Rose we continue with Michael Korda, former editorinchief of simon shuster. His latest book is called alone britain, churchill, and dunkirk defeat into victory. Thats where the title comes from, its necessary for years, its necessary alone. And alone is precisely the point. The british got the army off but as churchill said, we got the men but they have to leave their luggage. They got off, most without their rifles because they were ordered to throw them overboard by the naval officers and most without the boots, but we got off 2,000 men of the british core of the army without which we could defend ourselves. We could not have resisted the germans had they invaded without them. Rose continue with nancy koehn, historian at the Harvard Business school, her latest book is called forged in crisis the power of courageous leadership in turbulent times. I was in the midst of a great crises when i started on lincoln. I got ill, had cancer a couple of times, my husband walked out on me, my father dropped dead, so partly i was looking at lincoln to help me. It took me a while to get back on my, so i didnt do a lot of work. And i lot lost in blinken and decided that the world did not need another book on link everyone and then went searching for another stories. And in each of these stories is a different kind of animal. So to do this right and discover what was takes a while. Rose rucker, korda and koehn when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin this evening with politics. Robert muellers investigation into potential collusion. After months of projecting calm and confidence muellers probe could would not affect the president , there is growing concern within the oval office. The unease heightened yesterday afternoon when it was revealed George Papadopolous, an unpaid Foreign Policy advisor on the Trump Campaign pleaded guilty to making false statements about his effort to forge a relationship between candidate trump and vladimir putin. Followed indictments of Paul Manafort and rick gates. Michael korda cowrote todays article for the lead paper, entitled upstairs at home with the tv on, trump fumes over russian indictments. Pleased to have phil rucker back on the program. These are reports of the white house yesterday. He was up reading your presentation of the indictments coming down. Describe for the viewers what this day was like for president trump. Well, as you said, charlie, the day began early in the morning. The president knew, like all of us, that there was some likelihood, some strong likelihood that the first indictments related to the muellerrussia probe would come down monday morning. So the president turned on the tv and sort of stayed tuned. He apparently, according to sources, did not have any inside information about what was happening. He was waiting to see what would happen with all of us and got increasingly agitated and frustrated with what he was seeing. He did not like the fact Paul Manafort and rick gates were being so closely identified in the media as Trump Campaign officials, even though the indictments spelled out alleged misdeeds that occurred before they were working for trumps campaign. Trump was on the phone, calling his lawyers repeatedly, sort of trying to understand the legal analysis here, what was at stake, what kind of exposure he miffed, listening attendantively to the Television Commentary on cable news as he is want to do. Then he was late getting to work. He didnt show up in the oval office till well past the allotted time when his staff expected him and it became the subject of some discussion among the staffers in the west wing. Rose is the white house alarmed about this . Alarmed is a strong word for the entire white house. I can tell you some people are quite concerned about this, in part because they dont know where mueller is going to go next. Its not clear. The special counsel has not really revealed very many clues here. You know, clearly, the indictments of manafort and gates came. Papadopoulos is a figure nobody in the administration expected to come up in the separate indictment monday and theyre not sure whats going to happen next. There is a lot of concern and general flynn. Rose do we know there are any other closed indictments that have not been opened . Not that we know of. There may be but not that were able to report or know about. Rose and when you look at yesterday, the white house is saying this is about ten years ago, this had nothing to do with us. Yeah. Rose is that simply putting on a good game face . It is. Its one thing for them to say that the manafort and gates indictment had nothing to do with the campaign because, in fact, they spelled out sort of years of International Business that these two men did advising different foreign governments and gosh politicians and Political Parties over the years. That predated the Trump Campaign. But the papadopoulos indictment, George Papadopolous, that is directly pertaining to the campaign. Now, the white house line from Sarah Huckabee sanders, the press secretary, has been, look, this young man was basically a volunteer Foreign Policy advisor. He had only one meeting with the president , he was not a senior figure on this campaign, and any activities that he might have done to try to broker contact or a channel with the russians, he did on his own, he did not do that as an official on behalf of the campaign, but you have to look back at the history. It was here at the Washington Post in 2016 where then candidate donald trump revealed George Papadopolous on a list of advisors for his Foreign Policy team and, during that same trip to washington, trump was actually photographed in a campaign, but he certainly was involved in the campaign and a Foreign Policy advisor by the candidates own announcement. Rose well, the other question that comes up frequently, other than about flynn and where is the case about Michael Flynn stand, it is this notion of whether this will become so tough for the white house that they will reconsider firing bob mueller. Yeah, thats an interesting notion. Ive not heard white house officials speculate about that, at least not in our conversations with me, but it certainly is something to think about. I know theres a great deal of concern not only in the white house but around the white house and sort of the broader trump political orbit about flynn. There was a sense of relief, frankly, monday that the indictments were for manafort and nonflynn because there was a feeling indicting flynn would be a much more heavier political blow for the president because flynn actually made it into is it government and served in the government at a very high level if only that first month. Rose and he was with trump a lot. Thats correct, and at his side throughout everything from debate prep to rallies to the convention to the transition planning. General flynn was a key figure on the president ial transition, helping advise the president on who to hire for a number of senior roles. Rose what do we know about general kelly in the white house yesterday . I can tell you general kelly is trying to keep things running when it comes to everything not pertaining to russia so thats th the tax cut agenda, preparing for a highstakes, 12day trip to asia, the president will be leaving friday on that trip and kelly is preoccupied with that. He also did an interview with fox news channels laura laura m and stumbled into comments about the civil war. Rose are we going to have the people at the white house closing the wagons in a circle, understanding this is now warfare . Based on my reporting today, i can tell you there is actually some disagreement within the president s broader political circle. Some figures including steve bannon, the former chief white house strategist, have been privately urging trump to take a much more combative approach with mueller to try to discredit the special counsel, to try to point out that a number of lawyers and investigators working with mueller have contributed to democrats in the past and are, you know, by the white houses account partisan figures, to just do everything they can to muddy the waters here, and what the president has been doing so far at the urging of his lawyers is to actually cooperate with mueller to try not to provoke him or be too antagonistic publicly but to provide the documents when hes asked and kind of do what he needs to do with the expectation or hope, at least, that this investigation comes to a close pretty soon. But there are no indications that this investigation is going to be over anytime soon. By all accounts, mueller seems to be just getting started. Rose ty cobb seems to be arguing, whenever he makes a statement, were cooperating in full with the committee, we want to help them reach a rapid conclusion. Thats right, and i think they are cooperating in full, certainly with the document production. They are hopeful that there will be a rapid conclusion and, in fact, Sarah Sanders at the White House Press briefing podium repeatedly over the last few weeks said this white house expects the investigation to be over soon because they dont believe there is any collusion, but there is no indication from mueller and his team and the investigators that they are on that same time frame and this very well may stretch well into 2018, which i think will be a real headache for the white house. Rose the general consensus is, correct me if im wrong, so far, no ones seen hard evidence of collusion . Thats right. Theres a lot of smoke. There are a lot of different moments that we know mueller is investigating including that meeting at trump tower in the summer of 2016 that donald trump, jr. And Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were a part of with the russian lawyer. But there does not appear, as far as we know, publicly, to be any direct evidence of collusion, but tha that does tht isnt to say it doesnt exist. Rose whats the biggest question for you . Frankly, what mueller knows and what does he have and if there is any harder evidence of collusion. I mean, its been very difficult to trace muellers steps throughout this whole process. Weve talked a lot about the russia probe and there have been a ton of news reports about the russia probe thanks in part to the great investigative reporting thats been going on, but we have really no visibility into what the mueller team is finding, and they have access to documents that we as journalists cannot see and dont have access to. So were trying to piece together the puzzle without knowing all the pieces mueller has, and mueller has been very discreet in terms of not signaling anything publicly. Hes done no interviews, no public comments, and were sitting here trying to basically read the tea leaves and report facts as we learn them and piece it all together in public. Rose we assume hes seen the income tax returns, dont we . I think thats a fair assumption. I dont actually know whether he has or not. Rose philip, thank you so much. Philip rucker of the Washington Post. Back in a moment, stay with us. Rose Michael Korda is here. He was the editor in sheaf for sinal shuster for over 40 years. Political author and historian. His latest book is called alone britain, churchill, and dunkirk defeat into victory. It is both a history of the evacuation of dunkirk in may 1940 and also a memoir of his familys experience in wartime london. Pleased to have Michael Korda back at this table. Welcome. Delighted to be back is that you are looking fine, my friend. Thank you. Rose my great grief and sympathy over the loss of thank you so much. Rose who suggested this book . Barbara suggested this book after i wrote a biography of robert e. Lee, a very long biography, she asked me if i would consider not writing another long biography. I said, what would i do instead . She said why dont you write a short book about something you know . Its three or four years saying you will never guess what i just read about t. Roberts or robert e. Lee and it gets boring after a year or two. I said, what . Do yodo you have any idea aboutt i should do . She said, dunkirk. I said, shes right. I had no idea at the time anybody was going to make a movie about dunkirk. Rose a movie you said good things about. I loved it. I think it is not only a good movie. I think its the best war movie youve ever seen. Rose best war movie. Absolutely. Rose not just about world war ii or dunkirk, the best war movie . Because its a new way of making war movies. Rose why . First of all, it doesnt have scenes in which you have a lot of generals sitting around a table explaining to the audience the germans are here or here. So it has no explanatory scenes. Secondly, you see everything through the eyes of just four people, and they never meet each other. Theres no connection between them. And you see whats happening through their eyes. So you see through the eyes of the fighter pilot, through the eyes of somebody on the sea, through the eyes of somebody on the beach, and thats a quite revolutionary way of making a war film. I have to say tha that that als exactly the opposite of this. I have to explain what led the british army to a beach in dunkirk in the last week in may and why they ended up there and how we got them off. So the film, which is wonderful, is really the last section of my book, and my book is an explanation of how it actually came to pass. Rose churchill, you have a quote from churchill speaking to the house of commons, june 4, 1940, on the completion of the evacuation of dunkirk, quote, i have myself full confidence we all do our duty, if nothing is neglected, we shall prove ourselves able to defend our island home. Ride out the storm of war and outlive the menace of tyranny if necessary, for years, if necessary, alone. Yes. Thats where the title comes from, if necessary, for years, if necessary, alone. And alone is precisely the point. The british got the army off but as churchill said, weve got the men but they have to leave their luggage. They got off most without rifles because they were ordered to throw them overboard by the naval officers and most of them without their boots. But we got off the 200,000man corps of the British Regular army without which we could not possibly have defended ourselves in 1940. They could be rearmed, they could be given new boots, but without them we could not possibly have resisted the germans, had they invaded. Rose whats the significance of it . Huge asking, i think huge significance, i think. First of all, had we not gotten the army off, i think churchills hold on the war cabinet and the house of commons and his own party, which was very weak then he had only been in office for the best part of two weeks might have faltered, might have slipped from his grasp. Rose his reign in part was built on hope. Halifax already opened discussions with the italian ambassador in london about the possibility of mussolini inquiring of hitler what the terms might be for peace. And there is actually, in the book, which is like the centerpiece of what i wanted to write about, there is a moment when halifax reveals to the war cabinet of nine people that he is talking to the italian ambassador about what the german terms would be for a british surrender. And churchill is dubious, is against it, but is not at that moment able to squash it. And he goes down to a meeting of the larger cabinet of 30 people and, in a room behind the house of commons, a small room, he stands on a desk and speaks to them and, at the end of it, he says, if our long island stories end, let it end with each of us lies on the floor choking on his own blood. And the entire cabinet applauds, claps him on the back, cheers him and, as hes returning to ten downing street from the house of commons after this, a naval officer, an aide, comes up to him to say that i believe 17,000 men have been removed from the beach on dunkirk that day. With these pieces of news, churchill goes back to the war cabinet and says to halifax that he must break off any negotiations with the italian ambassador, that we are never going to surrender, that to start or inquire about german terms is to end, as he put it, on a slippery slope. So it is the moment at which the decision is taken that whatever happens, britain will fight on. Rose well fight on the beaches and everywhere else. Everywhere. Rose i thought hi might say anyone who dare considers negotiating with the italians shall find themselves on the short end of a hangmans noose. He would have liked to have done that but he knew better than to go too far with his own war cabinet and halifax at the time. He sent halifax to washington the rest of the days of war as our ambassador in the days before air conditioning. Rose this is about dunkirk but also about churchill because you know this history and i also want to get to your own family. In your judgment, what was the genius of Winston Churchill . Was it brilliance . Was it rhetoric . Was it connecting dots . What was it . All of those things are, of course, important, but he had the one thing without which nothing great can be accomplished, which is courage, and thats the basic core of his beat, he was never afraid, even as a young man in cuba, in the 19th century, and the cubans were fighting. Churchill said, it is exhilarating to be shot at without result. Rose right. And although he had layers of phobias and problems beneath, but he had a fundamentally courageous outlook on life and on politics, without which nothing can be accomplished. Rose courageous and optimistic . Courage gives you optimism. Its difficult to be optimistic if youre not courageous. But i think courage is the distinct churchillian quality, an absolute lack of fear. I think second to that, he was wise. He understood absolutely that the channel is wider than it looks and the germans would