Transcripts For CSPAN QA 20160613

London daily mail. The skal of the married czar and his 16yearold mistress revealed in the raunchiest love letters ever written by a head of state. Simon i didnt actually write that. Thats the headline by the daily mail. But it is the most outrageous and most explicit correspondents ever written by a head of state. I have to say the correspondents is so outrageous that they added to the daily mail. They rang me up. They said were a tabloid newspaper. We cant print this stuff. Were a family newspaper. Who was the head of state . It was the czar Emperor Alexander the ii. The emperor who liberated the serbs the slaves of russia. And exactly at the same time 1861 as your president lincoln was about to liberate the slaves of america, the two men were in correspondents. And both of them were assist nated. So interesting relationship. Alexander ii was the sympathetic of all the romanovs of this book. And he also brought in jury trials and local electorate assemblies. He lays down the foundation for reform. He wanted to bring in a constitution which is the last proper chance to bring it in. But he was assassinated the day he was going to bring the constitution. As for the love life, thats another thing all together. Let me ask you first, what did you find the love letters . Simon theyre in the russian archive in moscow. These have never been worked on by my historians because they recently returned to the russian archives. When alexander ii was asays nated. His widow, his mistress, princess catia left to paris. She took 3,000 of outrageous letter. When it remained in private hands until 1998. And in 1998, the rothchild family bought these letters. Why . Because in 1945, the red army had captured when they took berlin and vienna but captured the archives and they took them back to moscow. And they wanted to swap tafpblet russians agreed. The arkives arent very interesting. But last week they got the letters. And theyre love letters between a 40somethingyearold emperor and his young schoolgirl, 18yearold mistress when they met and they started their affair. Their passionate, poignant, their theyre theyre increasingly political. And theres stuff in these letters that i didnt know were invented. I thought it was invented in the 21st century. But youll have to read them to know what im referring to. So this article doesnt have all the racy stuff in it . It doesnt have all the racy stuff in it because some of it is very racy even by the standards of 2016. How long was alexander ii the emperor . 1881. 1821 to he believed in reform. He showed real political skills. But he raised expectation for reform of all which he was not willing to fulfill. That caused a backlash that led to a terrorist movement demanding the destruction all together and they hunted him like an animal. He believed because his mistress was there on the first time of his assassination attempt he believes that she was his guardian angel. They had been together for all these years. E bomb was thrown at his carriage. He inspected the dead and wound. And his guards said please get back in the couch, please. He said no, i want to expect. Im an emperor and was one more terrorist, one more killer. And they threw the ball right at his feet and blew his legs to smithereens. He was taken back to winter pa lace. One of the people who saw him die was the little boy who became nicholas the second, his grand sofpblet in reading your book, i just kept asking how does this man remember all this . I probably could get here and find a statistics you wouldnt remember. What technique do you use in order to put all this together . I want you to eventually get into how many roman noves there were. Writing these books is a huge talent and its a nightmare for some reason i have a taste for doing these. Romanov princess. And it governments so many years. You can imagine every single mon narc this book have their children, their wives, their mistresses, their theyre great poets and composers and all of this has to be mastered so. Writing these books is a heal of a mental challenge. I immerse myself in the subject for the few years. I only read about this subject. Obviously afterwards we cant wood o read some james l. Thriller. When i just work my way from the beginning, rain by rain and when each we one i lead all the books on the subject first of all. I get all of the books and journals. And then ultimately i go to russian and walk around the pa lances, look at the archives and then when i feel ive got enough, i move on the the next. To the next monarch. You were here last in 20044 and we also did an interview peter slim did in london. I want to put up on the screen. The number of Nonfiction Books youve written. So that the audience can know the kind of thing ive been involved in. We go back to the first one in 2001. Stallen the coy of the czar which we talked about in three. 200. , the biography in you say ro mon ofs. You say romanos. The rush asses say romano. But we english say romanov. It doesnt matter. Ly you mentioned the lost child. This is a 2008 vanity fair article that undoubtedly you remember in which a friend of yours the honorable hannah roth child, who is she. Shes a novelist and writer. Hes head of the british museum. The very important woman in england and shes a daughter of rob roth dws child. Heres the quote. Hes the best lunch kate in london. And across all sections of society. Did you find that to be a compliment. I dont know. What did you think. Im not sure you found that as a compliment. Are you a gossip . I think all Human Affairs all human business, all politics is about human relationships. You can call that gossip, if youd like. On the worlds face. But if you look at these books for example, in all of them. There are sud dis and how power itself affect on penalty on power. Even if you are talking about an emperial court with chamberlains and ladies in waiting or whether youre talk about the office of the president of the united states. So the elected officials. And it emanates from the person who has been elected who has the power. And im a student of the way that works. And im fascinating by the way that happens. So im hoping that this book you can read it as as entertainment during a lot of shocking murders and the rest. You can look at it about how it works together. Its the study of human nature and power. Really, it showed to i just gave you one example. In 1981, when it was murdered. When he was this fascinated form reallyened in russia 18 1917. In rush yap history. Look at trump. Look at, you know, look at the clintons. Again and again, personalities is decisive in power and in politics. And so my books concentrate on the personal. Whos your favorite personality . The one that you had the most fun researching . Well, its just totally compelling. You know, hes a miss under character. I wanted to look at him have in a very similar sense. When was the emperor. Emperor 1975. Hes been 1962 if he was a child. Breath taking wezz these people. You look at two of the greatest men in this book. Peter the great and the prince who was captain the great east market r part. Pay it through the most talented individuals in the whole row mon of story. Both of them died at 52. Thats a pretty terribling statistics. Because think of all they achieved and they died 552. Oth of them utterly exhausted. Lets start. He was called the gray because he achieve sod. He modernized russian. He. He brought him more than technology, western experts. Western forms of government. He mobilized it in hopes that hey could defeat sweden. A new norton catch tall. He conquered the baltic and he created the boltic fleet, the boltic flee which made russia. He did all of this really because. Despite all the National Reasons and the wonderful swedish methods. At court. And the modern artistry he develops for the military. Despite all of this, more than stuff. As always basically an wherever he said was the government. If he slept, the government slept. When he was drunk, the government was drunk. He was everything. He was the ultimate personal ruler of russia. He was a genius. He took part in the beheadings of his enemies. He tortured his own sun to death. He you know, he was fascinated with the human boddy, dismanltmantling it. He was fascinated with the human body. Alsoer, can i bite the bullet. Then he made his entire entourage do the same. After that he brought his own collection of tony tours. They insidded on coming out. Another one had a bad foot. You had to a sort air. You were in peter the greats enter rage. You made sure you never mentioned it. How many difference emperors did you right r right about . There are 20 that actually ruled but there are also many region, many Prime Minister. Many feeled marshalled. His wook has everyone from these composers and have many fassnatesing and talent fascinating people and it was to putin. Alent person we talk about him for a minute. You go into great detail about him. When did he first rushup . He first spoke up in 1995. I think theres an analysis of him of being slightly scude. Two more emphasises on whether there or not. He represented what Nicholas Alexander felt was the authentic romanov awe the tockcrassy. Do you recognize who hes standing by . Simon no. Who did he have contact with . Nicholas ii. What was his relationship with him. There was no love affair. These are great pictures. There was no love affair as was rumored with alexandra. But alexandra and nicholas both tan. Tely needed ress pew it was a tragic family story and the parents were agonized by this by the child suffering by his pain as he would almost die immediately from these attacks. He must sisting that succeed to the pull plan tude of autocracy. So in this case was the stress on the child and themselves. What year is nicholas. This is 1905, 1904 was when the child alexy was was born. They meet him next year. Nd he remains key. Nicholas ii was the emperor for how long . Over 20 years. 1894 to 1917. The reason i wanted to talk about this. Is is the end of the roman ovs. Because rasputen became essential will to parents as well as the child. But he didnt become totally politically important until world war i. And in world war 1, nicholas decided to become superof commander in cheefment and he left the capital in the charge f the Emperor Alexander. Extremely self righteous, religious who believed bsolutely in se cred and a sacred ly disday atockcrasssi thats the rule of w nanov of a godgiven ramonov. And when nicholas ii left, alexandra was back in petersburg. This und herself and in preposterous nomination where she would have complete content for politicians particularly and journal itselfs. She found herself in the business of politics and she knew nobody. She had to prove to this very broodish woman. She might know some people. And that was rasputen who only knew the most competent for the people in st. Petersburg. The people he sent home ugget suggested were not the most afraid getting competent people. And that was a catrasstofey. This beak is made between three dars and a private competition. Theres the several thousands letters at that time apart from being fascinating because theyre passionate about each other. Their very close. That it also reveals how isolated they were. Isolated by their own wishes by the way. How much they defended to the third degree on rastpute. When you read the letter you realize that she was close to being saying. You read the book, i think people will be amazed just how unstable she was and she would a comb. You realize that the prestige and the power in the monarchy is seeping away fast when hes in charge. Who didnt like rasputen . No one liked him except for the family. The four doors to them and the emperial couple. By the time its targetted in 914, no one liked rasputen but people couldnt face the fact that thraffs responsibility belonged to the czar and they blamed it on rass pew ten. They were sure that they would solve the problems of russias misrule. How did they do it . If you go to st. Petersburg and a lot of americans do. Where would they find nicholas and alexandria living at that time. And where did rass pew ten live . They lived outside from peteeringberg. Theyre regarded as the immoral debauchery. They live in the alexander palace. For how long her grand sun bizarre for war and peace. We might come to him a litter. The centerpiece. Now rasputen lived on a flat. When he came out its asking her he would meet them in a small cottage outside the city gates that no one knew about it. And that little house is still there by the way. And no one goes to see it but they should. Because thats where russia was governed. All the flees controlled by the minister of the year orwould make a reck of anyone visiting. But anyway, they avoid anyone knowing but of course, everybody knew anyway. And meanwhile also in this city both for the use of the palace which im sure. That has the information where they talking about how he was killed. Once you dwruse wealthiest man in russia. He was bi secting. Open addict. He and him friends was a member of the emperial family, in fact. And they decide the only way to kill rasputen. To it was like a vampire movie. That finally killed them. But in fact, the murder was very different from that. And there are interesting things about it. One we now know there was some poe tension. The british seek service. The early version of the mi6. And may of action i would be involved in the assassination. First of all to be against the war which was true and that was about the only sensible policies. Things of the difficult is to stay out of the war. Nicholas was Strong Enough to withstand the pressure. Whos side was the russia was . They the british were interested in him being k. O. Ed. One to keep russia in the world. And without a monarchy poke really leaves the washington if rassputen continued his dark influence. So somehow british agents were friends with him were involved with this plot. And what really happened was they lived into this house. Hey tried it ones. He rant outside and somebody brought him down with a second shot that was not fall tall. At this point someone walked up with a huge pistol. Liked it with magnum. They put it right against rass pew tens foreign. Im just blown away like that. It was not this kind of romantic sort of gothic story. That we see in sort of hollywood movies. Theres heres the famous picture ofs are asputenn on the screen. What atraded this headline. And what exact year he was killed . December 16. This is a great picture. Hes actually their dead doctor. They found the body underneath the ice of the river. And took a while to find him. And what was interesting hes storing that before hes all topsy. You can tell that the point black shots is an execution shot. There you can see it pretty clearly. So what impact did it have . Well, the funny shing was. Stead of strengthening the monarchy, it renothing changed. Nicholas the second was still g withme nicholas ii rulin alex sappeder reform. Or getting into a representative government. Nothing changed. All it showed that the government was hollow and nicholas the second was a deeply incompetent ruler. Im at the end. Cholas and alexanders assassination. I want you to lead us after that and explain after this asays nation of rass pew ten. When is the next step in this process. The monarchy literally lost two months afterwards. And the irony was that this wasnt a revolution led by lenin and stallen and trops i can. They were all inside sigh bear yeah. You know the resolution is never going to happen in my lifetime. But here it came. It was totally unexpected and yet yet people start to protect about Food Shortages and quickly spread. The troops who in the city started to fraternize with the rebels. And nicolas was far away at the front. Where was he. He was right at the front of the quarters. His train got sidelined, supposedly stopped by workers and he found himself totally alone in the Railway Station in the middle of nowhere. He had to ask the general to what do and the general said as one. And so suddenly he was alone in his imperial carriage and he had to sign an about dough cation. The human fill yak boy. And then he spoke to his doctor and said just tell me something. Is this curable . No. How long could he live. But he could die at 30. You could die very young. And then, you know what, i need to change my plan. I have to change my application. Keep the child with me. Was that his decision . Any emperor could say. If we look at putin, his success, the success in my government is a measure of it orderness of its authority, of its system if you like. Paul the i. Czar andy czar could point to anyone they like. One of the most extraordinary colorful female characters in this bock. But she was little. She would first appear walking naked as a prisoner in the russian camp. She was neither a russian Norah Odonnell match and yet peter the great married her and renamed her katharine. And crowned her empress of washington. Even though she had no claim that the third. Russia the state can make. The state can break someone. O up until then, you know, czars could choose their own successors. The irony in dow now a days, it seems in 2016, the president began that and can choose their own successes. In a way thats unthinkable. So you have better than putin who was similarly, the chosen other person. Once again, we are in a situation where despite all the trappings of democracy, bizarre can choose his own successor. Why, the whole revolution in 1917, what happened to the last romanovs . Terrible story. The romantic approach to Nicholas Alexander. The movie view. I dont take it. I differ from the traditional romantic epic. It were a couple who were in love with each other. Parents, butoving they were also rulers. I think what people read in this book what they were really like, i think people will be amazed at how rapidly antisemitic they were. Jews isf about shocking. Considering that they regarded as wonderful, romantic heroes. Next to you and your family. We left at that time, my mothers family, to escape. His vindictiveness, i think people will be surprised when they read the book that they may not recognize the Nicholas Alexandra they knew. The family is in the one part of it. I will say, when they were on the throne in to do or 1917, they did conduct themselves with immense grace and facing. Humiliation, or beam prisoners of the republican government. They behave with immense dignity. Itt is why they were made two cents. At the same time, it is worth remembering, at the same time was the the second pose, reading tolstoy and books to children in captivity, he was the reading his children prodigals of the elder of zion. The antisomatic forgery. That gives you some perspective. In the end, when the bolsheviks took power, lenin, stalin, a turn ofy, it was in events. They were in danger of their lives. It was unthinkable that the children could be in danger of their lives. Lenin and trotsky were ruthless and they could take their chances. It is clear, when you look at all,rders to kill them they came from the top. Lenin. He was very aware of history. Them, toame to kill kill all of them, these for gorgeous daughters, the innocent son, as well as the parents and the Family Doctor and the entourage, never has a murderer ever been so bungled or a crime more appalling or atrocious, they did it by sheer incompetence. Said the same. Set the scene. They were at the house. There come all the windows were painted white. The family was kept in isolation. For members of the entourage were taken away and then shot in the woods. Gradually, they realize that something terrible was going to happen. Was approaching and they could hear the guns at night. Moscow thatme from if they got to near, they could wipe out the whole family. So the job was done. There are broken about 1 00 in the morning, and downstairs and on the close, taken into a room, the seller room. They thought they were being moved. Sathey conduct, little boy down. He had a hemophiliac attack. Nicholas stood in front of the boy, singly protected. Suddenly, these 12 ruffians came and bayonets and pistols and rifles and half of them were drunk. Some of them were psychopaths who had murdered people before. One of them had beheaded demand a man. They came in and read the sentence of death. Then they all started firing. It all went wrong immediate would. Everyone was supposed to kill one person. A lot of them were not comfortable shooting girls so they aimed at the person they were meant to shoot and in the suddenly switched the guns and shot at nicholas second. He was killed instantly. It are what else was screaming and all them were alive. Then there was a freeforall of shooting. Killing some of them. Tragically, all the girls and children were worried sewn with the romanoff diamonds, like bulletproof. They do have money if they escaped. They spent months with the diamonds. They had billions of pounds on their body and they weighed in a modest amount enormous amount. When the bullets came, these made their execution and agony much longer because the bullets bounced off diamond. Hard to some of since substance known to man. They did not die. They had to go among the bodies, so much blood on the war it was slippery like an ice rink. It had to walk in and stabbed them and shoot them in the head. Still, two of the girls come at , half anf this, mayhem hour, two of the girls were still coughing and had to be stabbed and shot all over again. Writing this. Was it is agony. Who reported on what happened . As i remembered, he talked about being in a room. Who had the information . The assassins, mergers, probably wrote memoirs about what they had done. Because the whole thing with such a debacle, it took literally three days and three nights without sleep to bury the bodies. What happened with the bodies afterwards, we should i go into saidit involves sulfur i sulfur acid and fire and be buried in different places and terrible things being done to the bodies of the girls especially. When they came to read the memoirs, they were so confused about what had happened in this sleepless threeday struggle to dispose of the bodies of a contradicted themselves in different places. Different versions of the story. All these were kept in the archives. New information you found . New aspects. The story is still going on which is so interesting. As everyone knows, the bodies were found in the 90s and paired. 1998, barry. Buried in the family vault. But to the bodies were missing. Not anastasia, she did not survive. The grand duchess maria and her sister their bodies were never found. 10 years later, 2007, very recently, they found the remains of those bodies. Just bits of skeleton. They were tester tested and found to be the missing romanoff. The orthodox church, backed by the president of the russian theration, and Russia Orthodox Church is a branch of the autocracy, challenge these findings. Laster, were uptodate now, last year president putin and his security agencies and the church suddenly decided they would test everything again. They exhume nicholas the second tab really, tested his body, exhume the children and they tested these two last bodies. At the time of this begin, nothing had been announced yet. I think this is something to do with putins view of history. His preparation for the centennial coming up next are in the year after. Something is up with this. I dont know what it is. We are right there now. , the storiess happening right now as we speak and russia. Something is about to happen and it reflects president putins view of history. His view is very interesting. Hes without ideology. He regards the two worst stars of russia as gorbachev and nicholas the second. What is a soviet leader, the other is a romanoffs are t zar. Disaster andon a stalin a successful statesman. It is a great, as it are, because the first as great. Second as a useless betrayer of the country. He regards gorbachev, our great hero as we regard as such of impressivesive liberal modernize, regard him as a disaster. He judge them by their success. He sees himself, president putin as a russian leader. To be judged with the great rulers of restaurant russian history. Comment about antisemitism lenin andn family, trotsky who were on either side of the stalin, or jewish. Lenin was not jewish. Not at all . Something like 16th jewish. He was parttime for. Tar. Rt tar throughout the book, theres a lot of antisemitism. The basis . Strange thing. Let antisemitism become a family fetish that made no sense to them whatsoever. This goes with the wider crisis within the monarchy that they had was that they cannot decided they wanted to be emperor of this huge multinational multiridgely jin empire with ,ll these different religions or if they wanted to be russians zars, nationalistic. Its the kind of contradictions that they cannot quite work out. In the end, for nicholas the first onward, they basically plumped for being nationalistic russian rulers and they gradually, and in gradually incredibly foolishly alienated all the minorities. Poles, jews. , why so many became bolsheviks and revolutionaries and terrorists. It was an absurd concept. They regarded the jews, the english and the jews were the same. They believed and all the things that were wrong with the modern world. Newspapers, the stock exchange, democracy, everything that nicholas the second hated. He regularly talked about, someone said to him, what is a newspaper . A newspaper is a bunch of jews tried to go to war with each other. It is a great thing when he goes to stage with his cousins and enter the seventh was incredibly projewish. He had one of these big jewish tycoons. He deliberately asked him to try and introduce into nicholas the second to make a more projewish. The second was horrified. He wrote to his mother, ive a lot of jewish horsedealer staying here. Im so horrified that i think im going to not say whole world word the whole weekend. I want to put a list of your books on the screen. Which one so the best . Stalin, the court of the reds tsar. Red threat of these books is that i have long to write these books. I wanted to produce whats on the subjects that were based on scholarship, the archives, and were readable by everybody. Accessible. We saw you in, where would that be . Or in thee in moscow archives of the soviet archives which is a special building in moscow. Where might be Walking Around a palace try to work out which rooms they lived in if it was jerusalem, i might be Walking Around the city code of the howels try to understand different laser bill. Last time, we were talking about the archives. Inference that the archives would be closed. What happened between 2004 until now. . A huge tightening of access to the archives. Much harder to work on them now. Especially the modern ones. They did not care much about the romanoff archives, but the stone archives and any political archives, if they are not open, they will not open now. The real dark atmosphere and russia at the moment. An antiwestern, xenophobic atmosphere. Were you in the archives was never easy. I really the first time i started working on caps on the kathleen the great, the archivist determined i would not find anything. I was looking at the documents the first time, the archivist try to stop me and theres a squealing sound and something landed on my head and it was a kitchen kitten. She was leaning over and waved at me to let me know i was not welcomed. How long did you spend . Months. Places ising around hugely important. So often, what was ready about catherine the great, the tempting villages. Book after book, never building anything. When i went down to crimea, ukraine, so on, i found many of these places had been built. You been to all 15 homes of stalin . All the homes of the romanoffs . Pretty much. 50 palaces, maybe more. So many of them. Im open to every single one. There are thousands of them. Huntingnclude all the places, probably up to 100 residences. The people at you and . By russian is a work in progress. You can get into all these places. Some are in russian. Many of them are english. One thing that may surprise people is that, everyone hated alexander as the german, but actually she was english. Brought up by queen victoria. Her letters between nicholas and alexandra are all in english. Broken english, but english. This has nothing to do with these books, but it does have to do with you. I want to show your wife who has written, novels . At least 15. You live in kensington and london. You have high social presence there. We work a lot. We have just written our first look the other a. A childrens book. It is coming out in october. Let me show you the better half. I live in london here. This is my garden. And mywith my husband two children. I always wanted to write. I always did write as it child, i wrote books with my parents. Then when i got to school, i started running short stories with my girlfriends. My mother once read one who chose a writer and said you should really try get something published. I wrote something it was sent back to me. That was the start of another projection. It was not a rejection. Married have you ever seen that . No. Shes talking about all her lovely books and leaning on stalins complete work. How long have you been married . Been married to his 1998. Originally, we worked at the same table. When we started writing, we do not have any hope that we would be successful so we had a very small apartment. Not in kensington. We had one table which was a dining room table. We worked the different site and we spent our whole time arguing about what kind of music to listen to. Dion alld to celine the time, i cannot tolerate that. I wanted to listen to guns and pitbull david bowie or or loud, driving music which help me keep up my narrative in these long books. We argue a lot about books music. Now have our own offices. She can listen to all the celine dion she likes. As you know, we have not even begun to talk about this book. Theres so much more in here. Up,thing a wanted to bring it stupefied me as i was reading it, the divorce. Warfs. Saidlot of reviewers have that this book makes the game of thrones look like a tea party. They were key. They signified the exceptionalism, etc. Sanctity of the tsar. The had a lot of cripples around them, freaks, and force d warfs. They were often their favorite people. Peter the great love to have these weddings, he had giant weddings. Horrible theel, addictive woman. She had an entourage of women who are lacking limbs. One was legless, one was harmless. She also had fulls. She made princes and pitfalls. Into fulls. Fool whohad another she said to get married. So he was invited to the house where he was with a goat. Tossing andarf where they would fight if they refused, they were beaten. If shed they did what she said, she would spoil them with clothes, food and cash. Some became incredibly rich. It was an extra narrative story. This is an amazing family story. Arves are tossed, empires, and a family where fathers kill her sons. Wives have their husbands overthrown and murdered, sons collude the murder of fathers. How many of the 20 romanoffs you read about assassinated or killed . Of the last 12, 6 were murdered violently or assassinated. I give you an idea. For the late 18th century onward, half of them were killed. But of the themes of the book is that russia is a very hard country to rule into these are be tsar is a hard thing to be. Should president clinton be called tsar putin . , powerfulsay if russians laugh about this very question. For him, wealth is irrelevant. E is the tsar everything blocks to him. belongs to him alexander the second is the mot sympathetic to the family. Yelton is a hugely underrated character. He was a flawed great, he was a drunk. Toopened up russia, he tried crack on abuses, he opened up history. He brought in democracy. What did you think putin would do . This is the succession thing. It is impossible for an autocrat to retire without being murdered. It is impossible for it president to retire. Without agreement that he and his entire entourage and family will not be prosecuted for either war crimes of the vast corruption. That means, in effect, it is impossible for any president to retire. As i went yelton are tight, humidity with the successor and that is why putin can never really retire. He was asked if he would ever give up, and he said he would never retire. I would never be like the when they left the second and leave the country to chaos, scum, hooligans. They were weak. I will never advocate. Find another three hours of you talking about stalin in jerusalem and other , what is this book next . I have written two novels. Stories and thrillers. I was running the third is a trilogy. Next Nonfiction Book . Not sure about that. Im signed up to write a history of the world which could be a step too far. That is in the distant future. What to do when youre not ready or researching . I spent time with my wife. I love you showing that video with my wall wife. It has to be up enormously on this exhausting nine city tour. My kids are now 15 and 13. They are both quite good at writing. I dont want to pressure them. To make a living as a writer is a very hard thing. Not many people get to do it. I dont want to force them into doing it. It must be funny for them. As you can see, she is a dont find fault delightful person to live with. His family is even in this book. 131918. s 16 thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. For free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q a. Org. They are also available as cspan podcasts. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] if you like this q a interview, here are some others you might enjoy. Margaret mcmillan on her book the war that ended peace, about the assassination of ferdinand. Robert service on his biography , the leader of the october revolution. Applebaum on the effects of details arianism on east hungary. D hungr on the next washington journal, we get your reaction to the mass shooting in Orlando Florida and share the latest developments in the investigation. Call him by phone or leave a comment on facebook or twitter. Onhington journal is live cspan. Coming up next, Prime Ministers questions at the british house of commons. After that, virginia senator his the conversation on life and political career, part of our american profile theories. Aesident obama gives statement on todays mass shooting in orlando, florida. Another chance to see q a with simon seabed mount purity mo ntefiore. David cameron announced an extended cameron for those extended deadline. The Prime Minister to questions on that topic and other issues concerning National Security and immigration. I suggest we all get out. Order. Questions to the Prime Minister did ms. Davis. The Prime Minister. This morning i had meetings with colleagues and others in addition to make duties in this house i shall have further such meetings later today. Emily davidson died on the eighth of june and made in 17. Yesterday we commemorated womens south rage and the importance of both britain and voting for women. The demand were unable to put the update, the house on what hes doing to ensure everyone has a chance to register their