From the 7th annual savannah book festival, the Astronaut Wives Club is discussed. Good morning. It is nice to be here. I heard there was a rumor i didnt make it out of new york city because of the weather so i am glad the volunteers believe this is me and i am here sharing the story with you this morning. I loved Great American stories and i love bee hives and a combination of those two things, as you will learn, led me tell this amazing, but looked over american story of our original asastronauts. We are going become to 1959 and the country is waiting for the announcement of the mercury 7th astronaut. It is the height of the cold war and we are looking to these seven men as our cold war care warriors. These silver suited space men who are taking us to the star and beyond. So you have these matcho test pilots on the stage and the reporters are raising their hands and instead of asking, you know, tell us about your bravery or why you wanted to volunteer, the reporters want to hear what
Occupation and that does not end and toe hiroshima. A and tell hiroshi meant with the Chinese Foreign minister there was the map at the held the stage and would like to get back to Something Like that. To do with very slowly and steadily without bloodshed if you look at the gambles that mao took we are all long way from that fate god so we are optimistic they are aware of their own problems. Everything is regional. One more question talk about making up a character such as montagu but todays headline on this cnn says Dennis Rodman you could do not make this up as well. [laughter] people have really crazy stories as well. But talk about rodman. A great basketball story about frankenstein. [laughter] i dont know i feel bad for him in the end he says i am practicing basketball diplomacy like pingpong diplomacy. And with the huge framework a very active framework that does not exist the chinese is very busy sending positive signals. In early 1971 as a signal. That would be a very easy low
Quarters and the field station where the new asset was. We went back to basic toes communicate. It wasnt the stone age, but it was pretty close we said. We did have a technical something that was sort of out of this world at the time. We have our new asset. He is okay. We are keeping this one alive. Enter my coauthor who is on assignment in garbone as our chief of stations. She returns home and she is trapped with trying to determine what in the heck happened. She has a Small Task Force of people who begin this effort. At the same time jean and her people are looking at our losses, the fbi has also established a task force. They suffered similar problems with their soviet cases during the same time period as we. All right. Now we are going to have to fast forward. It is early 1991, a little over five and a half years later and we still dont have a clue as to what happened. That is not to say there were not plenty of explanations and leads. There were lots. Each was fully investigated a
Came which is to upset the russians. The more they can do the more likely it is russia comes to the bargaining table. The russia of love spee and now they thought that could go on forever. It was brilliant. That gives the enormous amount of leeway to mao for public support and nixon says he could not have done this and he says they always tell you what they are thinking. That is extraordinary. But of all the people with meticulous manipulation the tiniest of details and everyone was bamboozled. That really means the whole world has changed in the greatest irony is it all started with montagu only to real gloves in his life. Pingpong and the soviet union will of the chinese and americans had gone their own way in an end to where are they today . Thank you. [applause] this microphone does not project but it is important for the internet. Please raise your hand to come up to you. What inspired your research to even look get this story . Yet was a mixture. Going to beijing to wonder why on
East vienna austria, the hotbed of spying . And had sales we were going along is probably like a Police Investigation if youre looking for a murder suspect. You are trying to eliminate rick as your suspect. Every piece of information. You dont want to get the wrong guy. What did you determine what his motivations for spying . Simple greed. It was money. Now, money the web, again, a little bit of a twist. Jeanne and i are absolutely convinced that it had not been for rosario, rick never wouldve committed treason. The material things were not important to him. But in early 1985, he was facing a divorce, although he hadnt told his current wife that he needed a divorce, because he had promised rosario, who was now in the states that they were getting married in august. And rick community had to divide up his and countries assets. There were a lot. Basically it was 20,000. Thats really all he needed. And he certainly could have common to the agency. We help our employees. And he chose not t