Transcripts For CSPAN2 Carter Page Abuse And Power 20240712

We are here to talk about his book, one of the most stories about our time and hasnt been well told until now. We will talk about that today. I got to know carter page professionally and i was blown away by the facts as the case when you cover stories where powerful interests are trying to shape them and youre not getting the true picture. He will talk about all of that today, carter, ask we start with you giving a brief background of your education, where you went to school and very briefly your job experience in career . Yes, sheryl, thank you so much for doing this today, great to be with you. I grew up in duchess county, new york and i received a nomination to the u. S. Naval academy which i started a week after graduating high school in 1989, and i so i completed anapolis and then commissioned in the u. S. Navy and served with the u. S. Navy, first as arms control action officer doing International Arms control negotiations in the pentagon and then i moved into i served on a couple of surface ware fare ships, atlantic and middle east. Dont you have a couple of degrees . Yeah, yeah. Ive been sort of a lifelong student, although i joke around when i was in annapolisi dropped out in my junior year, but i ive always been studying. Just because ive been working kind of throughout that period, so i always studied at night and, you know, go to night classes and stuff, so, for example, when i worked in the pentagon i did my masters in National Security at georgetown across from the pentagon and while i was a Research Fellow in the the counsel of Foreign Relations in new york i did my nba in International Business at new york city university. Yeah. I was mentioning because people that follow any of the story in the popular prez they likely heard that you were not too intelligent hapless guy and i learned about your background i clearly thought that was a misrepresentation of what you had done and then i think we also ought to start maybe of the beginning of the conversation with how you came to work in russia because if not for your presence in russia for business at some point in time, they may not have had what someone call an excuse to wiretap you, to what some would say get to President Trump. So explain first of all why you were in russia. A lot of people act why theres so suspicious if someone goes russia and do business when many thousands of people in the United States live and work in russia. Yeah. Its ironic in a lot of ways, sheryl. Im a free market guy and that was my other degree. I did my doctorate in the university of london in African Studies looking at middle and east affairs and the tensions between capitalists and socialist approaches in emerge ing societies. My first time to russia was actually during the late soviet period in the summer of 1991 just a few months before the end of the soviet union. I was a part of First Exchange program between the u. S. Naval academy and the soviet. Ive been working in various capacities. In the pentagon i did a lot of u. S. Russia arms control negotiation. When i got out on Foreign Relations, i did a a Research Project with the Central Asian c. Aspian sea basin and russia is one of the countries on the caspian sea. Ive done a lot of work in developing markets in general and with russia in particular, its one of key emerging market. I did a lot of work there and eventually, you know, its sort of on the interface between capitalist and socialisttype approaches with the end of communism that, you know, president reagan worked on in terms of transition to free market societies. That was some of i was really inspired by that growing up and i decided i wanted to contribute to that process in people who worked in russia for the United States were not viewed automatically with suspicion because this was encouraged by our government as we tried to help them move from what was the soviet union to something more we hoped to a market economy like ours, and then you were based there for a Financial Company and lived there . Yeah, me and another guy opened it was Merrill Lynch, the u. S. Investment bank, we opened their office there in 2004 and it actually its kind of related to the overall transition to the market approaches because in 1998 Merrill Lynch was one of the few banks that decided that they there was a Big Worldwide emerging markets crisis and russia got hit particularly hard there and they just merrill decided that they were going to shut down the office. Fastforward 6 years later and russia is the biggest, you know, fastestgrowth market in the world. And theres a lot of privatization going on, again, sort of a transition towards free market approaches and so me and another guy ended up heading over there to open the Merrill Lynch office. Last point on this and this all plays a big part from the story of what ultimately happened to you but, of course, it is not unusual if youre a businessman in the former soviet union because of the way the economy works if you were doing business with russians, you were in essence coming in contact with russian government officials and you are in essence coming into contact knowingly or not with all kinds of people that spied for russia. Russians worked and provide intelligence for the russian government, is that right . Absolutely. And again, i had a philosophy at the time that its useful to tell the truth and help, you know, help serve your country to the greatest extent that you can. I mean, that was my philosophy when i served in the navy throughout those years and i i had, you know, through a lot of different work i had done various contacts in the u. S. Intelligence community and some people i know asked me for help, so, again, ive always served my country in various capacities, whether its as an eagle scout or catholic altar boy or serving my community as well as in the navy and when i was asked i was more than happy to help. Again, with the view that its useful to provide accurate and insightful information and since i had, you know, lived and worked there throughout, you know, for now its been over 25 years, it would be useful to provide some insights which could be helpful to our country. So you having been a source in the past for our information for fbi and cia ended up really being the saying that drove the nail in the coif i have in essentially the Trump Campaign. We will get to that in a moment. The book, abuse and power tells the whole story. Where can people order the book, carter . Theres a website, carterpage. Com and that gives all kinds of options in terms whatever book seller you prefer, amazon and the full range there, so its all available at carter pagebook. Com. In case people dont know who i am, im an Investigative Reporter with history working at pbs, cnn, i was an dependent show called full measure on sunday tv show that you can find online and ive written my new book is called slanted, how the news media taught us to less censorship. Thats what chapter 9 of carters book focuses on, its called overcoming the abuses of american democracy and talks about surveillance. I will read a short passage from that and then you can provide some context. The illegitimate case against me revealed several other forms of dysfunction, talking about the government spying on you. When i was targeted with four applications for fisa surveillance, you say, they were filed under title 1 which defined me as a possible agent of a foreign power. Now as an aside, you have provided intelligence for intelligence agencies but they are secretly wiretapping you claiming that you could be spying for the russians. And you write, but i wasnt the only target. The federal government could make two from me, people talking to you and people who were communicating with them which would include fbi reviewing your private data, private data from steve bannon, for example, and Steve Bannons contact donald trump. The carter page warrant were direct assault and first and Fourth Amendment rights of all americans and you say this isnt a partisan issue and people from the spectrum view it as an american issue. As this unfolded, when did you start to believe that they werent just after you, they were trying to get to perhaps President Trump or others on the campaign . Well, its interesting, sheryl because i actually threw my contact with the Intelligence Community and i had someone give me the heads up even before the first one of the main defamatory articles which was used by the comey by fbi to t the fraudulent warrant, way back in 2016i contacted mine with ties to the Intel Community told me that the democrats had paid quote, unquote, Opposition Research people to dig up dirt on then candidate trump and his supporters such as me. So i knew that they were in the process of trying to come up with these lies, primarily with the initial idea of just pumping it out to the media and getting people to, you know, a real Election Interference Campaign to deceive American Voters and this is, again, just a couple of months, less than a couple of months between the 2016 election and then sure enough on september 23rd, 2016, even though im getting all kinds of questions from reporters, finally, the washington post, new york times, cnn, they are all asking me about the same false allegations which the democrats had paid for and their consultants were trying to push out in every way possible. Finally, they found someone who is either a Media Organization who is unethical enough or gullible enough or possibly both to to go ahead and publish this article on friday september 23rd, 2016 and really the rest is history because this is one to have elements in part of election interference where this these false stories were used as a way, part of the fraudulent fisa affidavit against myself as a way of spying on so many people i was associated with. Other Trump Campaign volunteers back in 16. Lets say that by way of summary the things that were said about you in part to get these wiretaps under false pretenses, the secret wiretap application says that you were acting as a russian spy or become one, people may know not these are qualifications, you cannot wiretap somebody, eminently about to become one and the very fact that they wiretapped you four times over the course of a year without any evidence to charge you with anything or do anything about it seems to believe if notion, and the part of the evidence claims that you had visited russia and made improper contact with certain government officials as liaison for the Trump Campaign. Is that a fair summary . Yeah, i think it is. An important interesting insight and it goes back to your personal story of having to deal with similar things like this. As part of your ongoing bat unless the court, its very similar to what we have seen in the last several years for Senate Judiciary chairman Lindsey Graham, right . You have been making various allegations with a lot of basis to it and unfortunately people within the u. S. Government, department of justice which handles all civil litigation and investigations such as this, they unfortunately have not been very supportive at all in terms of providing the full information about what happened and precisely the same thing that Senate Judiciary chairman Lindsey Graham and so many of his colleagues in congress have been fighting for so hard. I think we are all in this battle together and its very much the focus of this chapter here in terms of understanding everything thats at stake and how it affects so many people such as yourself, myself, leaders in congress that are just trying to protect civil rights and so its a very long complicated story and i i tried to make it as simple and understandable as possible with this chapter while also illustrating what exactly is at stake, just given the civil rights abuses or potential abuses that we are all susceptible to. Lets call it the catch 22 when part of the community committing the abuses and they have no desire to do that or provide the information that would allow us to do that in court, they hold all of the cards. And this is whats so dangerous about it because it didnt just happen to you and it didnt just happen to me, my information says that there were many operations, there were hundreds if not thousands of people involved over short time periods and over long time periods and other administrations, not just one administration. There were probably too many people to count who have been involved in potential abuses of the Constitutional Rights and we may never know. You also wrote in chapter 9 the department of justice lawyers, Inspector General Michael Horowitz revealed that the breakdown in surveillance has been much worse than we originally realized and an examination done of 29 of the fisa wiretap application that is were reviewed for possible abuse after they learned about yours all 29 had serious deficiencies. Think about this. The Inspector General could not even find the document that shows the fbis mandatory processes were followed and Inspector General revealed something thats been apparent to many for a long time. You wrote the whole system of secret surveillance is broken and thats what you say getting at the heart of how this impacts people if they say, so this happened to carter page, maybe he will get redressed in the end. This is much bigger than that, isnt it . Absolutely. There are so many different dimensions and challenges related to it and, again, its a little bit of a spectrum. I think as youre saying this is a serious problem thats happened for, you know, impacts all americans on the one hand but also very often, and this is a core element of First Amendment liberties and First Amendment Constitutional Rights. In addition to having freedom of the press, theres also, you know, freedom of thought and freedom of Peaceable Assembly and so many freedoms inherent in the First Amendment and unfortunately what you have sometimes is when people have a different view or when people journalists such as yourself might Say Something which is not exactly what the powers that they again, the incident that started with me happened during the Obamabiden Administration and, you know, sometimes you have pretty harsh political activists working to achieve their political objective. This is a great story, the one that i think youre about to tell. This is another bit of wow insight that you gave me when i interviewed you from my program full measure. Theres some evidence that they were looking for anybody surrounding President Trump, that case scenario, they really thought trump was a russian spy and they were looking for russian ties. Worst case scenario, they were looking for experiences, anybody who had been to russia or experience in the region to try to wiretap to listen in on them, but with you and your experience with some of n the fbi, they talked with you in the period, was it the boston bombing . Yeah. Take it from there. Well, its funny, the right after the boston bombing in the first half of 2013 i was helping the fbi with a particular russian spy case in new york and unfortunately i was writing some various ideas in terms of, you know, the certain approaches that should be taken. I had just recently red academic article and i had offered this, in one of my meetings with the fbi agents. I had mentioned my various perspectives to them and i think what we have seen is just a real severe bias. This big Inspector General report which led into this major investigation, the initial fisa abuse report as to these abuses that the Trump Campaign and myself were that were inflicted upon us. That was a very serious issue but unfortunately it really extends far beyond that and one of the elements of that and one of the big debates is the Inspector General horowitz, obamaappointee, he said that, well, we dont find any political bias there. Well, it was an interesting conclusion and i know a lot of people who actually know the full facts have pushed backon this really hard, but on the face of it, theres a ton of evidence of political bias and unfortunately again, its similar to what we are talking about, things that youve had to deal with and chairman Lindsey Graham and so many members of congress have had to deal with in terms of getting the truth. Its only part of the story and if youre just getting i refer to it as garbage in and garbage out, the u. S. Department of justice, they interviewed 100 you know, 100 witnesses and read over a million documents as part of overall review. Unfortunately a lot of the same perpetrators were the same people they were talking about, are talking about so i think its understandable where, you know, if youre only talking to many of the same bad actors, of course, they are going to say we are not biased at all and i was begging them to let me provide some input and unfortunately for whatever reason, this is another example of Civil Liberties not being respected number 1, but also the rule of law not being respected because theres the privacy act of 1974 which gives american citizens if the government is keeping records on you, you have the right to review that information particularly before they distribute it to the entire world, and so there are a lot of problems in that december 2019 Inspector General report and i thought it was really essential that i get i have some help set the record straight and thats when i decide today write the book basically because the story was just so incomplete and i just wanted to tell more of the full story in terms of everything that happened as part of the Election Interference Campaign and President Trumps first campaign. Take us back, wasnt there a sarcastic remark you made to one of these fbi people some years ago that you thought may have stuck in there a little bit and made them more vindictive when coming after you . Its typical freedom of speech, freedom of ideas and, again, i wrote an oped which was actually very critical of the Obama Administrations policy. And one thing in particular that i tried to argue in this article is, instead of, you know, there were a lot of mistakes in Foreign Policy and in a Justice System context during the Obama Administration, but if they had paid more attention and looked for more constructive approaches, so many threats, so many National Security threats to america could have been completely avoided, so there was both a, you know, calling people out for some of their mistakes in terms of this this academic article which got no no real attention other than me talking to the fbi agents about it. And unfortunately, you know, one thing led to another and just about a year and a half later and so that was a meeting in the middle of 2013 after some some help i was giving them. Way before this current scandal, yeah . Yes. A year and a half later in january 2015, eric holder, prebaga, senior doj officials in the Obama Administration come up with indictment of 3 alleged russian spies and unfortunately they gave highly Sensitive Information in open indictment and again, i had supported them and given them Accurate Information and the way the information was presented, number 1, i had no forewarning that i that this would be taken to the next level in terms of making this a public indictment and actually filing these charges. But even worse, is the fact that some of the things that i that i had layed out and told them in my original meeting with them and particularly the way they opposed it was some other information in the indictment, really, misportrayed the information i had given them which one thing leads to another and unfortunately with a not a very professional way of managing that case and or or recognizing someone who had long supported the u. S. Intelligence community and the Justice System for many, many years, just really essentially putting my life at risk because eventually and i explained it all in the book and its a long in some of the prior chapters but its an ongoing supply thriller, if you will, of my back and forth and although i was supporting them on the one hand, just also calling them out in some of my meetings with them explaining the mistakes that had been made and unfortunately voicing or telling the truth and voicing an honest opinion made me even more of a personal target for political reasons than i could have imagined. So closing the loop on the violation of law, i think, there were probably numerous ones but one that we know happened against you by fbi, its required when they make wiretap applications if the person they are trying to get a wiretap on you has a relationship with the federal government as a source, as you did, you helped the fbi and the cia, that must be disclosed. Thats in the fbi rules among other things that they didnt follow and when you publicly implied or stated or discontinued with the fbi in a letter to them, hey, ive helped you in the past, please come to me if you have any questions about this, this is ridiculous when it was being leaked that you were some kind of spy, they withheld that information from the court and there was apparently an exchange within the fbi and the cia in which the cia confirmed to the fbi you had been a source and that was the triggered that should have forced them to disclose this Important Information to the court which might have made the court say, something seems a little funny here, why would a guy that knows hes being watched, that has helped news the past be spying supposedly you know, on behalf of russia but instead this fbi attorney who is pleading guilty to this admits to having doctored the information, forge the document and said you had not been according to the cia a past source and thats, i guess, what really makes everything fall apart in a very official way in terms of what they did to you. Yeah, i think thats a great summary. Again, this is one very powerful fbi attorney who was in this particular part of the charade. If you read closely the indictment and as youre referring to, me giving the heads up, the fbi, in that case, 2 days after the the defamatory article planted by the democrats in september 2016 on on sunday september 25th 2016, i sent a letter to then fbi director james comey just explaining the truth and trying to explain reality to this guy and i said at the end of this letter, you know, ive been in touch with you and been in touch with the cia going back a long time and please, if you will, you know, this is obviously how ridiculous these allegations are. If you have any remaining questions, if you have any sort of doubts whatsoever, do not hesitate to contact me, not only did they not only contact me during that period, over the 5 plus months following that is when mr. Comey and sally yates submitted the first two false highly inaccurate fisa warrants to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in washington. And unfortunately not only were they not talking to me, they were instead dealing with a dncfunded consultant who was doing this major Smear Campaign against then candidate trump and his supporters such as me and leaking like crazy to the media. I mean, there is is just so much wrongdoing encapsulated in there and its encouraging that some initial steps have been taken in terms of reestablishing the rule of law, but unfortunately theres theres just so much more that needs to be uncovered and i hope this book provides some initial impetus in terms of some of the major problems and i just wanted the American People to know what the what the full truth is, underlying this completely incredible attack. The abuse the book is called abuse and power and the notion that the Inspector General wouldnt speak with you during the investigation, that when you tried to get the fbi to talk to declare things up as they were targeting you, they wouldnt speak to you. It reminds me a little bit of when the Government Operations against me were confirmed. I never dreamed this was happening. I too had Intel Services that alerted me because i never imagined that the government was spying on me and other journalists but i later learned the fbi, cbs news announced the intrusions and weve had a half dozen forensic exams but i learned through a freedom of information act request, the fbi was withholding most of the information against me about my own case. They opened a case when cbs announced there had been intrusions to my computers and they listed me as a victim, never contacted me, never try today help me and never did anything about it as far as im concerned. When you say here you are waiting at the door to talk with them and to help clear your name and sort things out, you have a right to do and you cant even get their attention as youre being smeared. One really interesting fact that when i interviewed you from my program and i didnt know the answer to the question before i asked this but i but basically have you when we spoke before ever met donald trump . I had never then when we last spoke and i still have never had the privilege of meeting him and, you know, its unfortunately i being misportrayed ive been a man on the run. Unfortunately with the same type of challenges that are created by massive government footprint coming down on your head like a goliath, unfortunately i know that youve had similar battles in terms of trying to reestablish justice with your own case, its just been an uphill battle nonstop, so but no, ive never had the opportunity and unfortunately this is one of the core problems of the Election Interference Campaign during Obama Administration. Huge liability for anyone who wants to communicate or maintain a relationship and i talk about this in the book with certain individuals and essentially by the time that 2016 election came around i was a complete International Pariah and no one wanted anything to do with me. Not just highlevel people within the Trump Campaign including the candidate himself but basically everyone i knew and so the one exception to that was professor in Cambridge University in the uk, a stephan, he was known as spy gate where they were looking of spying operation against the Trump Campaign unfortunately. Along the lines, have you met them, i wouldnt really meeting with anyone with the exception of this one guy who i thought was, you know, a good potentially a goodhearted person with heart in the right place and little did i know that he was a highpaid government operative hired by the during the Obamabiden Administration to spy on the Trump Campaign and the operations of the campaign at that time. Well, adds to the absurdity that you would be some highlevel russian spy working for the Trump Campaign with russian who was a trump spy in their view and you had never met the man. I think you also told me you had never spoke with him on the phone, emailed him or nothing. Yeah. I also wondered, as of december when the horowitz report came out, december 2019, there was never any doubt even if people have some doubt that improper things had been done to ewe specifically and obviously with bigger implications, and now theres been a guilty plea attorney, i believe his name is kevin kleinsmith, theres been a guilty plea showing that youve been abused. Has anyone reached out to you from government or department of justice, any attempt to remedy this . I know theres no way to as they say get your reputation back or go back in time and sawedly even a payment of money will not be a significant way but i guess thats the only thing the government can potentially do, have they reached out for giant apology and some offer to try to remedy the wrongs . Well, again, somewhat similar to your case, sheryl where its been a long ongoing battle that continues and continues and ive been fighting this, you know, going back to the time 4 years ago when i wrote the letter to james comey. Ive just been fighting for the truth and fighting for small semblance of justice and this is the Largest Law Firm in the world. Countless 10,000 plus lawyers with unlimited resources, with the ability to just achieve their individual and in many cases political objectives and although there have been important steps for my experience throughout this time is that theres been very little, very few steps, very little willingness to right these wrongs. I will however, mention one small glimmer of hope and it relates to mr. Kleinsmith, this month, august 2020, we talked about the privacy act violations and all the fisa abuse and criminal activities by government operatives such as the one we were just discussing, this was the first time that some steps by doj were actually shown to actually respect my legal rights and Constitutional Rights. Theres one slight legal trivia and one law called the crime victims rights act and many aspects of this law are have been completely disregarded even though it was widely understood that all the criminal acts had been conducted against myself and as a way of damaging President Trump, but it was the first time this month that the department of justice took some very limited steps to begin remedy of the situation. You know, its a small initial tinny glimmer of hope and we will have to see how everything plays out with that, but, again, i was i was slightly encouraged. You know, again, that law says part of it, you have the right to be treated with fairness and with respect to the victims dignity and privacy and i think that one sentence in this u. S. Law is the absolute opposite of everything that ive had to deal with and so many other people have had to deal with unfortunately. Someone reached out to you and can you say specifically i dont fully understand the impacts of who you just described on your case . Well, no real impact yet, all i will say people have often talked about the boomerang where all these bad actors by government officials creating incalculable damages for innocent people such as myself, various Trump Supporters. This is the first time that basic legal rights, again, the right to be treated with fairness and with respect, so, yes, youre right. Its a point well taken. Theres certainly a tremendous amount more that needs to be done, but this is the very first small tinny glimmer of hope that perhaps people somewhere within the department of justice are now acting ethically and in accordance with the rule of law, so i im very encouraged by that wasnt tinny leap tinny step and hopefully there are giant leaps in the period to come. So my last question along these lines, am i to understand that even today at least as we speak, youve been suing the department of justice to try to get some of these wrongs remedied somehow and despite the fact that the Inspector General came out last december and found these violations and despite the fact theres no dispute about it, that the fisa court itself has acknowledged that further investigation and these abuses and youre still fighting in court and still havent come to you and said, you were right, we give up . Well, i mean, let me say this. I have a few initial steps that i tried taking. Unfortunately the first time, originally i filed a case in the Southern District of new york and i talked about this in an earlier chapter as well, but unfortunately i made various claims against the government and then it was during the rosenstein years at the department of justice and unfortunately it was a continuation of false or Misleading Court pleadings by doj, and little did i know when i first filed my case 3 years ago in september of 2017 that a few months later through great investigation by chairman Lindsey Graham of the Senate Judiciary as well as then chairman of the House Intelligence Committee devin nunes uncovered that none other than mr. Rosenstein himself was one to have people who filed false Court Pleadings against me in june of 2017, well into the Trump Administration already. So, again, its highly disappointing but i bear in mind that theres a lot of Trump Supporters who have been feeling similar problems, you know, for example, general flynn and again, there were certain steps that were taken but, you know, its a big catchup game right now and we will have to see how everything plays out because after so many years of wrongdoing, we are in the process of rebuilding and obviously now that we are just a couple of months before the 2020 election, im hopeful that, you know, there can be some progress because certainly if you listen to, for example, last week sally yates, another person who signed two falsifiesa false fisa warrants and whats the significance of the dnc, well, thats the same organization that funded and help put together terrible dossier which was part of the the serious civil rights abuses which i had to endure. The Democratic National committee and again for people when you dont know when you sign up on the wiretaps, im told by inside sources, you would normally stay far, far away from a political competitor, you just dont do it and if you feel you must for some overriding reason that would have to go all the way to the top to the president of the United States because its such a sensitive matter and then you would like to look at the wiretap if you signed off on it and make Crystal Clear that all of the processes have been followed. You would want to do that personally, not just sign it as they say they kind of did, now the people at the top are implying that they were fooled by the people under them when its their responsibility that that doesnt happen. So anyway, wow, what what a story. You said carterpage. Com carterpagebook. Com. Carterpage book. Com. Thank you, sheryl. Live 2hour conversation with Harvard University professor jill lapore whose most recent book is if then. Other titles the secret history of wonder woman, these truths, a history of the United States and the book of ages. Watch indepth with jill lapore on cspan news. Former National Security council official and that the review process was, quote, dear for political appointees, the Justice Department refuted the claims and the American Library association released their list of the 100 most banned and challenged books over the past decade. The list is topped by novel is absolute dairy of part time indian and harper lee to kill a mocking bird. Mark twains, the adventures of chuckle huckle berry finn. Also in the news npd book scan reports print book sales increased 16 for the weekending september 19th, adult nonfiction sales rose to 15 and led by Bob Woodwards back on President Trump. The National Portrait gally generated portraits of women writers, tammy morrison, joyce to name just a few. The exhibit is her story, century of women writers and will be on display until january. Its available to view at the gallerys website, npgsi. Edu. Book will continue to bring you new programs and publishing news. You can also watch our archive programs any time at booktv. Org. Youre watching book tv on cspan2, every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2, created by americas Cable Television company as Public Service and brought to you today by your television profess provideer. And now on book tv we are live with author and Harvard University history professor jill lepore who over the next 2 hours will be taking your calls and comments. Professors book include secret history of wonder woman, these truths, history of the United States and the newly published if then, about the cold war origins of data mining and social manipulation. Harvard professor jill lapore, before we get into the substance of your book, as a historian, what is your contemporary view of how our world is going to be viewed . [laughter] guest i think we have so little perspective on this moment that it is quite impossible to say. I think the perception that many