mitch mcconnell that we have to beat the grassroots insurgents that we are going to go to the primary which is the majority leader. is it a productive debate? >> it is a bloody debate. and for the establishment candidates for the lobbying firms across washington have been embraced it is very personal going after the rise on a very personal basis. produces better products in if a candidate cannot win a primary then how could they with the general? i wanted robust debate with lots of talented people vying for the nomination that no one the rnc to name the next bob dole i think out of the process he get a stronger and tested candidate that better reflects the eiffel's of where the american people are today. >> there is the famous quote attributed to gandhi. as a libertarian now we are being attacked. this is known as progress but at some point victory looks like everybody pretending to be a libertarian then they attack that. in the book. >> to set a challenge of a sitting president gerald ford and i would argue contrary to what the g.o.p. was arguing at the time he restored ideas and created a path of victory that dominated for the next 20 years. gerald ford did not do that so shake-up would be a healthy thing. >> host: thank you for your time. valerie plame and detail 19 join the of here. great to see all of you. i already have both of my books signed. to show the real power where it is bradley? david does not like when i do this a big fan of richard nixon this is for the c-span viewers right now but as opposed to "the washington post" we had edward snowden declared he was trained in spy kraft to reveal just to make tonight extra special. we are here to talk about a spy kraft with the practitioner in said one involved to tell the story of national security in all its forms. of course, david ignatius long-term national security columnist and the interviewer of my favorite book i was the producer. and valerie plame was counterintelligence officer officer, a cia operative despite what some people said but we can get into that and became one of the most known how did cia agents of the institution and both have written novels. valerie plame has written "blowback". the last time i saw that term i have not read this particular book but it is the reaction action which after ned 11 was the hardest book to get off the shelf it was the most anticipated book so this is "blowback" of the fictional level then we have david ignatius best selling author but his death is all made into movies i hope yours will as well but i was on a cruise in the caribbean and i fantasize to be the director. >> they are casting. [laughter] have your agent call someone [laughter] >> host: to begin with. is this the frustrated journalists? and entranced with the bureaucracy managing degrees secrets. i sort of felt i was reading graham's voice. >> it goes without saying any character is in some way a projection of the author. that is what is fun about being a novelist with the scenes and experiences you have never had. i said who i had in mind for the character and he said absolutely not. but it to have that existence becomes director afterburning a communications company so imagining a business person to defy the bureaucracy by refusing and national security letter to compel people. and in the first week a young swiss hacker with a tattoo on his neck that says cut here in russian flocks to the u.s. consulate and claims the agency codes have been hacked and hence of all listed ball better in the station>dñ so that is the first thing or a new director has to deal with the possibility the weapons so that is the character. so if david bradley cannot then we have to turn it over. [laughter] >> the struggle of the book is in part between your father's cia and the next generation. it is digits zeros and ones and then the bureaucracy of managing in the world of spying. and in its with the young hackers. but you're also known as someone who understands how dated became cool enough to understand. >> this is a trick question. [laughter] this book is about institution in transition and i began with the idea of the spy novel the manipulation would go into that people space today he did not want to recruit their chief but the systems administrator who opens up every secret for covert action. with those that believe in and not since the mid '70s the cia is haunted by ghosts. as a young journalist dai will never forget. so boundary has lived this what she thinks of modern creative intelligence. >> now it valerie plame your operative is vanessa. any connection? [laughter] i just want to get in to this because both of you have said you cannot write about what you know, because it is classified and secret telling the story through fiction allows you to go further so is that story that you tell your story that has gone further than you have been able to tell? >> first of all, i am delighted to be here with you. of course. you take these characters i have met along the way. along with the review board. >> and only a line out of "blowback" in diamond edits right now and i feel confident. when i went through with fair game. >> but still hold genesis of this was i became so distressed hall characters or cia officers are portrayed they are just characters and wanted to write one that was more complex rather than just a decoration. so what spired me this is working on a cue card network bringing down in 2003 because we caught the libyans ready ended that was part of that network after years of patient operation finally brought that down but but that's0 aq khan character is fascinating. he is a moral. so this character has morphed have into a character that is called the ghost in the second book opens with a dirty bomb but don't worry your national treasures are not harmful. [laughter] >> host: don't give that away. but we all know with of some the been modest story obsessive compulsive and driven if he felt discriminated dick against under appreciated and undervalued and at war with the misogynist dick van inside the cia. is any of that true? >>. [laughter] >> and catherine herself said publicly as she was preparing the film and research she found herself surprised there was no woman at the forefront of the hunt for been lauded. that women for sure are very persevering that composite figure, she is nominated but in any case that women place much more important role of operations. and in 2011. >> i think 2009. >> one of the operation in officers who i happened to know as well was killed by a suicide bomber and its push for roubaix narrative a little bit that girls can do operations also. i get great pleasure out of writing to vanessa pearson had you have a normal life. as we know so many times have you channel that allows you to be successful or accepted? >> yes. and a woman has a successful character with the number of cia women in operation she told me something i have never forgotten if it was ever true she said whitman and operations have to be careful about sex. attractive woman who wants to have a conversation with a target that is developmental to go to a cocktail party often has a natural reaction this attractive woman is coming on to me to read this through a lens through our traditional gender politics. that it is a very tricky challenge for a good case officer. my way around it that over lunch was much safer than a dinner because there is the determine to end the time and unless you live in france nothing happens after a lunch. [laughter] >> unless you are trying to turn someone. >> yes. gender issues aside you are the only person listening to a target. the whole spectrum of human emotions that no one listens to them there under appreciated and undervalued. to hang on their everygxó word. apparently pamela has the effect on men if you look at pictures of her and is not a stunning bomb shell but has the most important men of the 20th century at her back and call that comes from someone going really? [laughter] >> what i think is so important in the of book with novels and nonfiction is you are humanizing to create stories with the intelligence world and your colleagues has written about the intelligence industrial complex being sold large that oversight is not conceivable that we have no idea how large this is. without giving away the ending, a part of this sub theme is the ending is us landed your book blood money between a young scholar and intelligence that our own inability can fight us back and i find that interesting. and how do you feel that? to talk to every cia director do they have the sense the enemy is us? >> a great question and honestly the answer is no. if there is one through my novels this bureaucracy and secrecy are combined to produce a real mess with that organizational desire that in this secret world just look at the nsa. starting from supposedly the narrow mission. i thought for years the cia operations would do better if it was smaller. said desire to be all things to all customers to know as much about copper mines as fiber-optic says in shanghai to peru you get a huge organization stealing more secrets they and what matters. and stealing secrets that don't make a difference do you really need to listen to angelou virgos phone calls? so the simple answer is yes something that bothered me as a journalist there is a way to plant the idea hit enough in these bureaucracies of the forces to bring down the very people my first novel my real life he wrote begins and ends with his death with aspects of the operation he was not aware of. a lot of people die in office. [laughter] >> i just want to to add to that in the book top-secret america the unbelievable growth and reaction to 9/11 with the immediate aftermath how it has grown and i agree completely. after the 9/11 commission and recommendations with the over arcing entity now 6417 different gathering agencies that was the whole point of the cia and the point with its inception. you're absolutely right. when you see tough intelligence officials want tv no doubt they're good and genuine boyle americans doing what they need to do to keep us safe but theyç; never play or why did themselves enough to think is that in keeping or conflict with constitutional values? they never quite get there. >> your book reads a little bit like 24 to bring down the nuclear proliferation network but a lot of the tension is with the mother ship with bureaucrats who are not in the field and don't understand. but can you talk a little bit about that tension between really doing stuff in the world to save lives and stopping horrible things from happening but that you can never be a knowledge verses those different calculation of risk and reward. >> as saying is the most foolish people are your successor m predecessor. spinet there is that dynamic you tease that out we know what we're doing to make those judgments calls on the spot. sometimes they are right seven times they are wrong. and another attention the human side that even operative and dated may not know this to my interpretation is the way he tells the story of automation and to write about the jobs we all have will be taken over by robots and automated and then very interested in the technological advance to mention of intelligence and tension. and when we talk about the chief of operations but in human terms that this man or woman from a the cia really mattered as opposed to of big computer. recently one of the big missiles from the may day parade i treated out facetiously of the nsa computer. >> but are you really biting about where the human stories don't matter as much? >> no question the technology allows a kind of collection information that has never been possible before which means especially important for congress and the courts and executive branch to oversee that properly. what i have watched through my career reinforces the importance not the unimportance there is no substantive for ahead judgment my first novel just described in a wonderful nonfiction book called the good spite is from robert hare recruited the chief intelligence and operated way over the line to share more of his agents then it could have possibly allow by headquarters. that makes this dangerous we don't control him. so they tried to bribe them. so there is a part in a hotel in rome offering $3,000 a month and he says no and is furious. you thank you can bribe me? sue ames was smart enough to say we will let this be what it is it is just a report like dead diplomat and headquarters was furious and finally that is an example of his human judgment&é essentials to the fabric finally the fading that is most precious is knowing about intentions. to get inside the world of foreign leaders what they might do there is no way you can get that other than having those resources that sit and listen to conversations. >> i completely agree although i am biased i was in human intelligence but all those million-dollar satellites may tell you yes the tanks are on the border of the ukraine but unless you have someone in the inner circle to tell you is this just a bluff or will they go over? only humans will tell you that. spinet that is us justification. i am just joking. >> but edward snowden baby to make some note -- some news he will say tonight that i was trained as us by any traditional sense of the world -- of the word and even being assigned a name that was not mine. he does that have a novel out yet but you have any quick reactions to him describing himself as someone more as a clerk and a technical expert? and what you have the we were just saying he caused to a problem with the book looks like you are following the news. >> let me start off by saudi excerpt from brian williams interview and i was fascinated he wanted to establish his credentials as the intelligence officer. that was the real thing. i don't know what to make of that what that is a prepared to. but even now it even as we make reforms it is hard for me to see edward snowden and as a hero. i have to be honest. here signed an oath to keep those secrets if he felt as strongly as he did he could have tried to share them. i don't think that conversation would have happened in the country. >> i am understand that. certainly that is the benefit but there are benefits for us from "the washington post" to have this debate we don't know what the damage is. then as they exist and the coat breaks is the most viable but there is with intelligence and the fact that it would shape the cold war with the enigma one world were to would defeat the nazis these were valuable things the damage has been caused that we have listened into and the techniques. it is unlikely that the answer is zero. we just have to live with that. this is part of living in a democracy but then i say this is one issue where the intent of our founders was clear. put off the of question to be suspicious of government and government control of the constitution could not be clear. yes. we should be careful so the results of the year with the revelation -- revelations we are more suspicious of government and i am sir thomas jefferson is saying. >> let menç start with the snippets that he was trained s us by. i have no idea what his trading is it is ready once sent out overseas yes you have some superficial trading to not trip over too many banana peels on the way. i doubt it is equivalent to the extensive training that i had a rare year developing and recruit assets to hopefully provide critical intelligence. he took great umbrage as just after but that is just a little from i saw. i am torn. we don't know all the information to make a comment there were other ways he could have put information for word but playing devil's advocate but we don't know. but those that have come forward there is not adequate whistle-blower protection. with going to his supervisors with his concerned was hit on the back of the hand i saw secretary kerry saying he was asked if it not for a edward snowden me but not have this conversation. of course, we would i'd disagree deeply we would not purport to want to go down that rabil as us a trader or patriot. he is nothing.ç but what matters are the issues brought to the forefront. >> but there is the trend that has been determined to lead doggedly growing despite whoever was in the oval office. when i worked for the rand corporation and cory that academics for the growing area and to cut back to both novels what is closed off it is not likely to be sold soon. it is us secret world in people operating with secret rules and when you think about the legacy since writing about the chief of intelligence and imagine the novel teeeighteen will write ted years from now when we have checks and balances and transparency? >> that i doubt. i don't know where the story is going. as i said earlier, the secret bureaucracy has grown and grown and 9/11 the panic induced with the bush administration but among many citizens. that is how vulnerable we were and people were prepared to allow the government whether interrogation or surveillance but we have to remember what it felt like when nobody knew what was coming next. al qaeda is not going away as a threat. it is putting down very deep roots in syria and diarrhea now adduce safe haven. and that will continue to cut that the united states and europe. but i hope in the next 10 years dealing with this problem we don't make the same mistakes that we've made in the last 10 years the we have learned something. i think the subject of the speech is worth looking beyond the highlights to make an argument what is the right way to do this to protect our country? to have the smaller more aggressive operations alive. >> the white house seems to have allegedly released the name of the station in chief is noncallable. will and it has said that was the worst crime and what do think about the question of maintaining that secrecy? is it a hierarchy of protection to provide station chiefs? it is the linkedin denied a secret so it is not as beta of the deal with you but how do you feel what the white house did? >> my understanding was not the white house but the military aid who compiled of list of those summer briefing the president which was colossally stupid but it was an error. i can imagine their breathless the president is coming the meeting was secret it was stupid and the white house said they will do an investigation someone was really embarrassed at the end of it. it is not analogous to the because the crucial distinction with intent. i the the if my view was retaliation for my husband who was of critic of the iraq war it was a warning shot but this was just foolish. i read a little bit and then to make that falls equivalency that is misplaced. >> she is the right person to answer this but what she's says sounds right out seeing a station chief is bad the matter how what happens but what you will see with the media is we observe and respect the rule that they be individuals whose indignities are disclosed is something that most will not do. and looking back to deliver it outing of bowery i am still shocked by that. >> the new media follow those rules? >> i think as media evolves they really are giving away anybody with the iphone is a journalist. fly the rules that work for everybody will be different. we had rules that our boss said if you have information about national security issues we have the right to publish but you have responsibilities to the agency and the consequences. if that is the similar rule to take effect then i don't know. is it appropriate? certainly a world that there are no secrets to be protected at all. we have an incredible audience. >> the floor is open. we have microphones. make the every questions and brief answers before you buy the book. >> do you see the compatibility or conflict with your roles as a columnist who writes frequently and usually respectfully of the cia and as the novelist? i am one-third of the way through it i need to ask one of your guys how to work the amazon kindle book i have never received the phrase clowns and action in your column. you are very harsh in this book more so with a column. said does the novel did you wait to say things you could not say in the column? [laughter] >> ag were usually more respectful÷nñ of certain ag and one dash agencies they and -- international agencies than u.s. ones. >> search of the when you write a novel you were just leaving in to this story 750 words, 120,000 and dash canvas to give the story that is richer that was positives and negatives. the narrator of my column david ignatius is at the top but with the novel you to have reflections and a character and action merely it is a culinary institute of america. [laughter] this. >> of question for valerie you mentioned going well for lunch trying to recruit assets if they tell you i read recently you had double agents who will reveal the names of those who cooperated with the government and are now dead. what is your response? >> i will speak to my personal case with me with the leak of my game, the personal self that my career as i knew it was over my assets were in jeopardy but there we're warning signs they be thinking about for whatever reason to share intelligence back to the last question and sometimes it is a good thing everyone knows who the chief of station is but then they may decide they work themselves up to make that approach been no leak of my name happens and they say they cannot evening keep one of their own say if i would i put myself and my family in harm's way? i will go talk to the russians at least they can keep a secret. that is the unintended consequences for sure. >> teaching at georgetown school of foreign service what do you tell students toward seeking of a career in this area of clandestine i intelligence a foreign service that have the talent to do what you have done? >> when we were retaking earlier with every university students i always urged them and take the opportunity. i would be remiss if i did not i feel i have to preface despite what happened to me i love to my career i was so proud to serve my country. i always do encourage them to think about it. because our problems are not going away agreed to be the best and the brightest to come in after 9/11 there was a surge of young people with incredible skills to say i want to serve my country. i worked with these young people that had given up some rays or a career to go into operations to make the salary that is not enough to live in washington very well. >> i want the best states och to have a strong service when i taught at the kennedy school i would have the experience were a student would, pondering career options and ask what i thought to. beyond the sensible thing i would add for young people in their late twenties and thirties the important thing is to have a job where you can take risks and make mistakes. that is how you grow.35x and to give the freedom to fail. is hard for the government to give people the freedom to fail. so a very creative young person to lead make the point if you need to stretch and test yourself that maybe the wrong place. >> some of the most vivid passages did your book or the next generation officers that are tattooed, appears to, i'd goth, mohawks one gets a sense of that hackers but someone has said some of these chinese going to hacker conferences but look at the american hackers with the young digital's is patriotism and nationalism? when you ask that question it is interesting because i am not sure that is what is driving it it is not with your characters but they think of a higher order phaeton u.s. national interest. >> one of the first things i did researching this book was to go to the vague hacker convention. guess they have conventions and las vegas it is called defcon 20. i met strange people super smart but they call it the wall of sheep is growing in realtime all of the user names and passwords that has been cracked in that moment buy their software on people's computers and you realize how vulnerable we are. >> did you see your name? >> i was told before i went but i think in the acknowledgments don't break any computers or cell phones as soon as you come in of false wife i network will try to capture your information. so with those recruiting grounds have been there and if you go to that and a say tomorrow or six months ago he would see something pretty interesting. you would see a lot of people with super long hair and black t-shirts see people like you would see at death:because they have been recruited but talking about patriotism serving my country? if you can hack it, hackett why climb everest? because it's there. that is the spirit of hackers am part of what got out of control. it is every direction of the super smart kids we can take that down. so very good richer managers are needed. [laughter] and defcon is going on this summer. >> i don't remember seeing any but maybe it was covered up. >> they told me last question. make your questions very simple we will call it one question. >> you both mentioned we don't need all this surveillance across agencies but we don't hear from the people doing the work has there been a shift in surveillance as it dead useful or out of control? >> to what you talk about the smaller cia to collect intelligence3ms it has gotten way out of balance to get back to what it was to mostly be about? >>. >> as you are aware james rise in is a "new york times" correspondent during the gold battles and has reappraising chapters one up one of pulitzer with a wireless taps with the cia attempt to recruit to the russian defector who then with the office says in vienna try to get him of fried blueprint. >> there is a lot of cameras going. >> is a great chapter. spinet the supreme court tomorrow will conference to decide whether or not he deserves the media privilege protected sources or if he is compelled to testify and will go to jail for a bong time but in particular this case to expose the damage and the danger of the assets to harm the national security could you offer any insight or prospective? >>. >> the former chief of nsa if they miss lee said his motto was collect it all that has led us to where we are today. i think is needed to take a closer look five interested to see the new patriot act i want to see from the mexico those senators as well as from oregon have been very outspoken all but jumping up and down the last two years to say pay attention. this is just might take but with all this collected all mentality but where are the nigerian schoolgirls are. come on. i would like a definitive answer on that terrible chemical weapons attack last august in syria of. i would like that if we're going to do that then have real answers. those other two questions are made for david. >> to speak briefly on the of collect it all, we do now appear to have a set of reform proposals to pass both houses the president will sign into law with the embedded data itself to hold for a limited period of time so we will have a lot of limitations. more than we have had. and the right thing is to live with that. . .