My dad said and this is in the book is we would be having a discussion s and he would say, look, im perfectly willing to have a discussion with you, but i dont want to be interrogated. Which i thought was interesting coming from him. [laughter] but i think, you know, people who do work in the secret world are probably pretty sensitive to that. So maybe one piece of advice would be to sort of keep that in mind as youre questioning them. But it really depends on the, on, you know, on each i dont think theres any sort of blanket kind of advice about how to deal with that situation because its just so personality dependent. I mean, i know people who will never, ever talk about anything to me. And, you know, theyre in my dads line of work. And other people are incredibly open and very willing to share and to criticize and to be transparent and so on. Its very strange. It really depends on the person, i think. I know thats not a satisfactory be answer, but i dont know just well, actually, no, i do have something to say. [laughter] one of the things my dad said that he learned as a spy was, you know, someone told him, look, youre never going to be able to recruit a soviet. All you can do, the best that you can do is be the kind of person who when they decide they want to, you know, defect, they come to you. And i think that was really excellent advice both for journalists and for other spies because that is, essentially, all you can do, is be the person who when they decide they want to talk, they come to you. I would add to that, you know, there are many sides to the truth, and you want to try and find as many of those sides as you can. So find out the operations that they were involved in, and file freedom of information acts. My children can attest to how many strange envelopes come to the house because i file freedom of information acts constantly, and these envelopes are coming back from nsa, cia, d work d, dia dod, dia, and if you get a rejection, its like this, and if you get a, be you get information if you get information its like this. And theyre like, mom, look what came. [laughter] thank you. Is there a good set of guidelines for filing foia requests . Ill give you my card after. Good idea. [laughter] could i just add one quick you know, as scott was saying, people will come to you on their own time. I mean, i find that doing my research and getting to know people is really just like life itself. You dont know when people will feel comfortable enough to open up and tell you their stories. Most people feel that no one listens to them, and theyre right. [laughter] and once they well, right . [laughter] see, people are leaving, theyre not listening to us. [laughter] once theyre ready to talk, theres really almost no stopping them. And i really, i mean, im honored when people do that. During desert reckoning, i waited years for some of the friends of the son of the hermit to call me and talk to me about the father son relationship that i knew i needed to have that part of the story to make my book work, and i hardly had any of it when i finally had to turn my book in, and i was very upset about it, and i knew that my book was just not as good as it could be. And at the last minute, i started getting calls from people i had contacted years earlier, and they were finally, they finally felt comfortable enough to talk. And i got to call my publisher and literally say stop the presses. [laughter] and it honestly, the longer you wait, the likelier the chance of these sorts of things happening. Of course, at some point you have to cut it off, but really trust, letting trust unfold is such a pig a big part of getting these stories. Lets do one more question. Yeah, ms. Stillman, im wondering if the hermit, did he intentionally was it an ambush . Did he call that guy meaning to kill him . No, no. He did not call tenty sorenson Deputy Sorenson to his trailer. A neighbor asked sorenson so go out and check on a trespasser that had been in the vicinity in the months prior, and sorenson had served this guy an eviction notice shortly before his trip to the trailer, and the neighbor who called thought t that the trespasser was still lurking, and so sorenson thats why he went, the official story to why he went out there, and i think its, i think he i mean, i know he really did get that call from a neighbor. That being said, what are the Underlying Forces that led to him, you know, making the turn, making this, you know, fatal turn down donald cooks driveway and heading past the no trespassing sign. And to the question of the truth, i mean, i do think the truth will out. The question is, can you recognize in what form . I mean, the short story writer, ellen gilchrist, has this great line which is the truth has a biological urge to come out. What does it look like, is the question. And im not saying i have the answer. Its like, you know, the facets of a mineral. Its got many, many aspects to it. Thank you. Thank you. Good. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, panel. [applause] and just to repeat, you go out, turn right, signing area five. Support the writers, buy their wonderful books. Thank you for joining us today. [inaudible conversations] heres a look at some of the best selling nonfiction books according to indie bound. These are some of the current best selling nonfiction books according to indiebound. One to have surprises is one of the surprises is i decided to lets give people a teal for how long weve been trying to change the system. One of the surprises to me is to uncover how engaged republicans were in Health Care Reform in 1945. The governor of california at that time, earl warren, a republican, pretty conservative, proposed comprehensive Health Care Reform for california. And he came within one vote of getting it passed in california. And he had gotten sick, and he said, you know, we really need to protect people from the cost of getting sick. When nixon got elected in 1946, to congress, one of his first legislative bills he introduced was a bill about comprehensive Health Care Reform. And heres the crazy thing, if i describe it to you, youll think, man, did he write obamacare . Was he one of the act texts architects . He wanted to give people subsidies based upon their income so they could go and buy private insurance for themselves. Sounds a lot like obamacare to me. He proposed that in the late 1940s, and then when he was running for president in 1960 against john kennedy, there was a big debate. Both the republicans and democrats were trying to figure out how to get those people left out of the employerbased insurance scheme, poor people, especially the elderly, how to get them insurance. And he, again, reintroduced this idea of subsidies for people to buy private insurance. And then when he gets president in 1973 and 4, hes negotiating as president with ted kennedy in the senate and wilbur mills in the house about how to come together on a comprehensive Health Care Reform bill. And they were this close to a bill that they could agree to, and then in typical washington arrangement, scandals break out. Wilbur mills has the fanny fox scandal where an exotic dancer fall into the tidallal basin. Hes disgraced. Watergate overtakes nixon, and it all goes poof. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Heres a look at some books that are being published this week. Watch for the authors in the near future on booktv and on booktv. Org. Booktv is on facebook. Like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers, watch videos and get uptodate information on events. Facebook. Com booktv. Ann scott tyson tells a story of special force toes Major Jim Gant who in 2009 gained the support of general David Petraeus to embed special forces soldiers in afghan villages and to have those soldiers fight alongside Afghan Soldiers against alqaeda and the taliban. The strategy worked so well that Osama Bin Laden punt a bounty on major gants head. This is just under an hour. [applause] thank you very much. Id like to thank third place books for this wonderful opportunity and for your interest in my new book, American Spartan. Im grateful for the support of family and friends here today. Let me open with a quote from the beginning of the book by British Army Officer t. E. Lawrence whose deep understanding of the arab tribes who he fought with in world worr i was an important inspiration for this project. It is their war, lawrence wrote, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Id like to ask you to indulge me ask use your imagination as i take you with me to a faraway place. Imagine that you are this a small in a small village per perch add at hillside near afghanistans border with pakistan. It is dark and very cold. You are standing under the stars in the open air courtyard of a traditional mudwalled afghan compound. There is no running water, electricity or heat. The only light comes from a tiny fire of kindling in the corner of the 30footwide by 100footlong dwelling. A short ways down the hill you see the connor river snaking silver in the moonlight. Rising directly behind the compound in the darkness, you can make out the hulking silhouettes of jagged mountains where taliban insurgents roam freely. Just over the next mountain ridgeline in a nearby valley, Marcus Luttrell and his fourman Navy Seal Team were overrun by taliban fighters in 2005, leaving luttrell the lone survivor. You know the taliban still control the high ground and could attack you at any moment. Shivering, you pull a woolen shawl around your shoulders, walk toward the fire and squat down to warm your hands. A 4yearold afghan boy wearing sandals and a dark gray tunic looks up at you with large green eyes. His name is ishmael, and his father sits nearby cradling his ak47 assault rifle. The father literally holds your life in his hands. For when a Taliban Attack in a Taliban Attack, you will depend upon him and his fellow tribesmen to protect you. Will he stand up to the taliban . Something in his eyes tells you that he will. This was the scene one chilly february day in 2012 when i moved into the village in afghanistans heavilycontested kunar province with about a dozen Afghan Tribal police and a dozen american soldiers led by special forces Major Jim Gant, a decorated green beret who was then my fiance. The Afghan Police, like their commander, belonged to the fierce tribe, the most powerful in the area. The tribes were pashtuns, members of the large ethnic group with a population of about 40 Million People living on either side of the afghanistan pakistan border. The hut we lived in with the afghans had thick 20foot walls. It literally means fortress, and its no wonder that afghans since ancient times have built their homes like castles complete with guard towers. A landlocked country, afghanistan has long been a crossroads of civilizations, a highway of conquests. From persians in the sixth century b. C. To alexander the great in 30 b. C. To the huns and the muslim arabs who by the 1 isth century 11th century had converted the area of islam. Then the mobile dynasty that ruled in the 16th and 17th centuries. It wasnt until 1747 that the first semblance of an after began nation emerged, a monarchy founded by the ethnic pashtun tribes. The pashtuns have long held sway in afghanistans highly decentralized state. Populating much of the south and east, and the taliban themselves are primarily pashtun. But despite the huts thick walls, its location backed up against the steep mountainside made it extremely vulnerable to taliban gunfire. Why were we there . The answer is simple, the hut stood just a short walk away from the home of the tribal chief, and it was he who decided where we would stay. The tribe surrounded us and protected us from the outside in, so our security resided not in traditional military tactics, but in a strategy of tribal engagement, one Major Jim Gant outlined in his paper, one tribe at a time. Jims research on the tribes which drew on his deployment in kunar had convinced him that sending small u. S. Teams to live in kunar and forge alliances with the tribes could empower them to push the taliban out of their areas. It was a grassroots approach that he believed could help turn the tide of the Afghanistan War. The culturallysavvy u. S. Soldiers would grow beards and wear afghan clothes. They would live, eat and sleep with the tribesmen, and when necessary, they would fight alongside them. Why was this so powerful . In a word, pashtun wali, the ancient code of honor that pashtuns live and die by. Some of you likely watched the movie lone survivor or read the book. In it, Marcus Luttrells life was safed by a tribesman who gave luttrell safe haven in his village. Villagers fought off the taliban to keep the american alive. Then they passed a note to a nearby u. S. Base leading to his rescue. The word appears on the screen at the end of the film. Pashtun wali is a code of ethics, and at its core is honor, one of the main principles is [inaudible] which means sanctuary. In other words, its imperative for the pashtuns to give a guest refuge against his enemies for as long as he stays. So luttrells afghan hosts honored [speaking in native tongue] and repelled the taliban. Jim first learned about the pashtun code of honor during his deployment to kunar in 2003. He learned to speak some basic pashtun and formed his First Alliance with an elderly tribal leader who was a great and wise man whose life story is told in my book. Jim also discovered connections between the pashtun tribal warriors and his own american tribe, his special forces teammates who also valued the honor bestowed by showing bravery on the battlefield. Jim realized that the tribes lived by the pashtun wali and could be empowered on a much larger scale to help the United States with defeat the taliban whose strident brand of islam often conflict with the the tribal ways. And i want to emphasize just as powerfully, jim saw the potential for this strategy eventually to allow the tribes to peace afully reintegrate peacefully reintegrate some members of the taliban. So in october 2009, jim published one tribe at a time, just as the Obama Administration was conducting a major review of Afghanistan War strategy. The taliban had been gaining ground for years. The war was at best a stalemate, and the administration was desperately searching for ways to reverse the taliban momentum. There were too few u. S. And other foreign troops and Afghan NationalSecurity Forces to cover the vast rural highlands and plateaus that make up most of afghanistan easter rain. Afghanistans terrain. So it made sense to try a local security initiative. That meant the tribes, cultural, economic and blood ties which have traditionally secured their valleys. Tribesmen would be trained, armed and paid to defend be their home turf. What a better way for them to earn honor. General David Petraeus, soon to become the Top Commander in afghanistan, was impressed by jims paper, so impressed he ordered it become required reading for all his subordinate commanders in afghanistan. Admiral eric olson, head of all special operations forces, was equally impressed impressed andd to jim as his lawrence of afghanistan. Petraeus, olson and general stanley mcchrystal, then in charge in afghanistan, plucked jim out and sent him to afghanistan to help implement the strategy. I joined jim on this incredibly promising mission. The challenge of his lifetime, to capture and document what happened. American spartan is the story of jims passion for that mission and the bonds of loyalty between afghans and americans. It is also the story of our love, born out of common pain and experience in wartime and out of a shared desire to do something good for the Afghan People and ultimately help staunch the shedding of american and afghan blood. What happened . Would jims ideas work on the ground with the tribes . We moved into the mudwalled hut in february 2012. At the time jim was betting his life as well as mine and those of all his men that his ideas would work. Almost immediately we tasted a critical test we faced a critical test. The day before we moved in, violent protests erupted some 150 miles to the southwest outside the u. S. Military base at bagram airfield. The protests were a reaction to the accidental u. S. Military burnings of the quran. As the demonstration spread nationwide, dozens of people were killed including two American Military officers working as advisers at the ministry of interior who were shot in the back of the head by an afghan coworker. Green on blue incidents, as they were called, where Afghan Government forces killed u. S. Troops were already disturbingly on the rise. The u. S. Military command put all units on rockdown, including jims lockdown, including jims team. Protesters in jalalabad burned effigies of obama and chanted death to america and set pyres on fire down the road from the local bazaar. But jim gathered his team of americans inside the tiny, dim, makeshift Operations Center and gave them a message that was counterintuitive. What i am telling you is trust me, he said, surveying the sober faces of his men. Wearing afghan clothing, jims bearded face looked haggard, and his voice was tense. Do you want security tonight . Then eat with the local Tribal Police. Im telling you, its not their mortar positions, machine guns or rpgs. None of that is going to matter. Its talking with the people, treating them well, helping them with their everyday lives. In short, our relationship with the tribe and nothing else was our security. That night jim and i and the soldiers sat crosslegged on the floor eating flat bread and stewed meat with our hands while chatting. We played cards, drank tea and even spoke about the