns up in washington, big cia news conference. If youre fans of the americans youll like [laughter] there are many, many history of spies among us as the members and i was very heartened that the creator of the americans found a great deal of material in the book, so that was that was i am an americans fan. This guy turns up and the field family are alive and they have been given up for dead. I know because interrogate which is torture and at that point the state department starts bombarding moscow and warsaw and prague with demands for the release of this American Family. The family are released including noel and herta from the budapest confinement but they do not want to come home because theyre afraid of this is now mccarthy, but i this is one of the unbelievable twists. Theyre afraid to come home because they have been revealed as spies and they will face trial and charges of treason but when the embassador to hungary contacts them after they requested asylum in hungary saying they feared returning to the u. S. , she says quite reasonably, he says quite reasonably, this is not consistent with american citizenship. [laughter] renounce american citizenship if youre working for the enemy and claiming to the u. S. The extraordinary thing this came as total shock to him. He considers himself loyal americans and very surprised. The way he explained it, as you said, his loyalty is to the American People not to the contemporary mesh American Government and he considers loyal decenter and this comes as shock to him just one of many little moments where your jaw drops and you realize how this person is. He created he really im quoting myself, he had the gift of seeing only what he chose to see and he never confronted his demons. There was one i mean, i just want to ask you before we get questions. At the very end, theres a poynant moment, in 1956 as you know theres a point where many people got off the bus, a combination of denouncation of stalin and hungarian uprising and many people saw the soviet regime for what it was, and noel field did not and stayed loyal but in 68, two years before he died, the prague spring happened and repressed as you know and that seems to have affected him. He didnt he didnt renowbs communism but renounce communism but started paying family dues. Why was it the prague finally practiced something in him . Yeah, noel field spent lifetime lying as spies do and must. The only candor ever to have come out of noel field, really, is contained in this book because i was very fortunate in getting hold of correspondence and the the fact is that by 68, the prague spring, the country where he was living, hungary, there were very few people left who still believed. He was working in a publishing literary magazine and i interviewed people who were his colleagues and they all said that, you know, we were all dreaming of our first car and the passport to the west and refrigerator and nobody was thinking about revolution anymore. And so in that kind of an environment, i think some of the some of the jews kind of went out of his im totally mixing metaphors here dribbled out revolutionary tomato. [laughter] it became a very dry fruit by then. Okay. Youre right. Yes. But he never i mean, larissa, it was unforgivable. Many things were unforgivable about noil field, one noel field, he never acknowledged the state for which he has sacrificed everything was as toxic as i would say the islamic fundamentalism that captures young people today. He never acknowledged that he had not only participated in that movement but had taken had played a role in the assassination of a good communist who stalin we wanted to get rid of. Well, many through his testimony. So when you realize that this is a young man who started with, you know, the great dream he promised his father that that he would do good things and help prevent another world war and, in fact, he he gave his life for one of the most violent of all systems and became its pond, but the the book is also the story of a tragic family because his his siblings whose children were very helpful to be quite frankly because they were very curious, they want to know too what happened because because while the fields were alive, the kgb archives were not yet opened. So they never got the story and now i dont think this is easy reading for for the family, but at least now they know and those siblings never stopped trying from here, from the united states. They never stopped hoping and trying to bring him back to the family and back to america, but the story of erika is a triumphant story. She restarts her life here and has successful American Life here. She becomes a School Teacher in virginia. Every kids dream. I think we should go to she sounds fantastic. We should go to questions at this point. We have about ten or 15 minutes. Theres a microphone over there, so if you can go there. He was able to give to the soviet union, was any of it really valuable and did the soviets use it in in any way . The reason the soviets were so interested in noel field was because in the 30s with fascism rising, stalin wanted to have some sense of what, if anything, washington was prepared to do to fight fascism and noel field was well placed in the office of western western european wing of the state department to help along with that. He gave them enough so that they so that the kremlin had a sense of that the u. S. Wasnt going to be active in the antifascist movement. He also gave a lot of information from the he covered the he represented the u. S. At the london naval conference in 1934, i believe, and from there he did a lot of spying and damage. But, you know, the measure of whether youre a spy or not isnt determined by the quality of the material, its determined by your willingness to betray your country and of that he was very guilty as as when you read the book youll see as not a shred of doubt that he was spying, not for the same branch as intelligence like noel field. Noel field was kgb and algaris was in military intelligence. Thank you very much for the introduction to this maddens. I happen to be in czechoslovakia. When i was a kid i cried when stalin died. But i want to ask you a question, what do you think is really psychologically behind toxic mixture of attraction and disregard for human life and societies . You answered some of the questions but what really attracts people to do this yes. Officer cambridge. The cambridge spies and company were somewhat different species than noel field. Noel field was was not a cynic, i think they were, i think they were disenchanted with british society. I dont think they gave a damn frankly as best i can make out about the little guy, about, you know, job creation, noel field actually did. The tragedy of noel field is that he really did start out with high ideals and slowly, slowly this this poisonous ideology poised into him and would pretty much do anything for the face. A acceptable to a powerful seduction and he was such a personality. We didnt even without the internet, people like that, they are talentspotted by those looking for recruits. Yes. [inaudible] you did a lot of research, i understand. Even in late 30s and in early 40s, you know, the soviet union wasnt that close. During the civil war there was work [inaudible] everybody who wanted to understand really what the soviet union was all about was impossible to find out and still drove people to work for soviet union. That seems to be very fascinating and this attraction to the whole system which nobody really knew how it works. Right, i think Arthur Kessler, darkness at noon is the book that really rips the veil off the cruelty of of stalin, but that was already in the 40s. In the 30s we were we were, this was pretechnological revolution where that was a very long way off and there was a whole lot as i mentioned or of really, really smart use of propaganda, russian films, russian dances, russian books, russian, you know, it was the things that larissa and i talked about, the west really chabby performance and stalin taking a more active role and there was a huge difference between stalin and lenon. Lenon was no soft touch but lenon, first of all, banded the execution of communists and stalin was all in favor of maximum executions and i compare the show trials which have nothing to do with justice, show trials to isis beheadings as propaganda tool, meant to spread terror. The image of absolutely reduced former heros of the revolution, quaking in there in their foots and confessing to crime under the sun it was pretty repellant and people like noel field could not believe that these people were innocent because they needed i mean, its what you said about crying when i know the father died even though people now that he was as dominant a figure for for the soviet people as fdr was for americans. There were americans who only knew one president , fdr for 12 years, of course, he was a far more benign character than stalin. [laughter] yes. I have a more general question. How do you pick this character or any why . Okay. Well, thank you for asking that and thank you for reading my other books as well. I like to this will sound grandiose. It was the holocaust and the book about my parents and the means of the people, it was life under soviet rule with my book about george polk. Its about america engaging for the first time as a world power. Ic we dont i think we dont really understand an era until we feel it otherwise its dry academic. Its factual and i think through a human story, through portraying a character that we can somehow identify with, we are more able to understand an era and with with noel field, the remarkable fact of my parents having having been the only journalists to have met him and, of course, i did hear my parents talk about this strange guy and and then i started thinking that well, we have been talking about the parallels between the two eras and that this americans played such a huge role in the last chapter, really of stalins rule and that he wasnt at all known. We know about kim, british spy, but we didnt know about noel field who in some ways did probably more damage, more human damage. When you read the book youll be appalled how he basically destroyed his own family and they never said sorry. Unforgivable. Thank you very much. One more. Do we have time for one more . Go ahead. No . Yes . We can take one more. This very nice lady. Thank you for the fascinating forum. Was their adoptive daughter bitter about the past that her parents took her down . Erika was not a bitter person. Erika considered herself a very fortunate person. She considered she even considered prison to have given her a tremendous perspective on life, so she adored her parents, h her biological parents and her father unfortunately died during the war, but she and her mother were very close. She was a remarkable character, the story you generally encounter in fiction. Thank you all very much and thank you larissa. [applause] indiana. Book tv on cspan2. Television for serious readers. Here is a look at whats on prime time tonight. We kick off 8 30 eastern with C Nicole Mason who reports on poverty in america and recalls own experiences. On this winings after words at 10 00 p. M. Eastern former state Department Official Mary Thompson jones discusses leaked diplomatic cables. Wrap up tv in prime time at 11 00, nobel prize economist on the future of the euro. That all happens tonight on cspan2s book tv. Ve here is the cover of her book, becoming nicole. Ms. Nutt who is nicole . E . This is a child of age 2 and a half identified as a girl and when i say identified as a girl, didnt say to her parents i think im a girl. Said, when do i get to be a girl, when do i get to looked like a girl and believed she was a girl