to adjoin assad's forces. they have been bolstered by militiamen from iraq yemen afghanistan months others leaving some to refer to the regime's constellation of forces as iran's foreign legion. meanwhile heavily sunni-arab north-central region has come under the control of the diverse assortment of armed opposition groups including al qaeda affiliates and the islamic state of iraq bolstered by fighters from the middle east to europe and even the united states. in the kurdish north the offshoot of the workers party of the pkk has also dominated the scene and operates freely. meanwhile attempts by major neighboring states and world powers to contain the crisis are under serious stress. car bombs and violence threatening both the country's fragile sectarian balance and jordan's suffering the stress of a 615,000 official refugees is currently struggling to defend his territory from cross-border attacks. what is sometimes called the regions security architecture middle east post-world war i boundaries set nearly a century ago as well as the people who live with that architecture are under unprecedented stress and this has deep implications for the region's stability. to help us understand the manocherian's crisis intersects with the strategic interest and policy prescriptions may now be necessary and joined by two very distinguished guests. david miliband is the president and ceo of international rescue committee. he oversees the agency's relief and development operations and its refugee resettlement assistance programs have the united states and the irc's affix the effort in washington geneva rustles in the world's capitals. prior to joining mr. miliband had a distinguished political career in the united kingdom including serving between 2,072,007 is the youngest u.k. foreign secretary in three decades during which he was a strong advocate for human rights as secretary of state for the environment he pioneered the world's first legally binding emissions reduction requirements. mr. miliband served as minister of communities and local government minister of schools and the head of downing streets number 10 policy unit and a member of parliament representing -- mr. miliband's parents fled their home in belgium in 1940 is the son of refugees he brings personal commitment to irc's workplace accomplishments have earned him a wreck -- reputation as one of the most creative public servants of our time as an effective and passionate advocate for poor people. he is joined today by ambassador robert ford. ambassador ford is a 30-year veteran of the u.s. department of state and peace corps and recently finished his career as u.s. ambassador to syria where he served between 2011 and 2014. this is not a towards it first appearance but it is his first time here quote in flesh. he joined me here via skype from the u.s. embassy in damascus for my book launch in october of 2011. for his leadership of the american embassy in damascus and including his july 2011 trip to support peaceful pro-democracy pose -- protesters as well as as his leadership. he received a presidential honor ford and secretary of state distinguished secretary of war. for his defense of human rights in syria the john of kennedy library in boston ordered him the annual 2012 profile in courage award. his penchant for dealing with the middle east from the ground up instead of the top down started during his stand as a member of the peace corps in morocco. like many if not most that shows this approach to the middle east it often landed him in the hot seat in hot places. he served three times in iraq between 2003 in and 2010 including the ambassador to the senior political adviser and the standup of the permanent iraqi government in 2006. later as deputy investor in iraqi assembled a governmental team and device security plans used to set up u.s. might post in iraq. ford served as u.s. ambassador in algeria as well as algiers deputy investor in bahrain and posey chipped turkey and cameron. we will start off with mr. miliband's comments and move on to ambassador ford and after that we will open it up for a discussion. mr. miliband. >> thank you very much and are in good afternoon everyone. it's a real pleasure to be here at the washington institute which i think has a well-deserved reputation as a critical forum for debate and dialogue often on unfashionable issues and is a source of enormous sadness to me that the syria crisis, the regional crisis that is engulfing a large part of the middle east should he come a crisis that too many people don't want to talk about and i'm grateful to the institute for putting this event together. i am particularly delighted to be able to share a platform with ambassador ford who really does deserve much more than i do your kind introduction. ambassador ford has earned his introduction through extraordiextraordi nary public service and i'm looking forward to her conversation. i think when we first talked about having this event we wanted to try and tease out the interdependence between politics and the humanitarian challenge and the humanitarian agenda. obviously traditionally and i moved from someone who dedicated my career to using politics in government to solve problems i have now moved dealing with situations where governmental politics is the problem and if you like i'm looking at the issues from the other end of the telescope. traditionally the humanitarian sector sees itself dealing with the consequences of political failure or governmental failure and most obviously a civil war but what i think is really interesting about the searing crisis and emblematic of wider humanitarian challenges is to line of causality does not just flow in one direction. humanitarian crisis causes political instability and that is self-evidently true in the countries of the middle east afflicted by the searing crisis. what's interesting to me is it's also true in afghanistan and pakistan where they do a lot of work and it's true in large parts of africa as well. i hope we can tease that out in the course of this discussion. i just want to say a few things about how things look for us as a humanitarian organization that is now dedicating 20% of its global budget to the syrian crisis. what i would say in short is the syria emergency has become the defining humanitarian crisis of our time and it is being defined for all the wrong reasons. above all the failure of the humanitarian community collectively embodied and defined to rise to the huge challenge that is supposed by the terrible cocktail of the dictatorship religious enmity, communal set tearingism interregional power plays and global power plays that is at the heart of the syria and conflict. we are not officially recognizing the country. we are working inside syria on a cross-border basis and in the four neighboring countries of turkey jordan and iraq and 60% of our work is crossed order. just by way of background in by way of washington where the u.s. is a humanitarian foreign station that the funding comes from europe which is an interesting indication of the relative priority of the syrian crisis. let me just say up at about why the collective response looked more like a defining failure than a defining success for the humanitarian enterprise and i have to be careful in talking about this because i am enormously humble and proud or humble in the face of irc staff. we think we have helped half a million syrians access aid in the last three years. we think we have helped half a million syrians inside the country inside syria have access to medical aid and are syrian parliament some of whom are in the room today. half a million more syrians inside syria have access to medical aid with winters asian kids and at least equal numbers of syrian refugees in neighboring countries. why does the collective response looked more like a defined failure? it's more about the mismatch of need and help. to think 9.5 million people now displaced from their homes. i think this is interesting to capture a sense of the dynamism here. in remarks a couple of months ago we talked about to .4 million -- where now it's 3.5 million syrians cut off from medical aid in besieged areas a1 million increase over the last two or three months. and of course inside syria there's a failure because the notion of a civilian has been lost which has wide consequences for those who are concerned about international law and humanitarian law around the world. the president that has been set in the syrian crisis is that there is no such thing as a civilian -- and whether a citizen or civilian you are presumed to be on one side. the mismatch extends to the neighboring countries. i tell people to escape lebanon that is like the whole of britain coming to america basically in three years. you may like us but not that much. we haven't found a way to dramatize what it means for countries like lebanon but for close allies of the united states like jordan. 650,000 registered a month ago the jordanian ambassador talked about an equal number of unlisted refugees. you can do the calculations. it's the whole of poland coming to america in the space of two or three years and maybe an interesting piece of the granularity from the field the refugees who were helping in the neighboring countries are the victims of multiple displacements. that means they haven't just come straight from a bombarded city into one of our sentences in a neighboring country. they have been multiply displaced around syrian. the education issue is getting some play. refugees in the country are women and kids. that still leaves about 300,000 syrian children in lebanon who have no education for three years and the estimates are by the end of the year there will be 500 kids who aren't getting education. that's the kind of mismatch we are talking about. i was last in lebanon three or four months ago a lebanon and turkey. the emergence of tent cities around the country 1000 towns and villages have had the population more than doubled so the shelter issue is enormous. the u.n. appeal you you'll know about 5.5 billion on a regional basis and 1 billion received so is 16% -- that's another evidence of the mismatch and obviously the crisis is getting worse but the political process is completely installed with the generous inscription of the political process. let me just give you a bit since the u.n. security council resolution and organizations like mine who worked hard. it's pretty shocking indictment that it took three years to get the resolution solely on the way mutual question of humanitarian help. since then according to our research two-parter openings from turkey and syria convoys of food for born a thousand people but that is not feeding them all year. it's feeding them once so it's important not to get this out of proportion. temporary security security improvements and a luppo allowed some supplies and that government restrictions and these are restrictions on the u.n. and ngos working inside syria hampering aid in 12 to 14 governments. just in terms of where this is going we are now very concerned with spring and summer on the way at increased risk of transmission of disease. the polio outbreak with quite a lot of coverage last november. i think it's a major concern. the danger of drought in the northeast of syria is very significant in the summer months so a food crisis. continuing destabilization of the neighbors given the thousands arriving every day. the resilience of neighboring states has been extraordinary over the last three years but i don't think we should be complacent about it. i just want to pick up something the injury you referred to. someone said assad has now got the word that he wanted. it's a war in which his enemies are described by some people in terms of making him as bad as them. he used the example of somalia and other people have talked about lebanon station. i think it's almost more serious than that. the afghan is a shin of the center of the country and the afghan is a shin in the sense that it's no-man's land and government terms and it becomes becomes -- a piece in the "london review of books" by a professor talks about a craving for surgeons and that is why think the notion of african station is appropriate. let me just finish on the following reflection. sometimes we in the humanitarian or talk about campaigning for more access and we talk about access issues that are making it difficult to get humanitarian aid through and makes the problems seem like some kind of unfortunate accident. it's almost as if the example i give someone is being strangled you don't say they have problems accessing air. if you are being strangled it's in active process. the humanitarian situation in syria is not the accidental live product the unfortunate byproduct of a war without law. it's the strategic products of a war without law. i think it's really important to understand that and to what extent can the humanitarian sector be held to the phrase i use that we have the ability to mitigate the suffering but we don't have the ability to stop the killing. it takes politics to stop the killing but if you're interested in stanching the dying or relieving the suffering i can report that actually we have the capacity to do more. so the funding constraint is bigger than the security constraint at the moment. and how can we break that cycle? one is -- john kerry has a lot on his plate and he can't give anything other than temporary attention to the syrian crisis and we are arguing that every member of the security council and all interested parties should appoint a humanitarian envoy who would need a full-time focus on the humanitarian crisis. a diplomat of distinction and muscle with the support of their head of government to give ongoing engagement at the local level but also the international level to the humanitarian situation broke ring the cease-fire to opening up to public scrutiny some of the abuses going on. secondly it's very important that we legitimize and talk about and emphasize the centrality of cross-border operations. you don't need a special resolution to legitimize cross-border operations. governments have a responsibility to facilitate the cross-border effort. it's importantly the don't lose sight of that. hurriedly one of the important parts of any humanitarian agenda has to be to put pressure not just on the parties but the supporters of the party so they have to be held accountable. the mandate for the u.n. inside syria and the image of the u.n. cars coming out of the middle with civilians between them being shot at and the bullets being taken by the u.n. lorries is an extraordinary tribute to the bravery of the u.n. and the centrality but they need to be supported in the work that they are doing. just to finish on the following note if we had been having this meeting three years ago and i had said to you my fear is that in three years time there would be 160,000 dead and 3 million displaced next door 1500 kids assassinated large numbers of people in government torture chambers. if i had said that i think we would have said mike goodness we have the responsibility to do something. i think it's worth having that perspective because otherwise our senses are going to be doled to what is an extraordinary crisis to be contained within the boundaries of one country. thank you very much. [applause] >> good afternoon. andrew let me thank you and patrick claussen is here somewhere in this large group. i am very flattered david miliband i have huge respect for the work the rescue commission is doing on behalf of syrians and it's a great honor for me to be the table with you. i see a number of familiar faces here and i just want to sail though. joanne cummings is here and she was with me at the embassy in damascus and for that very good work state department sent her to work in yemen so glad to see you home safely joanne. do you ever do paris? then i also see connie mayor from the state department with whom she and i have noodled this syria lebanon conundrum for 25 years and i see jeremy shapiro. we used to sit around and think how can we address and fix this syria problem? it is just a tragedy. and then finally i see this on its sock and i want to say a special hello to him. back in 2011 when we had hopes that the regime would engage seriously with the opposition i worked a lot trying to get that dialogue started. it ended when the regime went into a couple of faces and arrested everyone. it's intent was quite clear by july 2011. so what can i say about the humanitarian crisis? david did a brilliant job in summing up a couple of points i would like to make. first the united states is hugely concerned about this and they have a big team at the state department and the u.s. agency for international development to work on this. secretary kerry is personally very interested in it and i've spent a lot of time with him. we -- the united states is the largest single donor to the syrian relief efforts and a total now of 1.7 billion dollars and that is a lot of money in his budget climate. that amount got to 1.7 billion after secretary kerry went to a conference in kuwait in january of this year january 2014 and announced a 380 million-dollar increase which brought our total funds made available for syrian relief efforts up to 1.7 billion that money is going in part to refugees. i think it's now up to 2.6 million refugees in particular in turkey, lebanon and almost a third of the population. it's unbelievable. jordan and iraq and then a very large part of that money is also going to help people in need inside syria. heart of that is distributed through the united nations and i do want on this occasion to signal a huge thanks to the united nations for their efforts inside syria. there are a lot of heroes working for the united nations inside syria and john and valerie amos are doing their utmost. john has been a real fighter. in addition to the 1.7 million i mentioned there is additional money we are providing to local communities in areas where the syrian regime has lost control. these are in particular in the north and the northwest from central aleppo and a bit to the east where we are providing things like rescue equipment, where we are providing food and now we are paying salaries in some places for police and even teachers to sort of keep communities going. .. >> they are mainly located in the damascus suburbs, but there's other places where there's been an uptick in fighting over the last few days. this action blockading action conflict, this blockade absolutely contravenes the geneva convention. it's illegal. it's outrageous. i have to say, we have to be honest about it, it is a regime tactic of wariments the regime basically is doing this in sensitive areas which is trying to recapture. often, the places they try to retake are near highways or outside damascus. they don't have troops to go in. they are suffering from major manpower shortages, which is why the hezbollah intervention and those by the shea -- shia militia is important. they don't have the troops to go in and full scale assault, so they surround communities they are trying to recapture and basically shot all traffic in and out. what that created in the last few months, it's been in media reports, our efforts by those starving to beth, where by in return for armed opposition elements turning over heavy weaponry, the regime lets food supply in. in some places, the local cease fires have been observed for a time in places, and in some places, they collapse immediately. i think what is important for people here to understand is these blockades are conscious government tactic of war, and it is not going to change, i do not think, as long as the regime is fighting for its life. even in places where the regime has allowed cross border convoys, in particular, up in the northeast in the kurdish area, they are allowed to go in in places where a current militia, present to the regime, the pkk's regime, nay are in control ?rerring the convoys passed largely went out to. the u.n. security resolution passed in february was a great step forward, but it's not implemented on the ground, and we can talk about the russian's reactions to this, if there's questions from the audience. i'll finish my remarks quickly talking a bit about the opposition and its role in blockades. i have heard some countries say both sides are doing this. i heard that in geneva. the reality is there are some small towns which the opposition has blockaded, and in particular that you're hear about regularly, one just to the northwest, and near it another place, and these are not unlike what the regime inflicted. these are not airtight blah cads. the opposition does not control access fully to from the north, from ppkkurdish area, and these are places which have been shelling opposition sites inside which is why they attracted the attention of the opposition. i did not justify the blockade, but i -- that the opposition imposed on these places, but it is nowhere near the scale of what the regime is doing and to equate the two, i think, is to miss the broader point of what's going on in syria and in terms of human rights violations, and violations of international norms, and i think the remarks last week from the united nations human rights commission were spot on. last thing i want to say is important as we deal with the opposition, and we talk to them about human tannian laws. they have, themselves, splintered, and i remember john king said to me when the u.n. tried to run convoys up from damascus last winter, they had to go through 53 roadblocks between damascus, and he said they were roughly half and half, half regime and half opposition. as we, the americans think about the opposition, one of the things we have to do is find ways to bring the opposition to work dm a coordinated fashion and needs to be consolidation among their ranks. i'm happy to talk about that further. i'm going to stop there to open it up to questions, and, again, thank you very much for this invitation. [applause] >> thank you, robert. thank you, david. i'll start out with the first question for the conversation, and it is a bit of a conversation, i think, unlike a lot of events we have here. i think both of you did an excellent job of outlining a lot of the symptoms of this area crisis, and in a human humanitan sense, the policy response is about dealing with symptoms, number of deflated persons, food packets, these kind of issues. i got a sense from both presentations, but particularly from david that there was a sense of dealing with the disease and growing in scales, while it's falling off the monitor, the television screens of americans and others due to a plane, the tragic plane that seems to have gone down in the south indian ocean or going on in crimea. this room is nevertheless filled with people who are concerned about what's going on in syria. my question to both of you is in terms of dealing with the syria crisis, much has been done by both your organization and also by the united states' government as robert outlined to deal with the symptoms of this disease, but how do we come about and deal with the disease itself? how do we get on a track to try to deal with and bring about an end, you know, not just an end that can end up in a temporary cease fire, but truly a settlement in syria that can see syria begin to rebuild and move into the future? >> there are two inhibitions in the question. one, it's a remarkably difficult question. secondly, i am running an international human organization that has been in daily danger, and there's a natural inhibition on what i can say and speculate about that takes 34e over the line a into politics. i think that we got to understand where we are before you can dpirg out where to go to and it's easier for me to talk about where we are, and perhaps what might happen next. i think that the moment of maximum weakness of the regime was shortly after ambassador ford left. the period in the middle of 2012, second half of 2012, looked like a periods of maximum weakness where the consolation beat the unity of opposition fort were not degraded, and the sense of strategy and clarity of the alliances in government forces was weaker. second point, i think that i'm allowed to say that many arguments are put by many involvements by the west that if the west got involved #, there's more refugees, al-qaeda, chemical weapons, and all those things happened anyway. it's worth reflecting on that over the last -- over the course of that over the last three years of western government undoubtedly rereflected the caution and leeriness of their populations in getting their fingers in another middle eastern mangle in the course that's been brought to bear in that, but many of the things most feared that would be triggered by western further western engagement happened # anyway, and i think that's worth reflecting on. thirdly, i think that the potential of this to become a regional crisis is now very, very potent, and i ask those to report before i started the rfc in january 2013, there was the fact finding report and call it syria, a regional crisis, and at the time, they talked about it being a civil war, and i think one has to understand the regional players have got involved, and that begins to speak to the -- if you just take the three points, you can begin to draw some implications about the way in which you might need to address it in the future. >> okay. robert? >> from the beginning, we have seen an opposition between the regime, and that's why we worked hard to get to a geneva conference, and the regime is not interested in negotiating any transition government, and that was made abun adaptly clear, and what was interesting was that the russians could not or did not exert pressure on the regime to actually make it or even discuss or put it on agenda for discussion of a transition government. the opposition did actually table an interesting initial proposal for a transitional government. you can read that on the interpret for those who are so inclined. the root cause of the problem is assad as a magnet attracting foreign fighters and a huge opposition within many communities inside syria. fate of him is tied to the now state of the nation, and his likely announcement of running for reelection, announcing the date next week as himself said, the u.n. special envoy, just going to e enormously complicate setting up that transition government, so what to do? don't think it's -- there needs to be measure pressure on the regime that's part of it. another part is there's going to have to be a diplomatic part in the agreement within the various players in the region and internationally, and i do mean in part russia and iran. their interests are not being served by assad's continuation of the war. in addition to the regional instability that david was just talking about, there is also a very real security threat. there are a lot of chechnyans learning tricks of the trade in syria fighting on behalf of the opposition. they are all over the youtube. they do not represent the majority of the fighters against assad, but they are absolutely there. that can want be good for the russians. iranians also beware of a large, ungoverned state in syria. god forbid might extend into iraq. where al-qaeda and friends have a great deal to organization and plan. that cannot be in iran's interest either, and yet bashar, the very person of bashar owns a symbol that is attracting jihadis, and we need both pressure on the regime and find some kind of international consensus in order to restart a political negotiation. i don't think that's today or tomorrow. >> no. does this pressure -- to follow-up on that, does this pressure then, you know, currently, we have a huge number of sanctions on the assad regime, including individuals, on energy exports, we have also support for the opposition itself, and what kinds of pressure are we talking about, ramping up current pressure, pressure we have exuded so far, point to detail about that. >> no, no, i think the question's for you. [laughter] >> to me, andrew, there's three kinds of pressure that will be important. the first is it is of war, and so assistance to moderates in the opposition on the ground really matters. state department, for example, is providing nonleal assistance to elements of the free serian army, and that is vital to carry forward the fight. second, second, there's also a different kind of pressure on the regime that matters, and i spoke about this recently at the wilson center. it is important for the opposition to find ways to reach out to those communities in syria that still support bashar and explain they have a vision that does not include massacres in large scale retaliation or any retaliation gons those communities, minority or otherwise, that have supported the regime. there is a genuine fear amaster'smaster's-- amidst the media reports, and 86 in damascus that if the opposition wins, long bearded extremists are going to go true and cut throats. it is incumbent on the moderate opposition to explain they do not represent that. they are taking steps to stall that, and, thereby, give those communities, which have supported bashar, not enthusiastically in cases, give them an alternative. that the second kind of pressure, underminding the regime politically. third is underminding their foreign support, the support that russia and iran provided are absolutely strurmtal. i read a blog posting from a british journalist up with the regime soldiers, talking about how they were hanging on. there's an opposition underway now, regime, losing ground little by little up there, and talking to the syria regime soldiers who moved back away from the fighting and mentioned that hezbollah sent dm 215 troops, very good troop, and they don't drink like we do, which is interesting. [laughter] so convincing the foreign supporters that that has to be a better way that is also important. i think all three tracks have to be pursued at the same time. >> i have to speak on a second point the ambassador made, but i think it's wort drawing out. of course, politics and policy is easier once you are not in it. there's success in making, but there is to doable the right thing there, but what struck me about the last three years, speaking about the role syria played, ect., for the last three years, military intervention, yes or no, humanitarian, what scale, yes or no, the absence of a clear political answer, the question of what we're talking about a transition to? what comes after president a aassad, the vacuum when it comes to political security, institutional, economic guarantees, underpinnings of a functioning state, that absence of a political settlement about the distribution of power has been very, very striking. i think the absence of that political -- a political vision, speaks more strongly to the lessons we should have learned in iraq and afghanistan, we don't get defections from inside the regime. you don't get the rally of public opinion or the context within which the military to and fro takes place, and i do think that without new kind of political orientation, it's very, very hard to see words about compromise and post president, very hard to see that coming off. >> okay. we'll begin questions, microphone is over here, and them this gentleman. yes, just one. >> my question is to ford, chiming in, please, i want to pick up on the last point attempted that as it comes to the russians in the past, but there are ongoing talks with iran with the nuclear program. the talks have been focused on the nuclear issue; however, there's credible reporting of which you're aware there are back channel negotiations takes place in the past, so my question to you is the testament to get to a political resolution to the problem in syria, and, second is whether you think you are at liberty is at question to discuss that, thank you. >> well, since i retired, i actually can't tell you what we're doing with iran today, but what -- let me say a couple things about that. iran is country in the region and has interest, and i think they are going to have to be engage at some point. there was quite a discussion about whether or not they should be invited to the january 22 # conference, and in the end they were not because they, themselves, would not accept the gee knee that communique of june 2011 and the invitation, specifically said acceptance of the communique and negotiations to stand up to the transition government, and i think, also, negotiate, and transition government and longer term plan for the a settlement, but we know who was not in that initial conference, that initial event that there needed to be a way for iran to be included in discussions in some manner. i'm not aware that that's ever been agreed upon and how that would be done. i can message lots of different models for that, and i'm not sure what would be acceptable to iran, but other countries in the region and iran, but the syria opposition itself, so figure out a way to deal with iran, but i can't see exactly thousand they will do that. >> the united nations, spokesman, the deputy ambassador, and your former boss, crocker, who was also in syria, unwise not to have any level engagement. in fact, he suggested recently to explore ways, especially on this, and how you have the aid that needs to go and throughout syria. without engaging through clergy, and, you know, perhaps without gasping for air as you suggested. >> thank you. on the relief side, there's a number of ngos who are present in damascus, although heavily circumscribed in what to do. we were expelled in 2009 for reasons that are not -- remain unclear, and for humanitarian organization, the pledge is that you help people in need respect of their political organization, and that's where we look at on how we work and how we work, and, obviously, the u.p. is engaging with the regime. it's -- it must be, though, a source of enormous disstress, but, also significant how little the u.p. security counsel resolution has changed the actions of the regime in respect to the humanitarian situation, and the words ringing through my head is accountability. there's not accountability for a,s even when they are illegal, and that is a very serious indictment, not just of the u.n., but danger making a mockery of the nations of the u.s.. of course, the u.n. is an institution, but in the end, only as strong as the unity of the nations who make it up, and i think that is the context in which you need to think about the question you've asked. there may or may not be a regime, but there's a sterile conversation to say the convention requires you to allow humanitarian assistance, and if the regime then wants to negotiate that placely place by place, that is an understood ending game. we saw that happen in the former yugoslavia. that was not a good road to go down. when you talk about engaging the regime on hue main tearian assistance, i think what we really want is the regime to recognize it has an obligation under the convention to allow that to go through. there are very good lawyers, met a number of at the foreign min city. they can read them just as well as we can here. i'm not sure contact -- exactly what the conversation is going to be like. >> i spent a couple weeks on regime side in january and february, and i want to talk about your point about the need for the moderate opposition to reach out, the comiewrcht to support ones that are on the fence and assad's side of the fence they need reassurance. there's another part of the equation, and that is -- i spoke to sunnis, others who christians who reluctantly support assad as the lesser of two evils, but they did not see a moderate opposition unified, armed sufficiently to have the crbility nor do they see any kind of unified policy fruit united states, western allies or arab allies either. how do you -- how does the moderate opposition gain the kind of -- those communities' confidence or regain confidence when they -- how do you address their perceptions of the disunity and weakness of the modern opposition in order to achieve what you talk about. >> take john's question together with dan's. >> i was wondering, and maybe ambassador ford is best for this, but what is the level of passion for the fight? there's been mention this afternoon that the syria armed forces are having a manpower program, but what about all the other force factors, ect., some have come overseas to learn how to fight, but more broadly, is everyone getting tired? do they want to it end? how much will is theirs than ours? >> okay, take those two questions. >> second answer because i think people in syria are far more tired than they were in 2011 or 2012. infinitely more tired and you see the destruction. you were there. you saw it yourself. some of the cities are shattered, but that is not enough to compel regime to sit down and have a serious conversation, and, instead, bashar goes forward unilaterally and going forward to reelection in a country where more than a third is refugees or displaced. i can't imagine how they do a voter registration. i mean, let's be honest, nobody's won an election except during the assad period. your question is a really good one about what can moderate opposition do to reassure. let me throw out comments. i mentioned a proposal in geneva, and by the way, you didn't see it in advance. we learn about it after they put it on the table, and so much for close ties to the opposition. it is a starting point to negotiate, and i think they need to highlight that. it's actually not as important what the national coalition says as what the armed groups say, and so there's a real need to tie together the political opposition and armed opposition behind a political vision of at least for the short transition period, and after that, there should be and there must be real competition between different political forces inside syria, but hopefully political competition within boundaries, negotiate them from a transition to put them more representative system. so my main interest is the armed opposition and its political attitudes and can those be tied back to the political opposition? i was very encouraged that some members of the armed opposition did come to geneva to and bless what the political opposition was doing and was trying to do in terms of the negotiation. i think more effort needs to be expended to bring the remainder of the armed opposition, not talking about al-qaeda. they will never negotiate, but there are other elements of the armed opposition. they never actually blessed that, and there has to be an effort to convince them too that there has to be negotiation, and i think once you can get a broader segment of the armed opposition to follow that, i think that will at least address some of the concerns. there's a lot of other things to be done as well, but i think as a starting point, that's good. >> okay. a microphone up here, please, and we'll take it together with daniel's question, and, yes, then we'll go to the next round. >> thank you. al jazeera, and as you know, there were people in the past, including yourself, who set the days of the regime back then were literally numbered. how willing would you be to apply that phrase to the regime now even in the most metaphor call matter, and david, you talked about the apprehension about a vacuum that results if the regime were to topple tomorrow. how much of the refugees, do you think, syria refugees in lebanon and jordon and elsewhere in the region are worried about the opposite of the vacuum, if he makes a run and becomes president again? >> taken together with daniel's question. microphone over here. please raid your hand, daniel, sorry. >> things have got worse in the last three years, woundserring if you could both speculate on the next three years? if this goes on, what kind of crisis do we face? what kind of political crisis do we face for syria state structures, and what kind of sichtionz do we face -- situation do we face with extremists, which seems to be the main u.s. interest. >> just on the refugee experience, this is antedotal rather than scientific. i think that what is the most striking thing to me when i talk, sit in rooms in lebanon or turkey or jordon and talk to refugees and got in my mind 35 women who are one of the health centers, they tell you unbelievable stories of horror and loss, and the only time they will smile is when you ask them, do you think you'll go back? extraordinarily, strikingly, they face changes and say, yes. that's someone who talked about husband lost or son being lost. that -- none of them expect to go back any time soon. i think that's the other side of the coin, and i don't -- it's a very tech technologically enabled and connected population, the rudeness in the same we we are. they see the news reports. they know that the president assad will not be toppled tomorrow. they can see the wall lengthening, and they go backwards and forward, by the way, the point come up not very much, there's a lot of traffic back and forth. people go back and check out, what's the situation with their household, their family, and there's more than i would have guessed. i think no one is expecting a quick resolution and what it means to reform the state and refind the communities has not started. just in terms of the next, so good at predicting the last three years in an excellent position to predict the next three. one to reflect, one, is that dangers of communication disease obviously rise in the length of time that you have -- it's not pull by a public health researcher in the new york review of backs, explaning that there are 9 o ,000 polio carriers, this was in a february article, and so there are only 15 presented to who, estimated 9 o ,000 carriers, and in the right metaphors, just a tinderbox, really, and, frankly, when i looked at the conditions in lebanon of the tented settlements where people talked openly about the rats who are around, this is within shouting distance of town, and that public health risks are massive even if you get through support. this is connected and the thing about a middle class refugee is there's safety to drawn, and there's refugees outside the country and those who sufferedded from the economic collapse, and drawing on savings, those savings run out, and so you can see dangers of humanitarian explosions, and even greater than, and that's something people have in the countries, and what is drsh if yourself what is the capacity for lebanon, and it is added to figures, 750 a day or something, and so they say, what gives? i think that in the billion dollar figures thrown around, it is important to remember that the hit on the economy is 7.5 billion. the hit on the jordan economy is $6 billion, and talking about the aids, you have to have a sense of the magnitude of the hit, and my spot in point, i don't see the incentive for the regime of the upper hand or opposition in struggle at the moment to make the compromise necessary, and that is a very, very bleak situation, and it speaks to the necessary debate that the ambassadors talk about what's the role of regional and global powers. >> report? let me amtionz a couple appointments real quick. yes, we did things where days were numbered. absolutely true, in 2012, lost control of the turkish border, in retreat, and what changed that was a big increase in hezbollah systems, frankly, i did not imagine they were going to send 5 # ,000 to 7,000 sold yores, and now they are all the way up into damascus. iraq numbers going in, and russia as increased its assistance as well. so what that has done, from my point of view, is giving the regime a longer lease to hold the space between the damascus s up to home and over. i can't see circumstances in short or immediate yom term where the armed opposition is able to change that in the short to medium term. what that means, what they are seeing the is country is little, by little being cantonized. the armed groups that control most of the northwest or the arms groups that control others, are not necessarily the same groups, there's a situation where different factions hold other territories. that applies to the east. i was just reading about the city on the iraqi boarder, and there's six opposition factions that divide control, and so i cannot foresee circumstances where hezbollah is going to march hundreds of miles across the syria desert to fight, and so the de facto result is can tonnization already, but at the same time, if you think long term about this, zoom way out, this is still a war of attrition. the war of attrition inside syria between basically minorities and majority, and it's ash trigs regionally between sunni and shia states, and i don't think the assad regime is on the majority side of either of those, and with respect and to your question, dan, about what is going to happen to state structures, with respect to extremist, this effect i mentioned is a real problem because it leads vast areas of the country governed either by no one in particular or by bad guy, and we're happy elements of the free syria army has chosen to fight the worst of the al-qaeda groups. it's mod rat in the opposition do not prevail against them and regime is not figging opinion huge headquarters. they dropped barrel bombs all over in the damascus suburbs, never bombed the big headquarters. sierra intelligence needs help finding it, contact me. i can point to. [laughter] if they do not prevail in the fight, we'll have a serious extremism problem like we've seen in afghanistan in the past. >> hopefully folks get the message. you'll be surprised who watches the event on live screening, and in any case, i have to end, and we have another appointment immediately after. please join me in thanking the guests. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> people tell you and think they know what happens in 2016 really are smoking something that is now legal here in colorado. [laughter] i will say there's clues. there are some clues, and we have what i now am going to officially dub the sheldon adelson primary. it was held a couple weeks ago in las vegas, and you can tell by who chose to participate in that primary who is looking, not necessarily who was favored, but looking at 2016 because these are people who went to a forum sponsored by the eighth richest man, whose principle interests are two: israel and the prevention of internet gambling, which will, of course; cut into the fact that he's the world east eighth richest man base the on casino gamblings in vegas. the people who went to las vegas to see him included chris christy, the governor of new jersey. hear of him? he's been out of the nudes a lot, lately, so i wanted to remind you he's governor of new jersey incoming part of the george washington bridge, only half of the bridge as my good friend points out, not the new york half, which behaved better, and so -- but a number of other people went to participate in the adelson primary, and that included government undoubtedly noser of wince, included governor of ohio, and now they did not go because they needed a trip to las vegas. and scott walker did not explain what the hebrew pronunciation of his son's name is because he was uninterested in sheldon's support. that's what we call shameless pandering, which was going on in las vegas, but they understood that this was, as was the case four years ago when people came to visit donald trump, that they needed to seek the republican nomination for president, and that they needed the support. [applause] >> thank you so much, good evening, everybody. i'm annie jacobson. i thank book pass passage for having me. delightful to be here. thank you, all, for coming. nothing that makes me happier than meeting readers, so thank you. tonight, i'll talk about operation paper clip. i'll tell you what the program was. i'm going to tell you about how i became interested in writing and researcher and reporting operation paper clip and end by telling you some very, what i think are interesting ways in which the story gets reported. think are interesting ways the story is reported. to start with, my book, these gentlemen are 21 of approximately 1600 german scientist who came to america to work for the united states military and intelligence agencies after the war. i found these men to be particularly unique and nefarious on varying degrees. i think it is important to also realize that whenever you are reporting a story like this it is about riding on the heels of many people before us. i bring lots of new information to the table but academics have been involved in unearthing this story over the decades. now there is a light cast on "operation paperclip" that has n been shown before. the story began when i was reporting this book "area 51" i came across these two nazi aircraft designs named walter and warner hoyton. you can see hitler's weapons were interesting to the allies during the war and immediately after. i found out when i was researching the horton brothers he had a boss. and when we was working for herman goring and there he is with hitler and the german airforce. but in between the horton brothers and the other was this guy. and this is colonel sigfred and during the war he was one of the top-10 pilots and flew over norway to decide the best places to bomb. he was also an incredible engineer and as he rose up through the ranks he got the attention of goring who made him chief of all technical and engineering developments. goring felt that he was so important to him he called him my boy. now i found out when i was researching this that he came to the united states and worked under this program which at the time i didn't know anything u t about it. i thought about how do you go from having goring as a boss to the pentagon. and not only that, when he retired in the middle 1970's, he was given the civilian award which is the highest award the department of defense can give to a non-uniformed person. so operation paperclip. to under about this you must go back to the fall of 1944. it was a very dark time. this is a map from the rise and fall of the third reich. you have seen we are in normandy and pushing toward munich and berlin. and among the soldiers with science with the military. they are part of an operation that is trying to find what they called abc weapons. atomic, bilogical and chemical weapons. the real threat was atomic weapons. but the head of the opraieratio was a particle physics and he learned in november of 1944 that the atomic program was nothing we thought it was. and the reason was because as hitler told his minister of armarm armor that atomic science is jewish science so let's not focus on that. i am paraphrasing that. but you get the idea. hitler was interested in chemical and biological weapons. and he learned they were practice this and it was the first time it was known. this man was came across in the letter and this is curt bloma. it is difficult to image became part of operation paperclip. also in this documents that he came across was dr. walter shriber who also became part of this operation and landed in texas. scriber was in charge of vaccines and create a bubonic plaegue. to do this we was working with c c concentration inmates. we have him and hitler here in paris. and this is goring who is the head here of all science for the third reich under an umbrella program called the third reich research triangle. and hinler here who is the head of the ss. but he is also in charge of this vast network of state-sponsored slavery when has been reinstituted and the slaves are used to build weapons for third reich. at the same time it becomes apparent that the third reich is crumbling. so stashed begin to happen. this have a very famous paragraph of a huge trove of money that was found in a cave but also across the third reich was military intelligence officers began stashing weaponry and more importantly documents related to how the weapons are built. so suddenly they are on the move and looking for weapons, documents and scientist. this tunnel is an example of a slave labor facility that the slaves that he was shipping off to the weaponry departments. this is nord housing and this is important to the rocket organization as this is where the rockets are being train. inside the cave, entire trains could go in and as i write in the books rocket parts would go in and full rockets and bodies would come out because the labors were worked to death. the scientist are rounded up and sent here to castle crand berg. the war is at it's -- its -- end so it is tmay 1945. when i went through germany and went through the archives i was fascinated reading the original transcripts of the science and these show in a subtle way how the program began. you have these military intelligence officers learning about hitlar's biological weapons programs we didn't go about and interviewing and scientist and trying to find out what we know. but you see decisions being made: should this scientist be hanged or should this scientist be hired? this is castle cran burg. you had carl brant here, hitler's physicians and leading gymnastics. some of the scientist gave lectures and they are going in and out of these rooms and being interrogated by different military officers. underneath the castle, and this was one of goring's head quarters during the war and now we are in charge of it. under the castle, there was this bunker which is where hitler planned to go with his inner circle in the event the third reich made the decision to use nerve agents. and why that never agent was never used remains a great mystery of the war. we, allied intelligence, discovered these bunkers filled with bombs that contained serin gas but never gave the order. but we had a bunker so in case he did the order they would go there. so it was irony this is where the scientist went that developed the nerve agents. you have something else going on meanwhile which is the rockets. these officers there are realizing the incredible breath and scope of the v2 rockets that were there. they had orders to gather a hundred of the rockets and bring them back to the united states so they could be launched out in new mexico. but then suddenly they come across not only the rockets but the scientist. and this is von bron after he surrendered and he knew how important he would be to allied intelligence. and general dorm burger is let out but he became an american hero. he like today wear that coat because the boss war that. he recruited for the pentagon. he had a top secret clearance in the middle '50s and he was a favorite in the washington inner circle. when i started reporting the program this was the only photographs of the rocket scientist i could find. and then there you have so you can get an idea of how quickly the rockets and skins scientist came over. that is an actually v2 rocket carrying albert the first monkey and he didn't survive. back to the gas, this is one of the more nefarious elements of operati operation paperclip. he was hitlers's chemist and invented the serin gas and also synthetic rubber because tanks need tread, aircraft needs wheels. and the synthetic rubber produced was so important to here he awarded him a $1 million third reich's bonus. a document i found in the archives that was never wrirtte. that is how important ambros was. here is a satellite photo from 1944 in june. and you have the gas chambers down there and down into the lower corner you have a slave labor facility run by the chemical companies that were making synthetic rubber and ambros who became part of paperclip was in charge of that facili facility. in all of the paragraphs i came across and we know the horrific ones of the bodies but nothing disturbed me more than this photograph that says companies sporting club ig up top. and those are two of auto ambros fencing after what they thought was a long day. but as i learned from colleagues who gave me the permission to p p publish this was that this is well-won within the view of the chimneys. the first high-ranking member of hitler's circle speaks of atrocities here and mass sterilization of jews. he is a key player in the story because he is the first that cooperated. at the same time you have colonel harry armstrong who is a top physician for what was then called the army airforces and later the u.s. airforce. arm strong was an on a mission in berlin looking for nazi doctors. he called them german physicians. and for many years the idea, the fiction was they were german physicians. but really i and others before me have put together the very clear picture of what most of these men were doing during the war. you see them here. this photograph has never been printed before. this is 34 of the top leading physicians that worked inside days after the war ended because of the army airforces knew to bring the men to the united states quickly would never fly. so they had them working there in heidelberg. later, 34 of them would join harry armstrong at a facility in texas. hubertus strughold, the father of space medicine, we will get to more about him in a moment. but in the meantime, as the doctors i showed you the paragraph of were working at heidelberg another arm of military intelligence came knocking and they had information that six of these doctors were wanted for war crimes so six of them went off and these three were part of the pap paperclip some before and some after. this is doctor theodore benzer and when i first read about him it was his obitry and it talked about his career for the navy. it talked about how he invented the ear thermomter. but it never mentioned his war time work. i found documents showing he was on the original list of criminals that were going to be tried at the doctor's trial. but he was released two weeks before the trial, turned over to the united states forces and brought to america. that is the doctor nazi trials. you see in the middle that man was acquitted and later worked for paperclip. and one of the only surviving witnesses to what went on in the camps. amazing story in the book. very dramatic. it is amazing how these little nugg nuggets were lost. i discovered they were trying to test how long someone could survive in the ocean and how much sea water you could drink. they were similating test but he was so angry he had a dagger hidden in his pocket and he leapt off the stand and tried to stab the other doctor. the tragedy is the american judge that believes we were there to show how democracy works. put him in the prison with the doctors who had done this to him. dr. hubertus strughold became the father of space medicine and there he is with a library that was named after him which was ultimately taken down. the program went all the way to the pentagon and when i would read over the documents it fascinating that you can see the details to the joint chief and it was pained that the individuals were brought here to work on the weapon programs. but it was shocking some of the generals didn't feel that way at all. they respected and admired some of the nazi scientist and i was surprised to find general lukes who was in charge of the chemical core. it is very important that one has documents to back this up. the nerve agent program is classified but i went to the u.s. history institute in pennsylvania to look at general luke's papers and i found these personal diaries he wrote and i tell much of the story and report in "paperclip". here is a party. it was in the papers i discovered that scheiber was so close to hemler he was on his personal staff. and he wore, you can see that button there, that is actually a party badge. and that was given out by hitler to his group. he was friendly with general luke and the two men exchanged christmas cards for year and they are in the institute in pennsylvania as well. these are photographs that you cannot reprint but i am happy to show him. they they r shaking hands with hitler. that is general luke's diary. and i will end here with a little bit about reporting a story which i think is interesting and bringing new information to the table because so much of this has been gradually written about in bits and pieces but when you come across something like these diaries it is incredible. i believe more gets reveal and if you look and look you will find if you are willing to keep looking. these are luke's journals and here is this classified program so classified it is still classified and yet you have general luke's that human in all of us that wants to write in our journal, attended conference with dr. scheiber. it was this inferential and this kind of information that i am usually able to piece together the most interesting part of my stories because as a journalist once you have a bit of information you can go to the powers that be that are telling you no, no, no there is no information and you can kick the door in and discover documents my filing freedom of information act requests based on facts that are known and very importantly dates as you see in the journal. and from that i was able to locate this document which is pretty much the highest ranking war criminals that worked with hitler's nerve agent program and that was the list that general luke had at his home an the afternoons on the weekend at a round table and they would learn the secrets of the serin gas program and allow the united states to build up their program. if anyone is reading about syria's chemical weapons we know the ones being dismantled are this type of gas. so this is a long legacy. i was able to work with some of the children of hitler's inner circle by interviewing them in berlin. very brave individuals who as they are getting older, 70s and 80s, some of them were remarkablely transparent and shared their parent's personal papers and that allowed me to bring interesting things to the table that i don't think have been reported before and photographs as well. this is scheiber by the way. by 1952, he was working for the cia. some of the war criminals were sent to war prisons. some were hung. those are the unmarked graves. ultimately the cold war was getting hot and john mccoy with truman became high commissioner of germany and gave clemanceancy to the majority of war criminals and they were released. here is hitler's favor chemist. he was convicted of mass murder and slavery. he was released and also his finances were fully restored as well. this is the world's, what i would call the cia's first black sight. after the war, the cia, well actually in 1947, after the cia teamed up with naval and army and airforce intelligence and used chemist and chemistry that was developed by the nazi and began enhanced interrogation techniques using lsd on what was soviet black prisoner because this was the cold war. the two physicians at the fill facility were the doctors. shriber went to texas and that is a long and tangled tail -- tale -- the cold war was heating up and this was the threat. the threat was the soviets, who by the way had their own german scientist program but unlike our program that put them on p pedstools and made them the top guard. the soviets loathed them and their scientist were kept at a second tier and squeezed of the information and sent back to germany by the russians and the then cia stepped in and tried to grab them so they could learn about the soviet's program but they didn't learn anything because the soviets didn't share the top tier of information. we moved forward with our biological weapon program. this is the eight ball and where we tested our bubonic weapons and our serin gas weapons. and von bron was the head and hero of the nasa space program. arthur rudolph father of the saturn rocket. i write about his story and it is just remarkable how he went from a guy without a college education running the slave labor tunnels to being father of the saturn rocket in the united states. he is one of the few paperclips that was investigated. in the '80s, the department of justice got information and it is funny the department of justice would have to get information declassified but they did. they were able to see his complicity in war crimes and gave him an option that he could stand trial in the united states as an old man and this was in the mid '80s or return to germany. he chose to return to germany. and lastly is kurt debus who with the dueling scars alone make him line sinister. many people view him as an american hero. i found out a different story researching his documents. one of the myths of the german scientist was they were just trying do science and stay out of the nazi party who was a big bad wolf but you find out about kurt debus that he turned his superior, another scientist, over for making anti-hitler remarks. you could see one part of army intelligence telling the pentagon we cannot bring this guy to the united states. he was a nazi and turned a colleague over and this was a u bad act but then the pentagon says we need him. and he came. there he is as the first director of the jfk space center and still every year they give out the kurt debus award. and i interviewed the head and said what about kurt debus who wore the ss uniform to work and turned over a colleague and he was a nazi? what do you say to that? and the answer was no one has ever asked me that question before. so, i would like to end with the idea that einstein had it right in my opinion. he left german prior to hitler's armament buildup and maintains the reason he left as a scientist was because he wasn't going to work for a raw and r rabid nazi militia. he is one of the people with power that petitioned truman not to let operation paperclip happen but to no avail. and my last picture is this. this is an old german proverb that says everyone gets what they deserve. when i was writing and reporting this book i would ask myself does everyone get what they deserve. i hope if you chose to read "operation paperclip" you will come to your own conclusion. thong thank you very much. >> so i have time for questions. yes? >> in your research, beyond the lsd stuff, did you come across anything about the techniques used to split people's personality? did you find anything about that coming out of research that was started in the death camps? >> well, i don't know about splitti splitti splitti splitti splitti splitti splitting personality but i know where the code name began. operation blue bird was one and one was artichoke. and they began that scenario that i spoke of during the presentation and i write about it in the book as well. yes? >> what were the theories why the nerve gas was never used? i know you said you had questions. what were the theories? and to bring these people out were any vatican passports used? >> the first question i would say the prevailing theory is when hitler was a soldier in world war i he missed the end of the war because he was mustered gas he he had a deep eversion to chemical weapons. but the nazi's produced tens of thousands of tons of nerve agent. there were so many individuals under the command that wanted to use those nerve agents it is nothing short of a miracle wasn't used. your second question was? >> were vatican passports used? >> unfortunately for "operation paperclip" there was no need to do that because the nazi scientist who came to america were given american visas and later became u.s. citizens. yes in the back? >> i have a real mixture of feelings. i am feeling sick but can't wait to get my hands on your book. i was living in germany and i was there during the bombing of the v2 operation. my father worked for bron. after the war in 1950, my mother was a cic agent before becoming the cia to identify nazi. we left munich in 1950. and my father, well it was my stepfather went back and forth to geneva because he was a scientist that americans or russians were vying for. and there are questions that i have. we left germany in 1950-1951. he decided to go to syria instead with ten other rocket scientists. i have never understood. i was ten years at the time. we left with arabic passports. when they came to check them, i had tlook to look out the window. my question is there is so much i don't know because as a child you live with it. an american ambassador helped us leave damascus. we came to the united states and he started working for lockede. and another scientist worked for aero jet for 40 years and was instrumental in developing the biking cycle >> this is facscinatinfascinati. maybe you can stay and speak with me. did you have a question? >> how did the other german scientist -- why did they use the arabic passports? >> come talk to me after wards. the middle east part is we can chat after this. >> did you find information about plum island and what happened there about genetically modified organisms and lyme disease. >> a chemist was in charge of setting up plum island. and a doctor was in charge of of weaponizing the reminder pass and another disease for the third reich. and doctors are associated with plum island there. there is a lot of suggestion that he also set-up plum island and worked there. but i could find no official documents that made that connection sound. but it certainly is reasonable speculation. good question. >> '66-'67 there were people in this country who were trying to confront the justice department to say we had a lot of nazi war criminals and find them and put them on trial or deport them to a jurisdiction where they should be put on trial and dealt with. and the justice department always said we don't have any nazi war criminals in this country and you people who are asking the questions are leftist and communist. but they had an office to address this but couldn't find any. did you come across any research? >> that is a great question you bring up. a number of individuals in the state department because they were an important part of operation paperclip because they had to give the visas. and samual klaus was outraged by this but he was moved out of the state department. the reason that arthur rudolph was investigated by there justice department is that low and behold during the '60s and '70s, organizes would muck rack and try to get the justice department to look into this. they did and a special unit was created only in 1980 that looked at these war criminals. >> did the nazi skins scientist brought here, how did they justify that they were working for mankind and not killing it as a scientist and did they show remorse for what had been done? >> that is a great question. the first part is no. remember, there was mostly -- even a sliver of accountability on the part of the scientist. they also denide -- denied they were part of it. very quickly it became what they did not me. and that was always the position. always. always. and as far as remorse is concerned there was only one nazi physician out of all of the scientist i looked at who showed any remorse and that was a doctor named dr. fritz fischer and after the trials and he heard a gruesome bit of testimony by survivors he turned to one of the intelligence officers dr. alexander who is one of the heroes of the book and said just hang me now. but that was it. >> two quick questions. or you can say as long as you want. first is another notorious person from world war ii who was involved in experiments but not part of these people was mangala and now there is moral issues about using his experiment. does your book touch on that? >> only in "area 51". i didn't come across any information on him. the question you raise about the information used is extremely important. there is a two-part u.s. airforce manual that is very difficult to get your hands on that actually used data from the camps and you see the credits and the footnotes go to the doctors that i showed you the photograph of. dr. becker was sending notes to dr. strughold for that u.s. manual from his prison cell. >> the other question was leaving the responsibility of the nazi who we brought over and coming to the americans who made it happen let's go to the top. anything you found about truman's awareness approval? >> truman approved the president. i am sorry if i left that out. this is president's day. this was a classified military program but it had a benign public faith. they knew if you had 1600 german scientist returning around someone would figure it out. so they propagated the myth. >> was truman in on the myth? >> i don't believe trumann had actually access to the documentsidocument documents. they would not have asked to know and they approved the program as it was sold to them from my understanding. way in the back. >> this is fascinating. and important. and had i not stumbled upon the blurb in the book passage calendar i would never had known about this any of this. so my question to you is in the broader context of the short attention span circus that we call the media, mainstream media, what has been your experience in trying to get the word out about this? >> the book just published six days ago and it is doing remarkably well considering the story is 69 years old. i give credit to my fellow readers who i think we are an interesting educated bunch of people in america and really want to read and find out about things. it is why i write books that are secret but find readers which i think it is remarkable. >> is there any significance to the name that the operation was given? >> great question. we have the classified program. we have the benign public faith and the same thing in germany where these intelligence officers are tasked with interviewing the scientist and trying to find out about them. it needed to be kept secret and it being the dark hearted parts of some of the scientist past chat chat. so a system was devised where paperclip would be placed to indicate this is an important file that someone needs to look at and that individual was someone who was pro the program. i will take one more in the way back. >> maybe you said it and i missed it. but was this a program have a particular purpose or was it just collecting random, important german scientist and doctors? what were the major objectives? and was there one person that put to together. you mentioned general lukes. purpose and who organized it. >> well, you know, the nazi's almost won the war. there was a point where their weaponry was so much further along than ours was. they called it wonder weapons. and there was this idea that you know, suddenly dawned on the u.s. military we are behind the curve here. as the war was ending, that is why the push came about and we have to grab this science and we need it for or own weaponry. i think one of the most interesting conclusions was that the cold war really began in the last months of world war ii. >> did you find anything that comes forward to today? like scientist that are now at monsanto creating genetically modified organisms or flouride. i have hundreds of asking about this. it came in the water but it came from the nazi scientist. >> fascinating question. the nazi scientist program was eventually rolled up into another element of the department of defense which is the office of research and engineering. and that became the defense advanced research project agency which is the subject of my next book. shameless plug. >> you said early on that the russian's returned their scientist back to germany again. was there a reason for nat that? >> they could not stand the german scientist. that is a very interesting questions. they sent them back to germany and we had a program, the cia's program was called operational dragon return. and we scooped up anyone who had been in the soviet union working on their weapon programs and used them as intelligence assets. >> it is true that alan daws was the front man and ryan heart gayland was setting up the cia? >> great question. i write about gayland at length. he was at camp king and was the head of hitler's soviet intelligence program on you know the soviet union's intelligence program. and he became a major player in this sadly. he wasn't part of paperclip but was at camp king with his team of ss officers and foreign intelligence agents. they were run by the army intelligence and the cia took them over later. so mk ultra, the soviet blocked spies who were tossed into the slammer at camp king and subjects to those enhanced interrogation programs were caught in gayland's web. >> would you care to talk about what impact this new information might have based on questions and where you think it may lead? >> that is interesting. i believe more is getting revealed and i think when people are interesteded it creates a bigger web of information. and so hopefully my reporting, because it is just the tip of the iceberg -- one of the things i mentioned, i think earlier today on a radio show was how m ambros, hitler's favorite criminal came to the united states on a n energy contract ad three times in the united states. i could not get nfrinformation his program and as i wrote in the book neither could ronald reagan. i thought he is a convicted nazi criminal and i requested a freedom of action request about this travellars and who he was being sponsored by and that information was lost or classified. it probably isn't. yk i could not figure it out but i bet a curious future journalist will. >> thank you. if you have a book come up and if you would like to purchase one they are behind the register. [applause] it is the pleasure to be here the book was just published a few days ago it is great for you to be here to help launch it. i would like to begin by setting the scene. i hope to use headed up in the prologue even though it comes near the end of the story of a the pope's last. he is found in his office he is ailing, elderly and bakes god to give him a few more days to live. he has something he needs to say and realizes he has veryle little time left on the earth. for years the pope was it good health as a young priest climbed many peaks. he was known as demandinghe and insisted on knowing every detail everything going on in the vatican but now every day was thehi challenge and every step caused pain.ng he was unable to sleep with terrible varicose veins jihadist asthma that made breathing difficult and as he lay awake at night he was troubled, so much by than aches and pains but by the thought something had gone terribly wrong. mething had goney wrong. in the daytime in his office light would stream in through the three large windows that looked out on st. peter's square button out was evening so he sat at his desk with a yellow lamp, alike from his lamp on his desk and would carefully write in his hand, trembling hand on the sheets of paper. the pope had summoned all the bishops of italy. there were over 300 bishops in italy to st. peter's for an occasion that was to take place in 10 days time on february 11. several of and 1939 would be the tenth anniversary. this was the historic agreement between the italian government in this case between mussolini and the fascist regime and the vatican which established the city as a sovereign city and did away with the separation of church and state in italy and made the roman catholic church gave it the privileged position as there are -- religion of the land. this was a big occasion the tenth anniversary. all of the bishops were summoned and mussolini's own representatives with a bear. the king's son would either. the world would be watching. it was a speech that the pope saw as his last opportunity to get out a dramatic message. the killy rots a. i don't know how to work this. one button which doesn't seem to do anything. i'm just going to show you a couple of images to illustrate. that is what we are trying to do but i don't want to keep you there. this shows -- you get an idea of the last 10 days of his his life when he looked like it if you go to the next image here you see both as a younger man. at the time they both came to power in 1922 which is the beginning of my story. benito mussolinmussolin i is a 39-year-old, a rabble-rouser. through an extortion he had come to power just a few months after the pub came to power. the dictator came to depend on the pope and vice versa and this is the story i tell in my book. even though they seem so radically different. the dictator would depend on the pope to bring him catholic support. italy was 99% catholic although there were anti-clerics there but for the most part the population very much identified with the catholic church. mussolini needed the support of the pope or a couple of reasons not just was the publishing catholic but one of the largest opposition parties that he had to face was the catholic party which had been endorsed by the previous pope, the popular party. in fact ahead of the popular party at the time was a priest. so for mussolini to come to power and solidify his power he basically had to end the influence of the catholic popular party and the best we could do this would be to get the pope to withdraw the church support for that party and to embrace him. the other thing that mussolini was concerned about was winning international legitimacy for his dictatorship and for this too the pope would play a very important role. now though, although the pope had made this deal beginning in 1922 with mussolini, he had long begun to have second thoughts and to have real doubts. mussolini in recent years and now back to the scene on his last days on earth, as he thought back on the last few years mussolini seem to be thinking he was becoming a god himself and the other thing that really bothered the pope about mussolini was his increasing embrace of hitler, a man pope pius the xi despised. as mussolini beginning in the mid-30s grew closer and closer to hitler, the pope grew more and more uncomfortable. in may of 1938, mussolini hosted hitler in italy for a triumphal visit. the pope discussed it, fled the vatican and went to his summer retreat and close the vatican museums and showing his displeasure yet he was distraught that the kind of reception that italy was giving to this man that he saw as the enemy of christianity, adolf hitler. two months and i think we have a shot here if we can get to the next slide of the visit of hitler, there we are. two months after hitler as you see portrayed here in rome along with mussolini and hitler. you see the king victor emanuel the third, two months after was the dramatic and shocking announcement of the new racial policy by mussolini in july 1938 and the in particular in italy were shocked to hear that the official position of the government was that there was a pure italian race to which the jewish of italy who had been there before the time of jesus were not part. the pope was very upset and particularly upset because this seemed to show the increasing closest -- of the fascist dictator with the nazi leader. people around the pope as he was becoming distraught and this is the important part of my book, becomes worried because they actually are very pleased by the deal that has been made between the vatican and the fascist regime please by all the benefits that the church had gotten from mussolini and worried that the pope in his old age lashing out might damage those relations. as his headquarters on the other side of the tiber river only a couple of collmenter's from the pope, mussolini raged against the pope. he had earlier, mussolini himself was a rabid anti-cleric, his background and yet he had papacy with the pope because he thought his interest was the interest of the fascist dictatorship that he had no personal commitment for churches or for cleric. he would tell people at this time how dare the pope expressed criticism. look at all i've done for the pope. he says to one of his people of his staff who i will come back to, if italian so good amassed in large numbers unless i tell them to. if priests aren't being forced to drink castor oil for churches are not being burned down it's because i prevent them from doing that. otherwise they would be doing that. if there was a crucifix in every classroom in every public school in the country it's because i ordered suits to be the. it was not there before me. if priests are teaching religion the catholic uruza and in all public schools from elementary to secondary schools do because i made them. they never did before. if large state subsidies for going to all the catholic clergy from the local parish priests to the bishops it's because i ordered it. how dare the pope think of breaking the alliance that has been so profitable for both our sides. so this while going on getting back to the vatican for pope returned on january 9 in 1939, the pope is in very bad shape. the once hardy pope is now emaciated and his face has been shrunken. he is desirous of one thing that appears to everyone around him. he wants to live long enough to give the speech that he is preparing for the bishops of rome. in that speech i found out from examining mussolini's correspondence with celini the dictator was convinced that his dramatic speech was going to be used by the pope to denounce him and denounced his embrace of hitler and the racial laws into denounced fascism. in a week remaining before the speech though the pope began to lose his strength further, unable to stand he took to bed. on february 8, he worried that he might not have enough strength and his voice would be so feeble that he wouldn't be heard. he ordered the vatican office to make 300 copies of his speech to hand out to each of the bishops as they came to the event on february 11. on the early morning of february 10, the day before the dramatic speech his breathing became further labored. attendance fastened an oxygen mask around his face being careful not to dislodge the skull cap on his head. the high officials of the vatican were called to his bedside realizing his last moments may be near and in fact early that morning february 10, he died one day before he would give that speech so his last wish to god to keep him alive was not answered. of course the timing also led to various conspiracy theories in italy which we can talk about later if anyone is interested. across the tiber at news of the pope's death mussolini discredited in relief. a sword had been lifted. it seemed to be that the ritual activities that teammate need to show up for might interfere with his plans for his latest coupling with its young mistress but there was one thing very much bothered him and this too we know from the fascist side of the archives that are available now. he had a big network of spies in the vatican that provided valuable insight into behind-the-scenes activities in the vatican in the 20s and especially in the 30s. he supports -- news reports had warned him that the pope was about to give his speech announcing that he was facile as. he was very worried and heard that copies of the speeches had been made and the thought on the one hand the pope is no more so there is a really fair but on the other hand what if the voice of the now deceased pope were to be heard from beyond the grave by the distribution of his last tax that meant so much to him. so mussolini sent his ambassador to see the one-man he thought would help him as he had many times in the past when the pope seemed to be about to turn against the fascist regime. the man he turned to was pacelli the cardinal secretary of state and the number two man in the vatican in the 1930s. he told him what he wanted done. he wanted all copies of the pope's speech shredded. pacelli immediately ordered the destruction of every copy of the vatican printing that have been made of his speech. a few weeks later a conclave was held with masses of people gathering as usual in st. peter's square looking at the chimney for white smoke which they saw not long into the celebrations. when the telltale white smoke came out of the chimney the cardinal deacon doubt in front of st. peter's square from st. peter's and announced we have a pope and the new pope came out, a tall thin spectacled figure clothed in the white papal robe and the tiara. pacelli would take the name pius the xii honoring the man who had long put his trust in him and i am going to show a couple of slides. this is the ritual that takes place when a pope dies and pacelli who had been the secretary of state in the office of chamberlain who is in charge of the pope's -- of the vatican on the death of the pope and he has a silver hammer mallet where he hits the head of the dead pope saying his name, his christian name. and when he does not respond for nazism officially dead. when he was a cardinal in 1938, cardinal pacelli and the next slide show's pacelli's coronation as pope pius xii. this is the scene that begins my book that sets the stage a bit for our discussion. this is 1939. let's go back to 1922 when the two younger robust men come to power the same year. the pope was not only vigorous as i mentioned that he was also known as something of a tyrant. cardinals would literally prepare themselves for a meeting with the pope in their private chapel and pray to god to somehow see them through without the pope yelling at them are finding them wanting. the pope in reading some of these accounts of these meetings with the pope where the pope would turn purple with rage, pound on his desk and he's yelling at for example a foreign ambassador where he has been unhappy with something his country has done. but the pope also has a high sense of the dignity of the papal office. interesting today with pope francis making news in taking symbolic actions that seem to be peeling away some of that symbolic activity. for example pius the xi from the day he beat cam pope

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