And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. As you know, u. S. Air strikes have started within syria, and president obama will chair a meeting this week with the United NationsSecurity Council to urge further International Response to combatting the growing threat of terrorism. Joining me to discuss the u. S. Options is samuel r. Berger, known to most of us as sandy berger, former National Security adviser to president clinton. He is also cochair of the Senior Working Group on the middle east at the u. S. Institute of peace. He joins us now from new york city. Sandy berger, good have to you back on this program, sir. Good to be here. So the air strikes began last night. What do you make of it . Well, i think its quite a bold move. Its quite extraordinary. The president has been able to assemble the coalition that he talked about. Five arab states flew with the United States last night. Some of those countries dont really speak to each other. So the fact that we were able to put that together, i suspect we probably took isis by surprise. And were able to hit them before they were able to conceal and hide their material and human resources, i think, probably was a very good strike. When you say bold move, i think you may have just answered it with the last comment. When you say a bold move, is that bold as in good or bold as in bad or bold as in you dont know yet . Well, i think you have to start off with why were going after isil in the first place. Right. And if you will accept the proposition that we cant leave them alone, and we can talk about that, that we have to take them out. And if were going to take them on, we should take them on fairly aggressively. And we cant take them on by ourselves. This has to be a an International Coalition with a heavy arab, sunni component. What the president has been able to do is to put that arab, Sunni Coalition together with five arab countries taking military action with us. That is when i say bold, that is quite an accomplishment. And i think i dont think anybody expected this to happeno this quickly. I think people have been focused on the iraq piece. And therefore, i suspect it took isis by surprise, and therefore probably did more damage than had we done this a month from now or two months from now. None of this those single acts are not decisive, but i think this was probably effective. You accept the notion that we do have to take them on. Thats the way you started, that we cant leave them alone, we do have to go at them head on. Do you accept that notion . Yeah, i do. I think thats the starting point. I think its a reasonable question for people to ask. Why cant we leave them alone . If we leave them alone, will they leave us alone . And i think thats the question that Everybody Needs to think through. This is a fanatic group of islamic extremists who believe that they want to set up an Islamic State in the middle east, and that people who dont accept their fanatic view, indid i infidels should be destroyed. They have already moved through part of iraq. They now control an area of syria and iraq, roughly the size of new england. Because they are succeeding, theyre attracting lots of young disaffected militants from around the world, including some from the west, because nothing succeeds like success. They have aspirations on lebanon and jordan. I think had we not joined the battle, they probably would easily take baghdad. So we would have put the terrorism thing aside for a second. Ill come back to that. We would have in the middle of the middle east an aggressive expansionist sunni extremist land that ultimately would be a threat, i think, to gulf states and others. Right. And i think thats not something that would be good for us. I also think its hard for the civilized world to accept the kind of barbarian activity of this group. But then come back to the terrorism piece, which is the narrower piece. They are there are Many Americans there who easily could come back to the United States, but i think that longer term, if this large land existed in the middle east, it will be a calderon, a breeding ground for terrorists against us, against europeans. It will be a threat to us for a very long time. So i think we cannot say if we leave you alone, youll leave us alone. I think thats just Wishful Thinking on our part. Right. And i think the sooner we take it on, the better. So now that youve made it clear that you do accept the notion that isis or isil cannot be left alone, they do have to be taken on, if youre barack obama, if youre president obama, and youre speaking this week to this group at the u. N. About foreign fighters, what are you saying to this group . What are you asking for at this point . Well, there are a lot of dimensions to this. We are focused on the military side, but there are a lot of pieces. One is the financial. We have to dry up these guys finances. They are a huge Business Enterprise now. They are running operations now in two countries. You know, they have to bring water and Civil Service to these countries. They are running in a sense two wars. Thats a costly operation. They need a lot of money. So we have to cut off that financing, which means we need our partners to cooperate in stopping that money flow. We need to seal the borders so that people are not cannot easily go into these into syria or iraq from around the world. Theres very loose borders. The turkey border and others. We have to put a lot of pressure on these countries who, you know, ultimately are as threatened if we are, if not more. That just has to stop. The last part of this, the last piece of this, is ideological. I mean, this is not a legitimate islamic group. And all the islamic leaders and countries have denounced it from saudi arabia to islamic leaders around the world. And we are beginning to see now Muslim Leaders around the world discredit it. They will not call it, for example, the Islamic State because they say its not islamic. And we have to join with others. This cant be our campaign. It has to be a campaign for moderate islam saying these are these dont represent a legitimate branch of islam. These are extremists. These are barbarians. And discredit them. You know, theyve been made illegal in some countries, some islamic countries. So thats the other part of it. You start out saying its not just military. And you write about that, sandy berger. And then you address the political, the social, the economic, and even the cultural, sort of the ideological. But we havent gotten to the military part. If youre the president , what are you asking for specifically militarily . Obviously, it was the first night last night, but none of us believes it was the last night, obviously. Well, i think that theres its a longterm proposition. I think theres several parts of it. I think first we have to strengthen our partners on the ground because when the president says, you know, were not going to have combat forces. Were not going to fight this on the ground. I think hes saying that not just because its not popular in the United States but because i think it would not make sense for us to do this. This cant be americans fighting sunni arabs. This has to be sunni arabs fighting sunni arabs. We can provide air cover. We can help them train. We can even have american advisers on the ground helping them. But the moment this is americans fighting arabs, americans fighting sunnis, we lose. So i think some of this, you know, discussion about combat and boots on the ground is a little confusing. I think when the president says, were not going have combat forces, not because its not popular here, it doesnt make sense. Ok. And thats why i think, you know, we should believe him on this. So finally go ahead. Finish your point. Im sorry. So i think number one, we have to strengthen our partners. Thats harder in syria. In iraq, that means building up the iraqi army. In syria, its harder because there isnt much on the dprougr right now. Right. And the Syrian Opposition is in disarray, its fractioned. We havent helped it over the last three years. So its pretty, you know, pretty fractionated, and thats going to take time. We have to be patient. I got about 30 seconds to go. My last question, what do we know about who were arming in syria . I dont need to give you a History Lesson this. Youre better at this than i am. There have been all kinds of moments in history where we thought we were arming the right people and then they turned on us. How do you we thwe know this ist thing to do, sandy . Well, we have to vet these groups. Mo most of the groups will be taken out of syria. The saudis have agreed to train them in saudi arabia. What we did last night means theyll have to spend a lot of time now protecting themselves. And covering themselves. And the time they are spending doing that, they dont have launching strikes in baghdad. So we can keep them on the defensive, its harder for them to go on the offensive. Former National Security adviser during the clinton administration, sandy berger. Thank you for your time and insight. Good to have you back on the program. Great to be here. Coming up, bestselling author james ellroy on his latest perfidia. Stay with us. New york times bestselling author james ellroy has carried the art of the hardboiled crime story to new heights with a series of novels all set in los angeles and showing the uglier side of the city, from l. A. Confidential to the black dahlia. His latest is called perfidia, and it is the first book in his second l. A. Quartet. It opens in december, 1941, and deals with murder cases juxtaposed with actual events. James ellroy, always an honor to have you on the set. Tavis, happy to be here. You walked on set, and i said, james, youve done it again. And you said to me i just love history. And i love l. A. L. A. Come on vacation. Go home on probation. Its a life sentence for me. They are not letting me out of here alive. Why is it that you love l. A. So much . I feel like breaking out with randy newman song or something. I was born here, for one thing. Its where i come when women divorce me, secondarily. I have to write movies and tv shows to earn a living. And i love l. A. s criminal history. Yeah. Can you put this book up . I dont know if this will come through on the screen. At the bottom, a beautiful picture of l. A. At night. And i was flying into l. A. The other night. Of course i do this all the time, flying home into l. A. X. At night. And theres nothing quite so beautiful for me. I always sit on an aisle seat on the plane. Flying in at night, i sit in a window seat because i love to look out the window. It takes me back to the first time i came to l. A. , 27, 28 years ago, before i moved here, and i never get over looking out the window at night and seeing that view of lights as far as you can see. Its a fivehour plane ride from new york. You descend into l. A. X. Its 20 minutes of air time with the greatest light show on earth. On either side of you. Yeah. I love it. Its a beautiful portrait. Glad you got that as part of the cover. So without giving too much of this away, and i always am discussing fiction, let the writer tell what the book is about so i dont give too much away and anger james ellroy. How would you describe what perfidia is . Perfidia is a 700page novel in real time. This is pretty dense. Heavy. If you buy by the pound, im a rich man. Its the day before the japanese attack on pearl harbor. A japanese family is found dead in their home in highland park. Bam. The attack hits. Racial hatred grips the city. The japanese internment begins. Land is handed a hot potato politically. What do we do with this murder case . Do we short shrift it . And as the grave injustice of the japanese internment commences, and innocent japanese are hassled, thrown into the horse paddocks at santa anita racetrack,la lapd have to grapp with this. Are they decent folks . How do we benefit from this . Do we profit . Its a big, big book. Since you love history, how then would you describe in the animanaluaals of american histo japanese internment . Its the single greatest sustained abrogation of Civil Liberties in american history. These people were denied due process. Most of them were american citizens. It was entirely unjustified, and heres the ironic thing, perfectly understandable given recent japanese transgressions in the pacific. It was not gone at judiciously. It was gone at chaotically and acrimonio acrimoniously, and it snowballed. In retrospect, since you just offered two positions that need to be juxtaposed, what should we have done . How should we have handled this differently, given that on the one hand you say its understandable, but it was handled badly . Right, right. It was dispatched by franklin d. Roosevelt to california in the months preceding the pearl harbor attack. He got himself in with the japanese folks up and down the coast and described them to fdr as pathetically loyal americans. There needed to have been a momentary pause before the round tops where everyone got together and said, what are the stakes . Whats the right thing to do . Who are the true bad apples . How do we ensure the Civil Liberties of a lawabiding majority while isolating the potentially dangerous people . We were constrained by racial hysteria. We were constrained by the language difficulty. And we were constrained by the sheer logistics of going to warx i want to go back to the density, the size of this particular novel. Im thinking earlier in this conversation of how much you said you love l. A. Spike lee comes to mind because spike loves new york city. He does. And i love spike. So all your books are set in l. A. Spike films everything in new york. We know him to be a lover of new york city. One of my critiques of spike, and i have said this before so im not trying to hate on him, but he doesnt know how to close a movie sometimes. It goes on and on. Summer of sam. Great movie for two hours. Yeah. Just close the movie, man. He dont know how to close. I raise that only because your books are not all the same size. Your novels arent all the same size. How do you know when to close this thing . How do you know when enough is enough . In los angeles was theres everything we have discussed up to this point in this interview. Theres the fact that everybody was scared, afraid of imminent japanese sea and air attack. Everybodys chain smoking. Everybody is having fabulous love affairs, great fist fights. Theres parties because were frightened. Its a so i decided to set the book in real time because nobody could sleep. Right. The Homicide Investigation i describe is going on around the clock. Ive got my characters. I wrote a 700page outline for that book. I knew when it had to end. I made the people converge. I made them change as external events changed them. As the specter of the japanese internment changed them. Bam. And i ended it on a heartbreaking note, if i do say so myself. And frankly, i do. See, id be afraid youre james ellroy. And im just tavis smiley. But if i wrote a 700payabge bo im afraid people would have a hard time getting through it because, it seems not to be in this nation now a love of reading. And for that matter, just basic literacy. And whether or not people have the patience saying nothing of just literacy and patience but the time. Who has the time these days with the way the world spins . Working 80 hours a day it seems. Who how do you know that people are going to get through this . Well, i have never used a computer. I have a cell phone. No computer. I am computer illiterate. Never used a computer. Never used a computer. No cell phone. No cell phone. You write all your manuscripts by hand. With your ink pen . Yeah. And i have a colleague that types up the books so i can absent myself from the culture. I have a vague idea of whats going on. But by and large, im immersed in december 1941. Now that im writing the sequel, its the winter of 42 into the summer. I live it. I feel it in my bones. Dont tell me obama is president. Its fdr in his third term. Whats the joy and the beauty for you of, dare i say, living in the past . Man. I have to tell you that im digging it. I have to tell you that perfidia, the title of this derives from a great latintinged big band song. I feel the patriotic fervor of the time. I got beautiful humped back 40 ford coups going by at all time. I have about 10 suits like that pinstripe youre wearing now. Men had to wear hats to go outside. What a time. I live it. Yeah. Ive got a big buick super convertible. Red leather interior. Its white. Plaque top. Black top. I have a couple of staffordshire bulldogs and they stick their big snouts out the window and get that cold air coming in. And im a little scared because pearl harbor was just bombed, and we could be next. But im hanging in strong, and, tavis, you and i are both too old to be drafted. Were going to sit this one out. Which is ok by me. Its ok by me too. The inspiration for your stuff comes from multiple places . Yeah. Theres the famous story, my mother was murdered when i was 10. Unsolved crime got me hooked on l. A. s social past, l. A. s criminal past. Its remained an unsolved crime. Theres that. My early ravenous pit bull like love of reading. What did i want when i grew up . I wanted to implement that thing i loved best, reading. Big books, crime books, l. A. Books, mysteries, social histories. And now im i get to rewrite history, and thouno one gets hu. Let me close on this note. How does a guy who loves l. A. As much as you do get comfortable continuously showing the ugly side of this city . Its over. Were different now. Were better now in many ways. And i didnt commit any of these crimes. I didnt bomb pearl harbor. I didnt call the wanabi family. I didnt intern the japanese. But im able to assume the perspectives of people who did. And explicate their tortured humanity. And i get to be promiscuous in my humanity, and inhabit the souls of many, many people. And as a race, human beings, we are one soul united. And i get to live in that spiritual state. And i am nothing but grateful for that. And i am grateful for the fact that on this program, i get a chance to talk to any number of crime novelists but none better than james ellroy. Im always honored that he makes an appointment to come sit on this set to talk about it. The new one from james ellroy, perfidia, soon to be if not already on the