second, but that article appeared in the washington post in 1995 and it traced what was an extraordinary story of the polish intelligence services cooperation with the cia to rescue. us intelligence agents who had been trapped behind their rocky lines in 1991 when after iraq invaded kuwait and the the story of how those agents were rescued plus other extremely interesting information about the polish intelligence services cooperation was told in that article and has been expanded here, but this book also covers a much wider swath of history. it looks at the intelligence dimension of us polish relations after 1989 poland was officially a member of the warsaw pact until mid 1991, but the facto it had already changed its ties it had already decided to align itself with the west with nato and with the united states early on after 1989. so this book expands on that and looks at the travails and achievements of poland after 1989 covering almost 30 years or actually 30 years or so, and because the intelligence dimension is was important in polish politics, especially in the 1990s, but even afterward as well the book inevitably deals quite a bit with some of the ups and downs of polish political scene and again fascinating details about how the intelligence services got embroiled that way and god manipulated in some ways for the political ends of being politician. i won't say more about the book now except to urge people who want to really read a riveting story. the book is relatively brief, but extremely well written and so you will find almost anyone will find something of great interest in it. even those who may not know much about poland or about intelligence. so let me then briefly introduce. we're going to be having two speakers today. the first is john palm fred. who is the author of the book and was long while a rapport or an editor at the washington post one of the greatest newspapers in the world, and he is writer is this book in the earlier books on china a test? and he has been stationed in numerous posts abroad and has reported, you know extensively on china as well. so yeah is really a good person to take up this topic in a way that makes sense of what could otherwise have been a tangled web for our most journalists seeking to figure out what was going on in polish politics and the intelligence relationship at the time. the other speaker is a colleague of my colleague and friend of mine here at the davis center. that is thomas simons. who was the key thing to mention for today's talk is that he was ambassador us ambassador to poland during the early phase of what this book covers and he had been a long time state department official responsible for policy to an eastern europe and the soviet union and then he became ambassador in under george h.w. bush and then later on served as us ambassador the pakistan but the relevant tuition for today with regard to tom is that he was ambassador to poland during the early phase. he he also has phd from harvard and has written himself a very interesting history of eastern europe. so let me with that turned to john john will speak for 25 30 minutes and then tom will offer his commentary and then we'll open it up. please feel free in the meantime as the seminar proceeds to submit questions, and i will do my best to get to them. i we you can submit those either be a zoom or through youtube. thank you, please john. thank you, mark. and thank you for having me at the center today. i really been looking forward to this. so i want to talk basically about why or how i wrote this book a little bit and hopefully through that story. i'll can kind of fill in some of the backstory of this remarkable alliance that the polish intelligence officers and the cia forged together. so probably washington post in 1992. basically to go to what remained of yugoslavia and right about the destruction of that country during the civil war mostly in bosley and mostly in sarajevo the capital i'd done a bunch of war coverage before what with the associated press and the washington post was having difficulty finding volunteers to go to to war-torn bosley to cover the to cover the war and so they basically found me hired me actually in an interview when i was in afghanistan of all places and sent me to bosnia. but at the time the post bureau in eastern europe was still in warsaw. basically a throwback to the era when warsaw was sort of the crucible of eastern developments in eastern europe. just some some of you might remember the solidarity trade union and the push against communism in the 1980s, which was met with a crackdown of martial law, but in 89 poland had made a transition to the republic of poland with semi-free elections. so poland was already on this trajectory of joining the west if you will both in terms of a liberal market economy and a democratic political situation, so there was stability in poland, but there was chaos in sarajevo. and basically i was sent to sarriable but we had a house in more so every sort of two months or so i would be allowed on rest and r&r back back to poland. i'd run an occasional story about polish politics the fact that bananas had showed up on the streets in warsaw etc as a sign of its changes and then i would go back to bosnia and kind of to deal with the issues of snipers and artillery shells etc and along about 1994 began to pick up this room these rumors in poland that the polls had done the united states a great favor in iraq in 1990, and i couldn't really confirm it. i didn't really know what the rumors were about but i just was told that they'd done a significant favor for america and so on my rest and relaxation trips back to warsaw. i began to try to figure out what this was and at the time the post had a marvelous translator and fixer by the name of helena potuska, and she said suggested speaking with the managers of polish state-owned construction companies because at the time the polls had operated across the middle east in terms of development projects building roads building sewage treatment plants etc and upwards of several thousand polls construction workers had been working. in iraq, and if the polls ever to embed a spy in any community. that would be the smart place to look and there were 14 such companies and so we began to interview them again. i was sort of shuttling back between sarajevo and warsaw and we got the 13 and all of them said they'd never heard it if anything of anything happening, we didn't know what i was talking about. and so we finally got to the 14th. and the manager the 14th company basically said yeah, you know, we actually had this crazy engineer named eugenia. a new genius told us this wacky story about how we were involved. our company was involved in moving six american spies out of iraq to safety in turkey, but we never believed them in any way he's retired and he lives in western poland. so helena, potosika finds eugenish in western poland and we go to western poland. we interview him. and he tells his story and i write up the story and there's this kind of i print out his print out in the printouts about this long because the time printers didn't cut between paid they didn't know pagination at the time that sort of dates us, but that's life. and we faxed the facts again dating us we faxed this massively long page of information to the spokesperson's office of the uop, which at the time was the polls intelligence agency. and within an hour i get a phone call in the bureau in warsaw demanding that i show up at the uop's offices. and so i we drive down to to downtown warsaw and there's this stalinist era building the high ceilings and that that worn in red carpet and go through one door after another after another and after they're finally going through a final door on the on the door. i read the title director the door opens. there's this massive desk and behind this massive desk. is this looming presence of this this character with piercing blue eyes and pencil thin mustache about six four. he has his my facts rolled up in his hand and he's shaking it at and he's goes i am grown with swanson pinski. i am the director of the intelligence services of poland and you are in possession of state secrets i could have you arrested. and that begins this decades-long friendship i had with gromich chimpinski and over the course of the next few months while i'm settling back and forth between warsaw and sarajevo. we work out the terms on which i could write the story about what the polls did for the united states in terms of exfiltrating six american officers actually was a cia station chief three commutered communicators from the nsa and two american military officers from iraq to safety to warsaw and then back to united states that story appears on the front page of the post to january 1995 time passes i go to china poland vendors nato in 1999, but i always thought that this story could make a colonel of a really interesting book, but i had no idea what the backstory was. and actually obviously no idea with the front story was what happened after that. um, so and i i was obviously maintaining trying to the best i could maintaining close relations with chrome extempinski, but he was reluctant to tell the story until 2015 when the situation changed significantly political situation changed significantly in poland when the law and justice party wins parliamentary election and the law and justice party was led by people who had been involved in the solidarity trade union movement someone but these people had a very different vision of what poland should have done once communist communism ended and their vision. was that basically all commoners should be punished by by the current and by the polaris government for actually participating in that of a government. and so they carried out. programs like cutting the pensions of all people who had worked in the security services including poland's foreign spies to a below poverty level and at that point chimpinsky became emboldened to try to basically push back at this at this what he believed to be an unfair treatment of both him and and spies like him but telling the story of how these ex-communists officers worked with the cia who created an alliance with the united states and so he was more open to that and that opened to me many possibilities to interview underlings who would work with him or under him over the course of their careers. they then gave me information about the american cia officers who'd work with them that allowed me to contact them back in america now, there were many cia officers and a significant portion didn't want to speak with the washington post whatsoever understandable, but there were some who did and so that gave a lot of about from the cia's perspective. why did the americans reach out to the polls from the polish perspective? why were they open to the american outreach and how then that alliance work? and the backstory was fascinating from the beginning of the cold war and specifically in the 70s the cia actually had a very high opinion of polar spies the cia also also secretly did work with paul's intelligence officers in terms of buying weapons etc on during the iran contra issue in the 19 in 1970s as well. but but the cia was actually had a very very for polish tradecraft. polar spies had been operating in the united states throughout the 60s and the 70s and in the 70s a senior polo spy ultimately was involved with a in a massive theft of american military secrets based in los angeles. and the cia officer ultimately ended up being involved in the arrest of this police officer was a fellow by the name of john palavich. who what? what was it very impressed with the trade craft of that polar spy marion zaharski. and when zaharsky was ultimately exchanged on the bridge of spies in 1984 for 26 some odd american agents who had been operating in east germany palavich committed to himself basically had a thought to himself ultimately i really would like to work with this guy and not against him because the tradecraft of these professionals is of such a quality that they could really be useful to the united states. and so when poland's political change begins to happen in 89 and 90, but the election of a solidarity government paulovich has this idea that we need to actually now we can begin to outward to reach out to our polish intelligence comrades if you will and begin to create a relationship with these guys and at the time the the administration of george h.w. bush was also looking at poland's transition from a communist country into a liberal democracy if you will and wondering how this transition was going to be done and so the bush administration and the cia began to lobby the polish government to say look don't dismantle all your communist bureaucracies don't dismantle your foreign intelligence a bureaus don't dismantle your police because if you begin a revolution at ground zero, you're gonna probably have a counter-revolution on your hands because you haven't give the given the communist a stake in the in the new poland. and the cia was also pushing this line for selfish person purposes because as parliament had argued within the cia. these guys these spies are good we can use them. and so in 1990 palavich proposes to paul redman with the time was the deputy director of operations for soviet and eastern europe, but the cia. hey, i go make an outreach to my polish comrades. what do you think? i've read them says great and so there's a debate about where is the outreach going to be done? right? is it going to be done in rome? for example, where a pollos officer by the name of alexander makowski had done a year harvard law school courtesy of american scholarship as a spy studying american constitutional law, or should it be done elsewhere the problem with rome. is that despite this old school ties between redmen who was a harvard man and makovsky that the embassy in rome was on an alley and italian counterintelligence could monitor the cummings and goings and the americans didn't want to involve other a third country in this operation. so they thought about switzerland, but again swiss counterintelligence is famous for its for its professionalism. they finally settled on lisbon, which the portuguese were kind of their reputation was either as a relatively sleepy service and so palavvich goes to lisbon and march of 1990 on his traveling on israel passport over the course. career actually had about seven or eight passports. he's traveling on his real password. he knocks on the door of the polish embassy on a major avenue in lisbon gets in to see a consular official who was actually a polo spy and announces that the cia wants to begin a real relationship with the polish government. the pulse to the pulse intelligence services his interlocutive repos officer kicks to paulovich out of his office. denies that he's a spy outraged etc and pelvic has left to find a taxi on his own but then that night the police officer richard thomasewski sends a cable to war so saying the cia just came knocking in my door. what do i do? and the police officers saying this is something we've been waiting for we knew this was going to happen and they tell him call pal of its back up and in may of 1990 a delegation of cia officers comes to lisbon and and they're off to the races. so that was the back story of this operation and and then in august of 1990 saddam invades kuwait these six americans who one of whom is in possession of significant intelligence about exactly how the americans would plan to remove saddam from kuwait are stuck in baghdad. the americans go to the france the brits the russians. none of them can help. they finally go to the polls and because of polovich's knowledge of the professionalism in the polo services. he argues with the americans. these guys could do the operation gromis webchempinski is sent down to iraq. he then collects these characters. he gives them six fake polish workers overalls, six fake poland's passwords with fake polish names sadly the and pronounce their polish names, but that's another story. he had a certain point. he douses them with johnny walker black trying to camouflage them as drunks eastern european workers and he drives them out of out of iraq and this argo-like operation. this creates a blood bond between the two services. it shows that the americans that americans have a lot of respect for polls to polish tradecraft and the polls realize they can use intelligence as a way to increase to tighten their bonds with washington and accomplish their goal of entering nato. the services that begin to operate around the world. poland at the time in this sort of inter intimate scene period between communism and capitalism have bureaus have embassies and places where americans couldn't work pyongyang tehran havana and other hot spots. they had as you and political officers that close relations with hezbollah in lebanon, and so they begin to do operations around the world. and of course this kind of culminates and poland's nato entry and with the polls saying look, the reason we did these operations with the americans is because we didn't want to specifically seen to be the recipient of american large. yes and help we want to prove the united states that we could be not just the loyal ally but a useful ally. and so that was very important in their argument with america to open nato's doors to poland accession in addition to check republic and other countries. um and the american's accepted this in the americans understood because of poland's position and having all these diplomatic places around the world and also in poland's excellent at human intelligence some work, they could use poles as well. now the relationship is wonderful 1994 mike zulik who is a station chief in warsaw is talking with his polish partners, and he said, we have great relationship now, but like because we are and and the relationship is growing but by leaps and bounds, but sulek had this premonition and he told his polish counterparts look at a certain point even though the relationship is amazing. now you need to prepare for the day that the amount in united states is going to screw you now. we're not going to screw you in the way that the soviets did we're going to screw you in a particularly american way, we're going to kind of think we're well meaning but at the end of day we will screw you. and that premonition turns out to have been true after 9/11 the terrorist attacks on the united states the administration of george w bush goes to the goes to the polls and said look we've captured these terrorist suspects and we need a place to house them so we can interrogate them. can we do it in poland and the polls because of their tradition of being wanting to be a loyal allity at it states basically say, yes sure. you can do it. in fact, you can do it within the confines of the polish intelligence training center. so the americans then set up this villa there which they use american paint to paint. they use an american 110 voltage system. they don't want to be on the european system and they basically set up this what from the listening to how the polls have told the story basically a little piece of the cia in the middle of this pulseintendent pellet since training ground this two-story villa. where a series of terrorist suspects are brought and subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques. otherwise known as torture waterboarding walling beating mock executions sleep deprivation etc. and the polls don't know really what say they don't never knew actually what was happening inside this film. and the polls begin to feel extremely uncomfortable about what's happening there because they get little indications that it might not all be according to a normal standards recognized by the european union. in fact at a certain point the polls go to the americans and say we need you to sign an mou guaranteeing the certain level of treatment of these people. well you do so in the americans do the cia declines. so this goes on up until the point that college sheikh mohammed believed to be the architect of the 9/11 disaster is is caught in pakistan and brought to poland and the poll say he's the final one and he's then waterboarded some odd 183 times while he's in poland. he's ultimately taken out in the polls feel relieved that look this this issue is gone. then cia officers leak about this issue and while it's a wonderful thing that it appeared in the western press so we could learn what the cia was doing for poland. it was an extraordinarily difficult moment. they were kind of they felt left holding the bag kind of abandoned by the cia and punished for the fact that they were more zipped up than the cia then nonetheless even after this in broglio when the fact of the polls lost significant trust in the agency the polls continue to work for the cia both in iran and in north korea being involved in very sensitive operations for the united states. and so in discussing this issue with a senior poland polish politician a former foreign minister by the name of radislavsikorsky. he kind of talked this about the simile in terms of how it feels to be a small country in a relationship with the united states and desperate to be america's allies. he said look at alliance with the united states is like marrying a hippopotamus. at first it's very warm and cuddly than the hippo turns crushes you and doesn't even notice. so with that i just want to thank you for letting me the speaker today and i look forward to tom ambassador simons commentary and your questions. so, thank you very much. very good. thank you. thanks very much john. let me turn to tom. i think you're muted tom. well mark, thank you for having me here john. it's good to see you again. uh, that was a eloquent synopsis, it's a wonderful read. you ride with the kind of subdued passion if i could put it that way that you showed us just now. it's a great story. and it goes on for decades. i mean, it's wonderfully research. you know most of the people you've interviewed and talked to over decades most of the people involved. and so it's a great story, but it's also a sad story and i think you you bring that out. it started off as a happy story. i mean the exfiltration from from baghdad was a a great moment after the end of the cold war i can remember. i was ambassador from september 1990 to april of 1993. so when the exfiltration took place and i remember walking into the station chief's house and it was full of these people in white shirts and khaki pants and i remember yelling. who are these people and and so it was a it was a happy moment. it was also the process that john describes. of coming together the intelligence services. it also fit like a matrushka doll within the larger policy framework. i mean poland at that point had no security cover at all after the abolition of the warsaw pact poland was alone in the world with 30,000 soviet troops still on its soil it was negotiating for their departure, but poland had every interest in a good relationship with united states and this intelligence part of it. that really was a spearhead. in the aftermath of the exfiltration we had visits from the head of the cia judge webster and the head of the fbi the bill sessions and i can remember the the polls gave the the dinner the welcoming dinner to judge webster in ovilla, which was quite near my residence and which was notorious as a as a ub or a polish intelligence villa they had a 1964 the head of it died. mysteriously in that villa my wife and i walked past it every day. and so we had their dinner for judge webster there the next night my wife and i gave the dinner down the street in our residence and gromac championski. i said to him, you know grom active is really a treat to be in that villa last night, and he said well if that was a treat for you. imagine what it's a treat what kind of a treat it is for me because i know every nook and cranny of this resident of my residence, but i've never been inside it. so so that was the that was the these were the people who run against touch for years and and who were now becoming a partners and cooperators. nevertheless it is a sad story because it it's ours at the end. not it's not the only place in the world that that has happened. uh, you should we can talk to afghans now and get a taste of the of their recent recent experience with us. but it's particularly sad because as john points out in his book americans and polls really do click together. i mean, they're they're comfortable with each other a century and a half of relationships in ways that americans don't necessarily have with other central and and east europeans and yet in the end as mike sulek predicted and told them we ended up dropping them. i served in pakistan and the pakistan is used to say that we after the soviets withdrew from afghanistan. we dropped them like a used kleenex. so and i think there's a bitterness that the polls have and radhikorski i think with his metaphor of the hippo. so my question to you, john is could it have been avoided since this relationship did fit like a matrushka doll within our overall relationship? and our interest as a country simply shifted it continued until the east central europeans joined nato and then that the eu but the the specific flavor of the relationship deteriorated because american interests shifted elsewhere. could it have been avoided you think? thanks, tom. it's great to see you and hear you. so i think a certain amount of that was just inevitable because in this kind of gray zone between communism and liberal democracy and quotes. you had this period where poland wasn't quite associated with the united states. it hadn't joined nato. it wasn't considered a substance ally of america and in that space polish operatives could operate almost as if they were independent even though they were working for the cia. and so i think that as that period of time ended and as poland entered nato and as poland began to be viewed around the world by our america's adversaries as a staunce ally of america, you're naturally going to get less poland's less ability to maneuver in that gray zone the gray zone actually would end and it became sort of a zone where they're associated. so i think that a certain amount was natural. i mean the relationship was so that the intelligence was so good that in 2000. then director cia director george tennant writes a letter to book them liberia. who was the head of paul's intelligence basically saying our intelligence cooperation with you is the second best america's had in his history. obviously, the the first best would be the uk, but still an extraordinary thing for tenant who was known for his bombast even to climb considering our close relationship with the australians not to mention very close relationship with israel's massad. but nonetheless so it's it's an example of how close it had become and i think inevitably that order was going to fade with time as poland began to be associated in the minds of america's allies with america's with as an american alliance ally that said the way the cia handled it and the black sites issue and the sort of the turn away we've had from poland was unnecessary. i think and that added fuel to this to this fire and really increased a lot of poland's doubts about about the alliance that said they have no place to go. so poland is now confronting this issue on its border with belarus. and of course poland reaches out of to the eu which is an important a hugely important partner for poland, but also directly to the united states as well. basically hoping to rely on american support as as this this crisis of belarus. hopefully doesn't inspire a lot of control. so that said while they feel burned in many ways they have no place else to go because they can't go back to moscow and they understand that being independent of the united states is a non-starter as well. well, they do have europe. they do i mean they it's an alternative to either moscow or the united states and watching them. i hadn't dealt directly with poland for many years, but trying to keep up with the events. it seems to me that in the first decade of the millennium. i don't know the odd odds after 9/11. the pools under president questions really did try to develop a special relationship sort of a mini version. of the traditional relationship with the british which phrase and comes back together and persists and sort of ragtag form over the years and it seemed to me that the polls were being over ambitious. i mean not just because sulek had warned them. but because as rod extra korsky said they are enthusiastic about their alliances. you quote that in the book and maybe a little too enthusiastic. i mean to the point of irreal the sort of unreal expectations of of a stable geopolitical alliance with the united states, which would protect them not just against the russians, but maybe also against the europeans. i mean they seem to be waiting through that quagmire now he even as they want to be the shield of europe against the east and the biola russian crisis. does that plausible to you? yeah it i think you're absolutely right that question parsley because clogeneschi interestingly was an ex-communist. he's actually the first ex-communist president to be directly elected. since the 1989 changes in the fall of the berlin wall and as an ex-common is he said he said he told me this he felt under even more pressure to show that he was pro-american then somebody's would of if they had come from a solidarity background where their pro-americanist was basically simply assumed. and i think the americans used that as a lever to get him to do things that perhaps a solidarity leader if he'd been president to poland might have been somewhat reluctant to do such as opening the black sites where torture could could be carried out on polar soil. of course the senator so sorry, let me but after he left power and the administration of donald tusk take takes takes takes control. he was a prime minister poland does begin to pivot and begin to focus more energy and effort on its relationship with europe then they do on the united states because they were burned that said on the intelligence area. the polls can continue to go full. head in helping and trying to be a good partner with the united states. of course begin to run on two tracks if you will well and let me just say tom that the pro us sentiment was also went well beyond just intelligence and political circles in poland, you know, there was a real strong pro american sentiment among the polish population and that too i think was bound over time to dissipate particularly with small slides like the failure to approve poland for the visa wave a waiver program, you know, which could have been done if someone at the state department had really pushed it, but but it never was until recently a few years ago. um, and so you know, there were small things the united states could have done that would have i think maintained that or that it enjoyed that simply weren't done and that's why i like she kowitzki's metaphor of the hippopotamus and everything, so please talk. yeah, well and i should say that the visa waiver part of the merit for finally getting that was a successor of mine victor ash who comes out of republican politics and managed to get it into the republican platform at a at a certain point and that carried it when the republicans came back to power, but john you have i think your polish sources may be better in some ways in your american sources. i mean that you have a really sort of a complete panoply of interviews on that side and maybe a little more reticence on the other side. but how do you why was it that? the americans in in the years 2000 after 9/11 the black site would be one example. i think there were probably others were were so just very debonair. i should put nonchalant about the way they treated the poles. i mean the it sounds the request even to have a black site in poland seems to me unwise you know is something that was not going to last it was going to damage an important relationship because it would surely come out. i mean what were people thinking in washington after 9/11 about the because the polls were also have had the southern sector of iraq. right. they were also in afghanistan. i mean they were doing lots of things with us, but beyond the intelligence relationship. so to hear the x agency guys tell the story and these two people who in some cases were no longer serving at the time or were just ending their careers because they have a sense that their predecessors in the sort of their successors in the cia. didn't understand the history of the two countries and how that intelligence bond had been formed. and they didn't understand a lot of the history the solidarity movement. they didn't understand a lot of poland's natural uncomfortableness with torture going on in polish soil because of the poland's experienced with the sb and and soviet domination and communist domination as well and nazi and and the nazis in yeah, exactly not even to mention the nazis and so that failure to kind of come to grips with polish history or even recognized that it had a very special history. set the foundation for some of the mistakes that were made and i think that that played an important role. i mean the assumption was that poland was as the director of climacy and operations for the cia put it america's 51st state, but that was just an assumption. there's no understanding of why. and i think that that set the scene for for real disappointment on both sides. i remember a fourth of july party that we held two little round. the politicians from the east of poland one of them told me to bend down who is here there to his mouth and and he whispered, you know, we can't say it, but we would like to be the 51st state, but and i i sent him down the percent them. there's two or they like like duck pins down the line but how do you think well? i mean, we're both following it now from afar. i think you have more recent contacts than i do. would you talk a little bit more about the the sort of the witch on against these people people who had that has been going on since for since 2005 and then since 2015. i think you mentioned that going after the pensions which is churlish and sort of awful. but if you could talk a little bit more about that and and then then ask why the current government is picking fights. know not just by going after the people that we worked with all those years but picking fights on on larger issues with the united states at a time when it's also fighting the eu. yes, i will do that. i i quickly john broden that a little to say what what was the reaction of us officials to the to the perennial embroilment of the intelligence services in us politics. so did they see that as leaving polish intelligence vulnerable to least with the sorts of reprisals that tom just mentioned? yeah. i mean there there were and talking with sikorsky but also other polish officials they were really in uncomfortable with the politicization of intelligence in this country. and they basically said this is something that should have that we should have had as a problem. not you and the fact that you have it as a problem makes us really, you know, makes our our view of the relationship going forward very problematic. and so tom do your question. i think that um, sorry, i sort of refreshed my memory. i just had a little crisis here with my video. so could you just repeat the question? well the question is i mean i asked you to expand a little on the witch hunt that's been all right. yeah. thank you going on 2005 and then 2015 and the question is the larger question of why the peace government the law and justice government? yeah. peace. let me just explain quickly top pieces the polish acronym for our lauren justice the ruling party in 2005 to 2007 and again since 2015 to this day, so it's not only going going after the people that we worked with. who are now in their 60s and 70s as you point out? i mean, they're harmless by any definition. but also it's picking fights with united states at the same time where it's in kind of an existential tension with the eu. and it ends up which sikorsky says with no friends at all. yeah, so, i think that the peace government law justice party in the early 2000s and then from 2015 on was led by people who were somewhat involved in the solidarity trade union push, but all sort of on the sidelines, but they always believed in this this sort of maximalist view of how poland should deal with the communists which is basically punishing them all removing them from society and starting poland at this mythical year zero with no communists all of them kind of punished forever for having collaborated with the communists and then marching forward with a clean poland. and so when they took power in 2015, they passed a law basically cutting the pensions of many of the foreign intelligence officers who had served under two basically below poverty level. so richard thomasewski the the gentleman who who met paulovich in lisbon is now living on 150 bucks a month. he's had to move out of his a apartment in gdansh with his wife and they've moved into a dormitory because they have no money on which to live and there's hundreds of in fact thousands of people like that former police detective homicide detectives maids who actually clean the floors in the sb the internal ministry of internal affairs, and these people are being punished by the current regime because the current regime has this belief that we need to expunge every last communist sort of cell from the body politic of the polish nation and some maximalist position and it's a position that didn't win out in 1989 and 1990. thanks to the kind of forward-thinking views of the polish. already government at a time, but also bolstered like i said by the united administration of george h.w. bush and people like ambassador simons and the cia as well. and why are they doing this? i mean there seems this it could be this sort of proto religious sense of their mission in poland and the same time they're doing this. they're also alienating to in many ways the eu as well, which is a huge donor to poland a billions of dollars of economic aid and to the very people who support the law justice party. so that's creating sort of bit of a contradiction in terms of how the long justice party is going to push forward and into the future that said because the polish economy is relatively healthy long. justice doesn't really lose. they don't really lose many elections and they've also succeeded in dominating the polish media as well. and so that makes it very difficult for a different voice to come up in polish politics to up to to oppose them now in big cities like warsaw and dance etc the sort of somewhat liberal view is is stronger, but in the rest of poland long justice remains, very influential and very prominent and very powerful. yeah, and generally i seems the first piece government what you know 2005 to 2007 was less radical than the current one and that may have something to do with lechinsky who who was president back in the at the same time that the first government was there headed by his twin brother yarislav. he was he died in an airplane crash in april 2010 and his brother his twin brother believes. i think wrongly that it was a russian plot a bedded by certain people within poland and so as a result when this new he's government took power into 2015 yarislovkin ski was of a much more vengeful nature i think than he had been during the first government and that undoubtly accounts partly for why some of surprises of being exact i think that's that's absolutely right. i agree with that. but i think there there be two other. to other elements to it first piece was in coalition in 2005. and so it made it harder to to be radical for those who wanted to be radical. i think the death of the brother is one element. another one is simply growing older because you get a mentality of this is our last chance to make things, right? and in polish politics, i've always felt i've served there in the 60s and 70s all so the disease of polish politics is moralism. i mean people people don't think politically that they the first solidarity government and the solidarity movement itself. it was an exception in polish history than that it did think politically partly because it's been a lot of time in the slammer. after martial law in 1981, but the default position in polish politics is extreme moralist. you know where you're looking for all or nothing you're looking for black and white you're looking for for purity. i have to say however that looking back on my time in the early nineties when poland was going through these transitions this transition. we thought the movement toward democracy and the free market and good neighborly relations. was the movement of history we thought it was probably going to last forever. so i think we we also had our own version of idealism at the time and that's one of the reasons. i think we're so disappointed and your book i think will embed that kind of disappointment in the way people think about poland. i hope people read it because i think you need to grapple with our version. of this is going to last forever as well. if i could john, let me just turn to a couple of questions from the audience and you feel free to chime in to tom is um first is why do you think it was the polish intelligence service and it's asians did such a good job. that is what how did they manage to impress the cia? and what was it specifically that they really they're tap real talents lie. so polls have always been really good spots. um, and as one senior state department official told me said if you're a country like poland and you don't have a good intelligence agency. you're probably going to cease to exist. i mean poland is flat and it's an invasion route. it's always been an invasion route for cavalry and for tanks and i think that the polls realize that they needed specifically starting in the 1920s, but even before that but starting in 1920s, they focused significant resources to creating good a good intelligence service. and in 1920s the soviet union invaded poland as part of lennon's idea to export his revolution to the rest of welcoming europe. and the polish army beat back the soviet red army. thanks to the breaking of the soviet codes by polish intelligence officers. polls were involved in cracking the enigma code. they actually created one of the first two prototypes of the bigma machine the nazi codes which they gave to the british that that ultimately helped the british crack the codes and so this is a tradition that that goes back well before communism and then of course in the communist era the polls were considered by the cia to be a significant opponent their focus was on industrial espionage, but they offer they also got involved. thanks to marion zahorski with significant military espionage as well. and so we knew they were good at this because they had to be a country like poland as the state department guy said would cease to exist without good spies their particular their focus on actually they had two focuses one because their math is very strong. there were very good at signals intelligence. yeah, so the nsa actually has a very close relationship with poland on that front but on the civilian side, they're human intelligence their whole case officer there kind of philosophy is very good. they're very good at cultivating sources and around the world poland and you could clearly see how they the america looked at americans never looked at polls as spies. we looked at so as enemies. we looked at soviets the soviets's enemies. we clearly looked at the bulgarians his enemies, but the polls could pass through american society. in fact, they could pass through many societies kind of unnoticed. if that ability really helped them in terms of human intelligence and human collection information collection. so that's kind of a sort of a potted history of the polish spy services and why the cia use them so so in so many places around the world okay, next question. let me say has um has the disillusion that set in caused polish officials to reconsider their relationship with nato not to leave nato but to seek a different kind of alignment with it. well during the trump administration. there was this flirtation between trump and the polls and trump like to cultivate the relationship with poland is a lever in a way to use against europe right when he withdrew military for american military from germany. he actually wanted to send them to poland as a way to sort of insult angular merkel. he floated the idea of a just a bilateral relationship between poland in america and idea that was encouraged by the by the polish government that long justice government at the time the polls even floated the idea of turning a naming an american and military establishment in poland fort trump. and and so this type of and and so there was that floatation at the same time though the professionals involved in the military relationship both on the us side and the poland so i'm talking within the polish military have concluded that the only way to actually have a strong relationship with the united states is to embed that relationship in nato. clearly. that's what the biden administration thinks and so if we don't have a revontious revolution in this country, my sense is that we're going to kind of stay in nato that said, you know the order for the the passionate relationship with america is cooled the challenge for long justice though as thomas ambassador simons has pointed out is the polls can't alienate everybody and that's what they seem to be in the process of doing hopefully if there's a civil rights. there's a silver line. excuse me. except you so bad urban and okay. yeah, hopefully if there's a silver lining to this crisis in belarus, it will bring poland back into a more rational view of where it's security interests really live. they can't alienate everybody because then they will be alone. in that sense the you know, that's quite different from hungary where uban has saw the very you kind of alarmingly close relationship with putin very strange policy for someone who was once a fiery anti-communist, but in any case, okay, let me turn into mark mark, yes, please. come please. yeah, there's also an idea floating around. i don't probably won't go any where in poland of being the spark plug of a coalition of small countries between the baltic and the black sea? and his rod extrikorsky points out that was tried once before in 1939. but that was that that was colonel colonel beck's approached to things and look where it got them. anyway, mark. yeah atlantic about two kid proposed that same thing in the early 1990s and it went nowhere, so i'm not sure that you know that i mean, i think it's kind of a figment of someone's imagination now, but i'm so next question would be any evidence for the suspicion of assassination. i assume that this is referring to lechinsky. um, please if i'll be glad to address it, but i'm there isn't there the overwhelming evidence is that it was plane crash brought on through pilot error unconnected with the russian government the current government in poland, especially yaris of kachinski will never believe that however, and will insist that it was a russian plot and that there were people inside poland or complicit in it. possibly including donald two's so it's it's really a situation in which you one side believes what it believes. low amount of evidence will ever change that particular version of what they think. happened in any please comment below either of you. no, i completely agree. it's sort of the polish version of stop the steal. i mean, it's very similar mindset. yeah, well and i think there is also a difference in hungary because in with hungary because poland has a real opposition. i mean two's goes back in warsaw as someone who can. bring together some kind of effective opposition. i think orban has really almost gotten rid of his opposition in hungary. so i think poland has a a more hopeful political system and political situation. i mean the peace government is now a minority government. and i don't know when the next election is, but i think there's a chance that just is 2005 led to 2007. the 2015 can lead to a different result. let me ask if i could john if you could comment a bit. you have some very interesting explanations of the pardon of richard kuklinski and if you could say a bit more about that for let me just fill in quickly the background rishi ku klinski was an invaluable spy for the cia on the polish general staff in the 1970s and was eventually exfiltrated in november 1981 when it was the polish counterintelligence and discovered that in fact, it was a spy within the the you had very high levels and so he from that point on lived in the united states, but in the 1990s, he was in mid 1990s he was able to return to poland for the first time, but he was still officially not that fully fully absolved of the supposed crime of trees into the country and espionage. so if you could comment on that because you fill in i think very in a very interesting way some of the way the eventual full pardon was granted. well from the it was very interesting because in within the cia had enormous amount of loyalty to kuklinsky for the risks, he took to provide the united states with just firsthand. absolutely extraordinarily intelligence. not simply about what was happening inside warsaw, but what was happening inside the warsaw pact general command? so kuklinsky is generally recognized as one of the great if not the greatest asset that the united states ever had in all of the kind of former under under, you know soviet control. and so as the poland begins to move towards pushing for nato extension. there's significant lobbying done within the cia for the for the united states government to really make the exoneration of kuklinsky in poland. almost a part of poland's nato transition. now, it happens after the polls formally enter nato but that but but while poland was was applying for nato if you will those years the cia and the us administrations in this case the clinton administration were basically arguing with the polls that you have to exonerate this guy and it's important for you to recognize his service. now there was significant pushback in poland against this specifically among old military officers who'd served as communist officers and the most prominent of them would be what jk r rosalski who was kind of the sunglassed poster boy of you know late soviet era communism in the 1980s and he was are against this and his argument was if this guy is a hero, what does that make us and the eurozelski liked to portray his activities in poland in the 1980s with instituting martial law in 1981 as a way to as basically a patriotic activity that stopped the soviet union from invading poland like the soviets had and in prague in 1968 or hungary in 1956. and so this whole debate was was fascinating because the cia really gets involved in pushing for conclusives and exoneration and for pushing poland to kind of define in a different way what it meant to be a patriotic poll. was it realizelsky? who said i defended poland against the soviets. yeah. i had to institute martial law, but that protected poland against the broader threat of russian and intervention, or was it kuklinski who was working from the american secretly from the 1970s on and this whole debate was fascinating because the cia was deeply involved in what it really meant to be a poll. which when you flash forward to today, the cia is not unfolded anything. it just wants to do joint operations with the polls and it doesn't really care. who's up or who's down who's in power or who's not? and i think that that kind of movement of the cia and the united states government to disengage in a way from poland is a good thing if you think of we shouldn't be involving ourselves in the internal affairs of other countries, but it's also somewhat interesting because in that we no longer seem to care back to ambassador simon's points how the polish government comports itself in terms of you know, prosecuting the people who created an alliance with america and the first place or lots of violations of judicial precedent and its courts etc going forward. i think kuklinsky's case was was a fascinating one showing how deep really deep are engagement in the whole polish debate about what it meant to be a poll was at the time. i would just add that's big enough, virginia was was also heavily involved in that and he was a democrat all those some people doubt that but and it was the clinton administration. so he was quite a champion. yeah of the ku klinski exoneration effort. i know mark has very strong views about garazalski as a hero, so maybe he should say something about well, i mean, i i think the fullest x explication in my views on that. it was in just belita the polish daily newspaper about 10 years ago, and i was in response to an article or interview. i think that in which yariselsky lashed into me it because i had criticized the notion that he was a hero and had acted heroically on the other hand. i don't see him. he's a he was a complicated figure in that it is true. he was under excruciating soviet pressure during the crisis, and he could never be sure that the soviet union wouldn't debate. in fact, they tried to make him deliberately tried to make him think they would invade i'm not even convinced that they wouldn't have if somehow martial law had failed and if civil war had broken poland in december 1981, so but regardless though he unlike his predecessor stanislav kanya who had been the head of the polish communist party until october 1981 that yarizelski was brought in because it was known that he would impose martial law and in fact he did. um, so he basically suppressed his his the democratic in this country on behalf of the soviet union. so for him, ultimately loyalties to the soviet union took priority over his loyalty poland he was loyal to poland. there's no question, but priority what for him was loyalty to the soviet. that that may be unkind but i you know his self-serving rationalizations of his actions really irritated me a time because yeah that taste to make it's just that he really exaggerated. i have a more benign you and more importantly so did my president george h.w. bush was actually my fond of yard sale that he'd played a constructive role in convincing yariselski to stay on. in 1989 and in order to put a sort of an umbrella over the transition to a solidarity government given the fact that as much ravich and and naimski and all those fine folks. remember the the power ministries still full of communists. yeah, and so there was irrational. yeah, john discussed is you rightly point out time in john does cover that in his book. so for people who read the book i hope people will go out and buy the book but the to understand that this was a transitional period for poland and blacks and whites, you know, sort of the opposites were not always easy to discern there was a lot of gray during that transition and it's not you know, it's it's a lot of ambiguity in that intelligence relationship was bound to arise because the cia was dealing with many people who had been loyal to communism and to it been loyal to the soviet union. he was also true transitional period for us, you know the polls weren't the only ones in transition. i mean, we had a we had a wide open new world also and yeah, and ask you for the cia there were some moments that were bizarre to say the least. for example, john paulovich was the american cia officer of polis extraction from eastern, pennsylvania. anthracite mine country. he had a situation where he was known in the agency as mr. poland and actually over the course of his career he as a case officer. he managed 18 polish agents polish assets in in poland, which is extraordinary considering some case officers of the cia or have quite successful careers managing just one so palavitz had 18, and so he knew a lot of people in the polls government, but but also in the intelligence services as his assets and he found he finds himself as poland transitions into this new kind of democratic polish officials whom he who used to work for him as spies now liaising with him as representative of the polish government. new intimate details of these people's lives. he was involved in helping that their kids get education etc, but he couldn't show it because these guys who had been spies for america were suddenly now representing the republic of poland. and so that kind of curious hat thing was happening on a routine basis where halibutch was getting my god the world is changing too fast, you know, i can't reveal that. i know these people because that would out them as having been spies for the united states. so there's another question which does poland have strong intelligence ties to other countries. for example, germany uk etc along with the united states. yes, they conducted in the 1990s operations with mi6 because poland had traditionally during communist times been in a place that exported weapons to terrorist organizations such as the ira in this case mi6 and the polls work together to export weapons to the ulster volunteer force, which was a protestant radical group in northern ireland that the weapons that were then captured by the brits and some ulcer volunteer force officials were rolled up the polls had very close relations with the israelis because the polls in 1990 1991 had an operation to move soviet -- from the soviet union to real and that needed a lot of security and the polls have had grown their relationship with the germans as well. and but particularly once germany was brought into nato the polls wanted to see that happen first, and then they opened really good relationship with the bnd the german forces as well. um, let me ask someone as commented did did poland at times feel or did polls feel insulted that they were had to adopt a subservient posture within nato that is that they were too deferential to the large countries like the united states so they were never shy about expressing their opinion and victor ash the the ambassador one of tom's successors pointed out in a wikileaks cable. he said the polls are never shy about expressing their opinions. they're actually really quite boisterous about standing up for themselves, and i think tom can probably attest to that as well and it's interesting. we've talked a little bit about poems involvement in the invasion of iraq and the polls were giving actually a sector of iraq to manage but and when the polls it to the united states to discuss what the post iraq government would look like they were gobsmacked at the american plan to de-bathifies all of iraq and the argument made by jersey cosminski. who was the long-term polish ambassador united states was what are you doing in iraq? you are on the side and in our country if arguing to maintain the communist structures as a transition to a new poland not to fire all the communists to give them a stake in the the modern poland. how could you be doing the exact same thing the exact opposite of what you did in my country so successfully what you advocated in our country so successfully. in iraq, you're going to have a civil war on your hands and lo and behold they did. they tied you i mean the polls we had relationships of fragments. i mean where the polls really, you know, they were never subservient. i think they were a little more tentative in my time, which was there very early time. about where things were going and how to deal with us then they became in victor ash's time. i mean i so i i think there were a little little more careful about uh cheesing a saw, but they were clear about what what they wanted and and what they needed i so i they may have felt a bash mark, but don't forget that they were that wasn't my term tom. that was the questioner's term. so i was just losing no. no, but they were coming out of 40 years of servants. so, you know and they had to look they had to learn to be cheeky again, and of course they're they're specializing in it now, but and when you were a when you were posted in poland and earlier decades tom, did you find and you met ordinary polls say did you find that kind of pro us sentiment when they found out that you were us official? oh, and absolutely i mean at a popular level, you know, america is his friends of poland and and had been and that's kept up by family ties because of the our their nine million americans i think in the 80s census who identified themselves as of polish extraction. i mean that has never translated into political power block political power in american politics, but it does translate into a consciousness of a relationship with america and americans that's positive throughout so it everybody was friendly. i mean you did hear about yalta. but but the the basic affection for america and americans was was i think probably constant throughout the differences were the freedom to express it or not. and when i was ambassador there that there was full freedom to express it. in fact, i had to go around the country. uh, there's a polish proverb about the rich uncle from america. the poll who goes to america and works in a minor of meat packing plant and comes back and lives like a little king in his village on his social security checks. we we traveled around the country handing out these social security checks, but i because the valanca was still pressing for a marshall plan when i was there he was president used to a my first meeting with him. he reamed me out on on open television about doing more for poland after what they'd done for the world not just sat there and took it we didn't tell the cameras left and said, you know, you really shouldn't talk to an american ambassador like that and and he never did again. know but he was still clear that he thought should do more. so i i would go around saying there is no rich uncle from america. you know, you're you're reform program is yours you own it. you're going to suffer under it and you're going to benefit from it, and we're going to be alongside, but it's not our program. you're not doing it for us. and then later on it was very different in russia because the russians really did feel that they were doing stuff for us and that they owed us for that the polls always on their own program. and i think that's one of the reasons they have they they're the only country during the 2007 and 8 economic crisis to continue to have a growth rate in europe. i mean they've had good policy and it's been there. um one thing i definitely want to have you do john this will bring in your father is the choice of the title for the book, but before i do that if you get tom just brought up about left on so if you could comment about the stance he took in in the mid 1990s after he had lost after alexander question. yeah, the ski had been elected president, and i'm here seemed to be a a period there where valencia was trying to stage something like what donald trump did to place yeah, so valenza didn't take when the election campaign happens in in the mid-90s and for once it's being challenged by this young media genic ex-comed his name alexander kazeski. he doesn't really take him seriously in the beginning and of course jessica kind of packaged himself not as an ex-commist, but as a member of new poland the sort of the outward looking westernizing new poland. and then there one debate. i think there was only one debate classes just shellacs valensa valence's mumbles. he gets caught on his words and because he is like basically i'm modern poland and you are a great revolutionary and we thank you for your service, but go back to advanced if you will and so because let's keep beats him in after a runoff. he beats him in the election and he wins the presidency and he's yet to be sworn into office and so once it kind of has a desire to sort of throw a spanner in the works. and he reaches out to his solidarity era minister of interior followed by anita andre miltonovski who was actually seminal character in forging the alliance the intelligence alliance with the united states and basically asking sonoski if they have any dirt on the x communists and miltonofski then tasks marion's zaharski again an agent who was operating in los angeles was trying to find proof that that the communists were somehow still in bed with the russians and they conduct this investigation of the polish of the communists. the the ex-common is prime minister at the time yosophole lexi and they believed that they've collect evidence that he was actually a source for the kgb and miltonovski makes these allegations public in in the sem and accuses the prime minister of being a soviet spot more russian spy, but the allegations really don't stick and it ends up sort of embarrassing for once. it makes him look like actually a sore loser. it prompts really retires soon after that and the allegations don't stick other than the fact that alexa himself has to leave the scene. um, generally speaking in poland i get the sense among talking to the intelligence professionals that alexa was an incredibly vibrant very talkative very open. schmoozer who had friends everywhere who drank with everyone but wasn't actually a soviet or russian asset at all and the allegations really didn't stick in the end and they kind of solely the last months of valencia's campaign later on once his career and later on, of course, the current government now has been focused on trying to expose the fact that valenca had collaborated with the ssb with the so with the communist back and in the early 70s and the middle 70s as well. so valencia's reputation in poland is taking a significant hit both from the left if you will but also from the right. yeah this tragic for a guy who was so critical to poland's transition. exactly. i mean not the evidence for his collaboration in the 70s is very strong. so unfortunately by having denied it he put himself into an untenable situation because if he just acknowledged it and had said, you know, i did my i was under great pressure, and i did my best to limit what i turned over. he probably would have been forgiven but by digging in his heels and denying it, i think he really heard himself a lot. um, so the it's it's very is you say, it's very unfair that it's tarnished his whole reputation and poland because you know, he deserves great credit for his role and in 19881 and in after throughout the 1980s and then also during the round table as well, but i mean, yeah the wences great valencia's great characteristic because also his greatest flaws. this is sort of custodiness and it makes it difficult for somebody like him to to compromise. and also i should have one thing he wasn't a great president. you know, he his presidency was you know, it wasn't exactly something to be proud of so, i think that also contributed. yeah the word shambolic comes to mind. well, i think that that certainly true in terms of accomplishment, but he did take care of the levanoga. i mean he said the transition has to go on on two legs right leg and a left leg yeah, and i think his he provided the cover for giving x communists a stake in the new system. yeah, so that they weren't causing the kind of trouble that the much atevich and naimski assumed they were or would so let me if i could john have you explain the title the the subtitles very, you know, very straightforward the title itself from warsaw with love. i would like you to explain that. i know your father plays a role. so please so my my dad my late dad actually sadly, but he had a good life. he made it to 93 was and i were to our fans of james bond. and so this is a complete rip-off if you will of the title of a one of bonds better movies from russia with love, and i wanted to express some of what i believe to be. it's not the the one of the kernels in the relationship back to back to tom's point and one of the points i make in the book is it there was something between poland and america that went beyond national interest if you will, you know, people have said that we know we don't have friends. we just have interests but with paul in the united states, there was something in the relationship that went beyond that. um, the polls have a long tradition of supporting the united states the longest serving officer in the continental. army was a poll another poll polish officer arguably saved the life of george, washington. the 13th of woodrow wilson's 14 points was an integral sovereign poland with access to the sea. so this is a relationship that goes back literally centuries, and i wanted to give a flavor of that and i also was fighting against an alternative title, which was a warsaw pact. and always play always somebody who who knew and was familiar with eastern european, but understand kind of the joke there. whereas i think the number of people who have watched james bond movies versus the number of people who are familiar with eastern european. i think there's more of them more of the bondies and so we went with this and my dad also liked this a lot better. so there you have it good for you. very good. well, i we're out of time. so let me thank both speakers very much john pomfret washington formerly of the washington post and author of this book and ambassador, thomas simons who is now at harvard university alumnus of harvard as well and and the expert on poland who has written about poland. so the two of you together, i think have done a great job of presenting this important book. i hope people will go out and buy it and they really makes a great read so should please talk. okay great. great to be with you. thank you, mark. thank you, tom, and thanks to the center. thank you. i'll look now at the best-selling nonfiction books according to harvard bookstore in cambridge, massachusetts topping. the list is university of houston professor bernay brown's atlas of the heart about making meaningful human connections followed by michelle zahner's memoir crying in h mart. after that is my body model and actress emily ratajkowski's thoughts on feminism and beauty. and then daniel kahneman olivier, siboney and cass sunstein weigh in on why people make bad decisions in their book noise. and wrapping up our look at harvard book stores best selling nonfiction books his pulitzer prize-winning reporter and creator of the 1619 project nicole hannah jones and her look at american history slavery and its legacy and present day america. most of these authors have appeared on book tv and you can watch their programs any at book tv.org. during a recent virtual event hosted by the commonwealth club of california, miami herald investigative journalist. julie k brown discussed her coverage of the jeffrey epstein story. just seen had a whole ecosystem around him of people that helped him. i mean, he was a guy that really didn't even tie his own shoelaces. he had, you know, he had somebody to do everything for him. and so these people that were part of his, you know, his his life well or this this system that he had built were, you know involved everyone from the butler who answered the door with where these girls were to his chef who was in the kitchen who you know made them snacks to the women, of course, he had other young women who arranged his schedule to the you know, the the housekeepers who cleaned up after you know, he did these incidents and pilots who flew the jets, you know where he had two private planes the driver. he had a he had drivers, you know that they picked up the girls. so it was a whole ecosystem around him of to watch the rest of this program visit book tv.org and use the search box to look for julie k brown or the title of her book perversion of justice. c-span offers a variety of podcasts that have something for every listener weekdays washington today gives you the latest from the nation's capital and every week book notes plus has in-depth interviews with writers about their latest works while the weekly uses audio from our immense archive to look at how issues of the day developed over years and our occasional series talking with features extensive conversations with historians about their lives and work many of our television programs are also available as podcasts. you can find them all on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. here's a look at some publishing industry news former trump campaign chairman. paul manafort is writing a book that contests the 2019 financial fraud charges filed against him by the federal government. the book political prisoner will be published by skyhorse this summer mr. manafort was sentenced to more than seven years in prison, but was pardoned by president trump in 2020. also in the news the fbi arrested a 29 year old man accused of operating a fishing scam that secured unpublished manuscripts by bestselling and first-time authors phillipo bernadini who was employed by simon and schuster uk allegedly impersonated publishing executives and used fraudulent email addresses to obtain the documents. the case is puzzled to publishing world because none of the stolen manuscripts ever resurfaced and no ransoms were demanded simon and schuster is not named in the indictment and has placed mr. bernardini under suspension pending further information. in other news recent gallup poll found that 27% of americans read more than 10 books last year and 8% drop from 2016 the 17% that did not read any books is on par with surveys from prior years. and according to npd book scan print book sales were up close to 9% in 2021 over the previous year with 825 million books sold adult non-fiction sales rose 4% this was a second consecutive year of sales growth following an 8% jump in 2020 book tv will continue to bring you new programs and publishing news and you can also watch all o

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