G some of the people we lost in 2014. These men and women lead lives of purpose and consequence. They enriched our culture through their inventions art and enterprise. They have appeared on this program in the past 24 years and passed away this year. Every israeli every jew wants peace. Not i was branded sometimes a general looking for war. May i tell you something personal i have been participating in all the wars of the state of israel. And i went through the ranks. I started as a private first class. And i saw all the battles, i saw all the lorraine hahns of the battles. I felt all the fears of the battles. We lost our and myself i lost most of my friends in battles. I was very seriously wounded twice. And i had being in hospitals and i had to make decisions of lifeanddeath of myself and of fathers. And believe me i understand the point of peace better than most of those to speak about peace and never had these experience. Now the question how long can we live like that we will have to live like that as long as there is no strange in the attitude of the arab world to jews in israel. And by now we have not seen yet any change. It doesnt mean that we have to wait with every attempt until then. But we have to be very, very careful. And i think its important that jews around the world and friends of israel nonjewish friends of israel should understand that we are facing all the time and now to our very existence. So we the jews have to decide if the jews want to have an independent country of their own. They have to be ready to hold the sword in one hand. It doesnt mean that they have not take steps to the peace. Im interested to make a step forward. All the things i directed have not been a good family story or something. I always try to invent something new or even the it is always i think it should be something new. We discovered this new aspect in a play or in a movie. You know its really acting is a weird thing because really the best acting is a daytoday thing and thats why doing the theatre is so important to know me. Rose what does that mean daytoday. You are only as good as what you are doing right then. And i truly believe it. That is what i think of acting. Acting is not something that is put on a canvas that you can put up on a wall and see whenever he wants to see it it is really what you do in that day with what it is what you do on that day is when im satisfied. Im as good as what im showing you right now because in the theatre is something that will humble you in a second because you will be as bad as you can be at certain moments sometimes in the theatre. Rose where did the start from. That was started when i was a kid. My father had a restaurant in yonkers you know. And i used to pick up dishes on lunchtime when i came home from school, pick up a dishes and help my father out. Each table had a different ethnic there was a frenchmen over here germans over here italians over here greeks, so i used to walk over they would talk to me. And i go, they said i thought oh you dont want that then i would go to the italian table. You would say two eggs. You have what is it. One or the other. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Its true. A lot of people try to analyze, how do you do that i dont know. I just do it. You always want to go overseas. I did. Isnt it strange. I have two brother older and younger, both went into the academic world in one way or another interested in international affairs. I went over and it stuck. I knew, what was t i guess my freshman year in edge chr i wanted to be a television a Foreign Correspondent. When you were there in the beginning was it hard to get on the air because you had to get the footage from vietnam you couldnt go by satellite. No satellite. So you had to fly back. We would go before it hit the air right. When the half hour shows came out ept of 63 cronkite there were to satellites there were very few correspondent who knew how to dot work, knew how to go out and package a story as well as report a story. That is work with the camera team, write the script, make sure it going to go together put it in a sack on a pannal flight. And 48 hours later it be would on the air so you were left to your own devices there was no producer looming over you in the delta. You were given a free hand and those were heady days. You know there are a lot of theories that have been written about the comic spirit in people. And fraudian explanations about it. They say funny people perceive their mothers as being troubled and spent their Early Childhood trying to amuse their mothers lighten their load. You bay that. I think that is your first audience is your mom in the kitchen doing something to make your mom of laugh. Traying to make her happy or laugh. Or make her love you, one or the other. Probably t is all rolled together. Other people talk about the absurd child syndrome the children perceive that they perceive insanity in the world. Were told things as children that are clarely not true. As soon as you open your eyes were told policeman are good. Were told that bad people go to jail. And theyre not blind and deaf it is not all policeman are good, they are indicted all these policeman or innocent people are being executed in jail. So this is the small child either im crazy or the world is crazy now the kid without decides the world is crazy now has two choices. He can be crushed by that or he can find the company dee in it. He sees it either as tragedy or company dee. Once he decides its company dee youre an absurd child. I think the greatest thing i have done in my life charlie is to take care of sick people. To my great regret when i die the obituary is going to be headlined something about the writing. Its not going to talk about all of those people whom oneonone i had the opportunity to care for. And when i say care for i mean not just in the medical sense. Because thats what being a doctor is really all about. The satisfaction of making a difference in somebodys life. The satisfaction of making a difference in someones life but you know each time it makes a difference in your own life too the sense of healing which covers so many thing. Is actually something that benefits the healer just as much as it does the person healed. Well that is something of the past. I always try to show that even a peace of they display it not necessarily in modern costume that that way people are moved by it. I always think that when people go to the opera and they dont come out with eyes with a little bit because i really have cried it didnt work and very afraid that opera could lose his impact on the modern public if you dont make an opera feeling as something of our time and not something of the past. And thats difficult now odays. I have come to care about people i get involved with. I come to care. Im genuine leigh curious about what happens inside the heads and hearts of other people. I think the people im dealing with as a writer can sense that. That this is not be an act. I really do become curious and concerned about what is going on in their lives. What is the hardest part . Writing. The wraing of it. Getting the story is easy compared to the writing and putting it together. And telling the story in a way because freakley youre dealing with stories that you already know the end. Thats true. Cruel data is not a famous story. The Mcdonald Book was more people knew the end. But the writing for me is much harder thats not to say the research is fun. The last time i had fun doing research was my book on alaska. These past 14 years the research hasnt been fun. I love the thing that jim said i dont know who the next president will be but i know who his next friend is going to be. Its been strauss. He said that not about jimmy carter. No. But about somebody else. So what is it about you that these powerful men are attracted to . Well i dont have any desire i never had a desire to run for public office. I was nonthreatening i had a reputation of being very very loyal. And hi a reputation of having pretty good judgement. Judgement is what it is about. That is the main thing. Somebody you can trust. Yeah. And somebody that got good judgement and not just for himself but in business for the countrys good. And the president s good. So i think theyve understood that at the end of the day k the double standard world in which the United States and eight other powers have Nuclear Weapons and gives lectures to try to put pressure on the rest of the world not to have those is just an unworkable thing. Its a invest defeatlessing policy it is to the going to stop proliferation. And it really cant be until the Nuclear Powers theyre saying and im warm leigh agreeing with them it is odd company for me to be in in a certain way. But here i am. Rose schell and kissinger together at last. At last. What they are really saying or what i am saying is that if you bring your own arsenals to the negotiating table thats the american the russian and so on thats the biggest bargaining chip that anybody ever put on a diplomatic table. And you say were willing to go down to zero. Were willing to live in such a world. So you proliferaters better not get into that business. People will say why does he write fiction. But i think my fiction is the heart of my work. Rose i think you will be remembered. I do. Rose maybe im just wrilsing in the dark here but i dont think so. First i began as a short story writer. I wrote about 30 short stories before i wrote any nonfiction. Three of my first four backs were novels. Not very good novels i confess but nonetheless but the stories were being published. And i really was kind of a financial decision. I wasnt i was a commercial fisherman and i was doing that in addition to my writing. And i had a new wife and young kids and i really had to make some money. So i went over into writing nonfiction about what i knew about boats and wild places and wildlife and stuff. Then i got to send me around the world to all the wild places, mr. Sean everybody is writing about europe. Who is writing about all these wonderful wildernesses it that are going down the tubes. That really is the beginning of that. And that produced Nonfiction Book and a fiction book. The real issue is adapt station. The world is changing so fast. A daing to what . Adapting to what it is that students ought to be prepared for as the world changes. I read an article a couple of weeks ago that said hey this is all a con game. You used to say if you went to college and you got out, you got a better job higher salary. And what is happening now. People are coming out and theyre prepared but not for the job. It is interesting. We sent ourselves down that road. We argued tried to tell parents and everybody else if you come to university youre going to make a lot of money. Listen if you come to university, youll have a good life. Learn a good deal and who says a plumber cant read mobbee dic wochlt says a plumber cant be interested in shakespeare. We have to wide everyone our sense of where College People are going to go. Many of the great editors on the times whether broad war correspondent Foreign CorrespondentNational Bureaus i stayed in that one place. I loved once i became a cultural reporter and critic i loved doing what i was doing. Many of my friends who i have become Foreign Correspondent including Abe Rosenthal and bernard galb. They felt that they mr. Surprised that i wanted to go into what was regarded as a occupation on the times cultural critic. Or pie days so that was not for that was not real men will cover more. Think they were there covering theatre. This was a male world. It was a male world, in those days journalism look. And you had to get out there and do some real tough reporting but Bruce Atkinson persuaded me. Brook atkinson persuaded me. You can always go overseas. Are you doing a lot of articles on a freelance basis for the sunday drama section. Later the arts and leisure system. He said try it out and see you may become a critic some dayment and i think that you will enjoy doing that. You think that poetry is music for the voice. Thats right. His own music. I go back to stand by to Edgar Allen PoeNikki Giovanni is music written for the human voice and it only comes into its own when it is spoken. It is wonderful to see professors of literature and the Ivy League Universities in colleges looking at what is called concrete that is poetry which is to be seen. And so how it is shaped is so important to the poetry. Thats fine that may be true am but for me until the human voice gives it elevation, it doesnt really sing t doesnt really come into its own. It doesnt lift the heart and make the blood race. Of all the talents you have what one of them resonates most with you . What one of them is the clearest expression of who you are and what are you. Im a writer, thats what i am thats who i am. Thats how i describe myself to myself and to god in prayer, when i say lord, you remember me . Maya angelou six foot tall black female i write lord remember. When i see it i really have to describe myself to the lord. I always infuse what i do, i write. Thats what i do now i thank the lord that i am able to do other things im grateful. But thats how i describe myself to myself. Is it in your judgement a learned craft or is it. Well everything is learned charlie rose. I dont know how you learn it, but everything is learned it is said that some people are born great. Some achieve it and some have it thrust upon them. I think that is true of all the things you are. You are born that thing. You earn it and some of it is thrust upon you. I believe that to be so. Just tell me what it means to you this game if you spent seven decades. I think the book sums it up pretty good. I have never earned a dollar bill outside of baseball. And when i tell that to people i said what did you do, come from a rich family. I said oh, no no, no. When i was a young kid and finally signed out of high school with the brooklyn dodgers went to the Minor Leagues i was a pretty decent player at a very young age. And i was asked to go to havana cuba to play in the Winter League in cuba. And they wanted big League Players at that time. But al camepanas recommended me at a young age to go to cuba. I played there for two or three years and when castro come n that was the end of the baseball. And i went to puerto rico and played in the wintertime. Played there two or three years. And then they started having instructional leagues in florida. And i always wound up as an instructor or something in florida where i lived. Thats why i can say that i have never drawn a paycheck outside of baseball. The defining event of my life was being raised in harlem. Shaped by the black cultural experience. Yes. The whole the total Life Experience and the people that i met. And my stepmother how that all came to be. That is a defining i came out of harlem and i try to put in perspective why it has a claim on you that place. It did then i suppose it still does. The rilt imof the the people and the sounds and ideas everything was a crossroads there prejudice discrimination, as well as love and freedom and fun. The most beautiful thing i suppose has been this relationship. I have learned and we wrote each other a letter in the book. Rose will you read your letter to him . No i no because. You wrote each other a letter. Rose and so because. Rose what did you say. Well we talked about love you know. And sex and beginnings of things and scratching through each other and its like coming out from deep deep murky waters into the of life. Where we could both see each other. And that has been meaningful. How to how does love flourish. Not only love man, woman but how does love work. That has been i come to the conclusion that maybe thats why were put here on earth in the first place. Rose to make love work. To make love work. Here was a man who had never harmed anyone in his life. Was totally along with my mother there was no politics ever involved in our house. The only pictures in our house were religious pictures. So the enormous shock of not only myself being arrested and tortured and taken to england but then finding that not only had my father been arrested but several members of my family had been arrested as well. And tainted with evidence which was obviously fabricated. Rose heres what interests me. Because you pointed out the father son relationship. It is that you grew to understand no appreciate love more deeply your father because of your association in prison, is that fair . Thats totally true. Because all my dealings with my father up to that period were on superficial level. Rose give me some money. Give me some money or tell me what horse will win the next race. But it was only when we were together in prison that i got a deeper understanding of the truman and the spirit that was in the man. And that deeply affected me. My father gave up an ultimate sacrifice for me his life. He came to prison and went through all the brutal hardships of prison to give me an understanding and maturity of what life was all about. You were the definer on stage of Tennessee Williams more than anybody i can think of. Well hes a great poet and a great writer i was fortunate enough to do the rose tattoo with maureven stapleton. That was early in your career. Many years ago 1915 50 48 years ago. The next play i did of his was camino real. And the first film i made was written by Tennessee Williams and directed by cazan. So i feel real rich. Rose you were reminding me of a quote about living. Yes. Tennessee has lord byron says in the play lately i have been listening to hired musicians behind a row of artificial palm trees instead of the single pure stringed instrument of my heart. For what is the heart but an instrument that turns noise into order and chaos into chaos into order and noise into music. Make voyages attempt them. Theres nothing else. And i have taken that as my philosophy. Keep making the voyages, even though it may be a leak in the ship, you want to keep sailing. Rose stay on the journey. Yes. How was he to work with. He was wonderful because he was so bossee. Rose he knew what he wanted. Yes and you didnt get to argue. You could say well, george i was one of the few people who actually called him george because hi known him so long. Rose everybody else what, mr. Abbott. Except his daughter, she called him george or daddy she called him george. He would say can we try this. And he would say you can try it once and if it doesnt works then its out. He was completely fair he was fair and a pra