For second correction. There was no one ever charged second quick correction. The judge said yes to testify and she wouldnt testify on defense. You said that when you met on june 23 you were discussing the effort then you set the second and at that point is you said once again as an aside his wife worked at the south agency. So that wasnt correct . That wasnt correct. Those references were in parentheses and i had told Patrick Fitzgerald i used them for two purposes, number one two remember to ask someone i was interviewing a question about information i had already heard, and the second was to take note of something that was interesting that the interviewee was saying that wasnt relevant. So when i saw its in the lead but let me put it this way. The first reference was to the bureau. That was my question. If Scooter Libby had leaked the name to me on valerie plane since she worked at the agency he would never have said she was in the bureau. Why . Because the cia doesnt have bureaus. It has divisions and offices but the state department, which was her cover when she was a cia agent had bureaus into the person who initially told me that she worked at the state department cia used the word of euro and i remember that only after learning that her cover was a cause Patrick Fitzgerald knew that information all the time. No recollection knowing that she worked before and now she talked to before. There were two conversations and the reference to this is a second. Even the notes and one reason i wrote this book is i wanted to tell what i now know and have learned about the case and the more i learned about the case the more i thought of as a travesty that had occurred with so much going on in the country at that time. Final question and then she will be around to autograph books. Certainly related to the conversation about getting it right or wrong im interested to give in the experience in the middle east how do you suggest we evaluate this . It is a pretty short answer. We think we know about the motivations but i dont be says he intends to have the centrifuges. I had taken the position and i thought that was a very good thing that was in our countrys interest and its worked out well. In fact we have to wait and see what the president comes up with i know at the moment the ayatollah and u. S. Congress are not making that effort any easier. But i would just urge you once again we have had many estimates in the cases. I am not persuaded given what i saw that we know much more about iran than we knew about iraq. I hope we do but im not actively reporting that right now. Theres plenty more material in the books of book so we hope you will buy the book and buy it here in support of the wonderful work and politics and prose. Thank you all for coming. [applause] what do you do for a living . I am a ghost writer. What is a ghost writer . A ghost writer is an author who writes in the first person of another person. Host how did you get into that business . Guest it co it is a long story of the short end of the story i was an advertising guy after college and graduate school. I was going to meet ray charles and talk him into doing an authorized biography for the Pulitzer Prize and the nobel prize and i didnt know anything about ghost writing so i had a hard time introducing myself but anyway, i was able to do it. And when i did this agent told me you know, you want to do his autobiography and i said no i dont. He said you do. He said youll learn a lot he will earn a lot more money if you do a ghost book as a much larger market for a ray charles book then god biography book. And i still dont want to do it. I want to do a biography and for my own name and then my agent asked me a question. The question was what book would you prefer to actually read . A book written by someone like you or retain in his voice and i said i would prefer to read the book and his voice. And he said then you should write a book you want to read not the one that you be the view should write. So thats that kind of changed everything. Then i discovered that there was a kind of musicality in his voice because as you know we learned to speak before we learn to think and then it occurred to me if i kind of creatives voice create his voice on the page in other words when i attend i in him then i will be sort of making music and there isnt anything i would rather do than make music. In doing his voice i discovered i have a gift for it and i am not sure what it is but its something about the approximation of a voice because as you know if you just do a transcription in other words if they are just kind us to be transcribed that isnt a good representation because one thing i learned early on is the eye hears much differently than a year so when you try to create a literary voice, it is an artistic act. You are creating the impression that this person is talking to you in a conversational way so in order to do that you have to move from political transcription to i dont know exactly what to call it but giving the person a literary voice, and that as i said is art its not clear cold as when i began to do it i presumed it was. Host did you have any connection to ray charles or any connection to writing . Guest i had written in High School Academic essays and journalism. I have done a lot of writing. So i was comfortable with the act, but not this act of being a ghost. I was new. I went to college and majored in english and i went to graduate school but all that training didnt prepare me for being a ghost writer. I had never contemplated it. The only two books that i really had were one what was the autobiography of Billie Holliday lady sings the blues and i knew that was written by a ghost writer because when i was about 12 or 13 and a hat half on the cover as told to william and i remember asking my father who is this guy and he said he probably wrote the book and i said no it was written by Billie Holiday because its all in her voice and shes talking to you and i remember my father told me thats what he does for her come hes giving you the idea that shes writing the book. Then i remembered asking does he get to go over to Billie Holidays house and my father said i presume he does and then i remembered i said thats the job i want and thats the job i have a. Host . Of their im at the cover. Did you appear on the cover guest my name has always appeared on the cover. In the beginning it was important for me that my name was a certain because i havent got over this idea that host writers are looked at as something of a subcategory. And it took me a long time just to be comfortable with that. Host another look with just your name on it. Guest in 1995 i met Aretha Franklin after chasing her for years. I had done this book with ray charles and the next book i wanted to do was aretha because i loved her music as passionately as the music of ray charles and she wasnt interested as a typical of me i would kind of chase after artists and call them until i can get a meeting and hopefully get them to hire me. In her case i did. In the mid1950s and in the mid19 90s she hired me to ghost write her autobiography that this was an instance where i didnt deliver the kind of book i really wanted to. I had a hard time gaining any emotional intimacy with her and i didnt get her to reveal my tv covering much about her life. So the book came out and i wasnt happy with the book so i took about 14 years and continued my research on her. And in october of 2014 i put out my own biography that i call respect because i didnt feel i had honored her art or complexity is of her stories enough in doing her autobiography that i dont expect to do that again anytime soon. In other words the books ive done on a ray charles or bb king or Smokey Robinson they are not perfect books, but i feel from a historical point of view if you want to get to know these people and hear them talking to you and telling their stories, then the books ive done with them are accurate and good and filled with soul and heart but in this case i just felt as though he owed it to her in history to do my own version. Host when you make an arrangement first is there a nondisclosure agreement . Can you be censored by the main author . Guest yes and im glad you asked me that because thats one of the most interesting things about my book. I give away all control. I remember once i was at a conference in austin on a panel of biographers and this biographer said richard shouldnt even be here because he is a ghost writer and thats not a biographer. One of the reasons i cant trust his book is because he has no editorial control over the content and i have to agree with him. I didnt agree with him that i shouldnt be on the panel and i have to point out to him that the holy bible is a ghost written book and we dont know who the author of that is and there are other excellent post for ten bucks, the autobiography of malcolm x. Is looked at as a classic, but going back to the point of control one of the points i made is that when you give control of a cube gets gets more control because it isnt on the table as a point of contention. So knowing that he or she has the ultimate editorial content can relax and you are able to gain more intimacy that way and usually at the end of the process i have gained enough of the trust of the star that i can pretty much control the content of the book. There are other times they dont want this or that but generally i think the biggest addiction of all his control and anytime i can give away control i im a happier person and i think i work with greater integrity and greater empathy because what ghost writing is really all about is empathy and compassion because in order to get people to open up their hearts and tell you whats happened in their lives, their conflict, they have to feel as though you are not judging demand you love them on a certain level. If ive done well and i think i have come its because ive been able to open up my heart with the people that ive worked with and establish this kind of report im a ssierra good circuit for the person that reads the book. Many people would like to be in my position and get to hang out with ray charles or Willie Nelson for days or weeks at a time and hang out at the Kitchen Table and hear him tell stories so i know they are just not for me, for all those untold numbers of people who want to gain access to these people. One of the other challenges its interesting i its interesting i was just at a conference over the weekend, a music conference and in seattle a person asked me what do you think the purpose what is your purpose as a writer and i said i have two of them, one is to avoid a nervous breakdown and the other one is to make a living. And the two tied together because if you noticed you cant make a living, and if you are making a living you cant have a nervous breakdown so for me as a freelance writer for the last 40 some years, its been important to make a living and not go back to. Ghost writing has been a a great way for me to keep my head above the water from a financial point of view because theres a builtin market for stars, they have an audience and also they come to you with a story. You know ive written biographies and novels and essays. Ive written lots of stuff but i keep my concentration on ghost writing a and im a commercial writer at heart. I want people to read my books and have a large audience and im conscious of that and thats partially because because they come out of the advertising business. I learned to write ads and copies so i think once a copywriter, always a copywriter. But as i said before, the surprise for me i gave up advertising because it was too easy and the creative challenge was gone. Ive been ghost writing for maybe 41 years and im still challenged because its horrid and you dont sort of ever get it right into the idea for you to ask me to ghost write your book, i would have to get to know you and get a good kind of feeling for how. And they might pull it off and they might not. Even beyond the sort of mechanics theres also will i be a good enough psychologist to get you to open up will i give you enough space which i havent been able to do in this interview because ive been talking all the time. What if you agreed to write the book and i said i dont want your name on it . Guest that has happened a couple times. I think i would like to be a person that could answer the un to you and tell you i wouldnt care. That would be a more chilled out version of me. However if i would go nuts and you wouldnt be able to talk to me. Because in order to be a good ghost writer you have to deal with your ego and submerge. It cant just have what it wants because like i told you in the original story to win the nobel prize isnt going to happen in an autobiography. I think god that being a ghost writer because i wanted to earn money and get more gigs ive trained myself to tend to the sort of event that my ego. To go back to your question if you let me do my book my answer might be good but give me another 80000. Every book is a different sort of negotiation. There are no rules. Your agent usually negotiate with the stars of manager. But every book is different. Host for somebody else youve written with youve written a couple of books with him. This is number three and we are working on number four. The publisher at the time had him under contract for an autobiography and i had just written a book for steve who was big in the music business, he was present with columbia records. In any event, he thought that we would be a good combination so he put us together and i rode with him his autobiography and then last year he and i did a book together about Martin Luther king and recently we worked together on this book with my angelou about his relationship, but hes the idea collaborators because he appreciates what i do and shows me Great Respect and also i love how he speaks and i love his voice. He is a good storyteller so its been a great combination. Host is the ghost writing business a pretty big business that we dont necessarily know about . Guest the one area we havent talked about is deep ghost which means you dont have your name on it you touched upon it earlier, but it is a person who has ghost written a book to the grief of politicians who use a deep ghost because they want to give the idea that they actually grew up with the buck and i dont know. I havent done a survey on it but i dont know whether they are in majority returned by politics but a large number of books are written by politicians, so yes its i will tell you one arresting story about that. I was on an airplane going to the conference and i was next to the guy that is well known. I dont want to hurt his name because i dont want to have hurt feelings. He tested and decided thats interesting. He asked me what books ive done and the only problem is, hes had, i dont have a lot of respect for a person who wants to write his life story and doesnt do it by himself and i turned to him and i said why . You can have a great story but not have the jobs to be able to tell it and just because you dont have a job to write it doesnt mean the world should still enjoy it. Not Everybody Knows how. I think there will always be the need for ghosts. There will always be people with compelling stories to tell. So i hope to do it until i cant do any more. What is your connection . Guest . He was another guy that chased after because i wanted to do his autobiography. I have been listening to him talk about this in 1979 he put out a. This will be an autobiographical treatment. Critics pander to and i loved it and i wrote a letter to the New York Times praising and arguing hopefully he would read the letter. He did and he called me. We began working on his book. At the time he wasnt in great shape and he went to hawaii and england and he wound up in europe. It was my way of trying to help him understand. It was a day to hate back in the United States but he was murdered in 1984 before he and i have a chance to complete his autobiography. I wrote that divided the soul which was my biography for him. I would have much preferred to have done this on a biography that i couldnt. He wasnt there to approve. So it is full of the conversations we had over the years but there isnt any artist i loved more. He was aristocratic and sweet and gentle troubled charismatic he had an elevated conscience. Host when you read that you were pretty well gone words you . Guest i dont think that we were with him. The answer is yes. Host do you still make money off of that . Guest its been an incredible International Hit that help put my kids through college and its been amazing how popular that song has been and its one of the proudest accomplishments for me because the idea that they would get to work with burgundy and that i would get to help put together a song going through his mind, and he also liked to have this and he appreciated me. When he saw a letter or a talent he would read the bible and so forth. He was encouraging and full of praise for others. Host that seems like you have worked with a the love of africanamerican ghost writing. Guest i love the africanamerican culture and the music and its what i listen to all day long since i was eight 9yearsold. Part of my motivation is that im drawn to the music but then to the musicians so i can understand what you try and spend a [inaudible] i kind of used to the music. Host i was born jewish in a fine 71yearsold and became a christian since 2005. Its interesting because you ask me about africanamerican music and i was also drawn to the africanamerican church. I remember going to africanamerican churches and everyone seemed to be not having a good time that there was something happening that seemed important and rich and warm and loving and encouraging but i always have my nose pressed against the glass and then 60 70yearsold and i made up my mind i think i will go in. So i am getting the kind of nurturing i always wanted to have. Music journey into the church, it wasnt a theology of the theology of the whole another subject but the love and positive energy and acceptance of others that i hear a in the excitement and the kind of nurturing a bad idea and is holy and one interesting thing about Aretha Franklin is in this book i wrote respect. One of the reasons that she is as great as she is she had a the well known the father and one of the things he taught her is that its not there is one god and he went against the tradition of the time saying you cant think possible and sing gospel. I believe you can listen and be as prayerful. Host nondisclosure agreements. Are there things you would like to put into Willie Nelson