Transcripts For CSPAN2 Tim Weiner The Folly And The Glory 20240711

Environment and a huge Cultural Community and worldwide Cultural Community. The benefit was called next week. Nicely dropped a blanket, find out more about that. Our guest sponsor will be interviewed by garrett graff, a bestselling historian who covers politics. He is a contributor to wired and cnn. Including the national bestseller, the only plane in the sky, and oral history of 9 11. Inside Robert Muellers fbi, governments also at the north shire bookstore, and they do things like that and will do that again. I am so pleased to welcome tim weiner. And the last four books. And the wonderful Richard Nixon biography. I remember it very fondly. And National Security and intelligence, he covered the cia, war in afghanistan, 14 nations for the New York Times, at princeton and columbia, to talk about his brandnew book the folly and the glory america, russia, and Political Warfare 19452020. Please join me in welcoming tim weiner and garrett pratt. America, russia, and warfare, the history of the last 75 years of warfare in america and russia. Political warfare at the nations disposal, he is the full spectrum of diplomacy and covert operations, from friendly persuasion to sabotage and the story of the book, the 21st in a nutshell. You can see their pursuit of Political Warfare against the political system and american democracy and the american body politic every day. We will see if we can win the best battle on election day. Garrett, over to you. Great to talk to you about this. And they were sorry we cant be there in person at the manchester store. It would be more fun to be there. Excited to have a chance to talk to him, in burlington, vermont. One of the things, i will start by asking you about this. I am obligated to start the participants with a plug for what a good book this is and i had the opportunity to read it. My endorsement of it is on the back cover of the finished book so i come into this a fully biased observer of the next book, but part of what surprised me in reading this was how much of the story i didnt actually know. I have covered and cover these topics for years. Tons of National Security reporting all manner of topics over the years. What made you think there was something more to say about the cold war and russia and the u. S. . Where does this book come from and how did this concept come together in your mind . Garrett, i first walked into cia headquarters in 1987, and i called them up and said hey, im going to afghanistan. You guys are running a secret operation shipping hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons to the afghan mujahedin, holy warriors, who are fighting the red armies, the soviets. Said you guys do country briefings for reporters going to strange places. How about it . The Public Information officer at the cia scoffed and said outs absolutely not, hung up on me. Off i went to afghanistan. Three months of jihad, and came back with my new beard. I hadnt been back to my desk in washington a day when the phone rang. Kim, how are you . Guess who. The guy from cia, public spokesman said how would you like to come in for that briefing now . I said that would be great. Off i go to the cia. Its seven miles outside of washington and langley, virginia. The checkpoints, through the lobby, beautiful lobby, marble, soaring atrium. Up on the lefthand wall as you walk in in big gold letters is inscription from the gospel of john that says and ye shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. I grew up, talk to the four four afghan analysts in the cia, and they really wanted to know one thing, which is what is it like . They have nervous when a country mile of afghanistan. They had never been within a country mile of afghanistan. I go down, walked back up to look over my right shoulder. The encryption said im going to cover this place like other reporters cover disappointed going to do. Five years later at the end of the cold war the director bob gates said were going to declassify our cold war history, warts and all. The Clandestine Service of the cia did not like that because there are a lot of warts. 15 years it took, 15 years to move to the declassification pipeline and there would be a Critical Mass of declassified information about the ca so i could write my history of the cia. 12 years have passed since. Slowly the declassified history of the cia is revealed, like a glacier melting and revealing the rock underneath. Theres a chapter in the book about poland, about two disasters operations, well, i disasters operations and Successful Operation 30 years apart. The Successful Operation was the support for solitary, the trade Union Movement and poland, kept them alive in the 80s. Solidarity wound up being the domino that could overturn the soviet empire. The nightmare of the soviet system was revealed in the revolt of the [inaudible] there are 20thcentury stories in this book and nobody has ever heard of, not just you, garrett. Theres a story of cia support for the dictator of the congo. Theres the story of how the United States tries to fight back against soviet disinformation in the 80s. The disinformation of the soviets was really the brainchild of ahead of the kgb around the kgb in the 60s, 70s into the 80s and then became the leader of the soviet union. Soviet and russian disinformation, kgb disinformation then and now have three goals. Undermine americans faith in the National Security institutions, the the cia. That was number one. And we hear the cia killed john kennedy or the fbi killed Martin Luther king rex thats kgb disinformation. Ever hear the United States invented the aids virus in fort dietrich marilyn . Millions of people still believe that to this day. Kgb disinformation. Vladimir putin is the air both as head of russian intelligence and as the strong man later of russia. Garrett, theres a Straight Line that runs through these stories from the end of world war ii to today. People think the cold war was then in the 20th century and this nightmare were going through now with russia attacking our democracy, thats a whole different story. They are one story. One of the things about this book that struck me was that you have written so much about the cia before, creates a lot of its successes in myriad failures, the im not spoiling the thesis of a book called legacy of ashes but you were general lees has been there are more failures on the cias books and successes. Im curious how this project and looking at this 12 years later change your perception of the cia, changed your belief in how come in the role it played in the cold war and sort of what should we make of the legacy of the cia in this particular fight . Covert action is a drug for president s, secretaries of defense, secretaries of state. They have a problem that they cant solve through diplomacy or through the military. They send in the cia. Cia just got bored in 194747. They didnt know the first thing about covert action. The russians have been at the since peter the great. They have been added for centuries. So our lack of knowledge of how to do these sorts of things, and then a distaste because of the secrecy of the cia who are coordinating things with policymakers, secretaries of state, secretaries of defense, led to a series of cascading failures. What the cia had in the 20th century in the cold war of the kgb didnt was money. Lots and lots of lovely money. If it wanted to sway an election as it did in its very first covert operation ever to steal the italian election in 1948, suitcases full of cash. If you wanted to reverse the results of an election, as it did in chile in 1970, it could create the conditions for a true. True. If you wanted to buy the allegiances entire political parties, create entire political parties, it created the ruling party in japan in the 1950s, the liberal democratic party, which is neither liberal nor democratic nor a party. Still runs japan to this day. When the cold war ended, the successes to the cia were not only its ability to outspend there were, and we learn, cia learned, the United States learned through bitter experience in failure that if you did things on a small scale, the butterfly effect was more effective than sending billions of dollars of weapons to the mujahedin. We did that with shortterm success. The afghan rebels drove out the soviet army, but the country awash in weapons without any followup from the United States was the incubator of alqaeda, and unforeseen consequence of cias support for the afghans. The great problem today, garrett, is that Political Warfare, again, the fullspectrum notches covert operations but diplomacy, economic support and intelligence operations, we dont do it anymore. For good or for ill we are out of the game. The war on terror consumed everything. Counterterrorism was the first and last goal of the cia and the fbi. We took our eye off the ball. We talk about traditional espionage which is just gathering information really. And create the conditions for the russians to launch the political equivalent of 9 11, the attack on our democracy. Nobody died but american democracy received a grievous wound in an unexpected attack from an unexpected direction, and thats where we stand today. So in my experience in covering intelligence, one of the other things, there are two things that stood out to meet in your book that sort of ring true to me from covering intelligence and writing about National Security. One is that, and may be this has to do with the money reason you just mentioned, that the u. S. Is generally better at technical collection and Technical Intelligence wizardry. And the soviet union russia is generally better at human operations, the sort of human intelligence. And the second thing that really stands out in this book, which is something that has always stood out to me in covering russian and the u. S. Is, russia has a strategic patience that the u. S. Just never has. And that you sort of watch russia, the soviet union, then russias ability to carry out operations over decades. Sort of the clearest example of that being the illegals program, with the fbi called operation ghost stories and the inspiration for the series the americans worry of these deep cover operatives living inside the United States for decades and then the u. S. Actually watched for decades. Part of what is fascinating that we are just saying and learning this fall, peter strzok, the fbi agent in the midst of the moment imbroglio, talked about in his memoir this fall how on 9 11 he was actually already assigned to one of the surveillance teams tracking the illegals couple in boston, when he, and operation these illegals were in were not arrested until 2010. My question i guess for you, is like how does the u. S. Learn patience in Political Warfare . Or is a democracy just such a different system that sort it we will never be able to possess the patience necessary to carry out some of these operations . Secrecy and deception are not our strongest suits, garrett. We are an open society. It is easier for hostile intelligence service, like the kgb and its successors, to penetrate an open society that it is for the cia to penetrate a closed authoritarian society. The penetration by russian and soviet intelligence, american government, has been deep and longstanding going back to the 1930s. They had the United States congressman on their payroll in the 1930s, go down to the lower side of manhattan and to be standing at the plaza today. This guy was selling the soviet spies of the day, Fake Passports and Holding Public hearings, targeting the enemies of america. As an agent of influence, very specific definition. Somewhat someone in a position r or authority can sway public opinion, Public Policy in russias favor. You can think of many others throughout the years, alger hiss at the state department was a soviet spy. They had a spot inside the Justice Departments Foreign Agency Registration Division named judith copeland. They had spies of the treasury, more spice and the state department. They had spies at the oss, and wartime civilian intelligence service. They had spies in the 70s and 80s and 90s running soviet counterintelligence at the fbi and the cia. They cleaned our clock and they distorted american perceptions of what was going on in russia. You can count the number of successful cia and fbi penetrations of soviet russia and presentday russia on the fingers of two hands. You will have some fingers left over. Without that kind of intelligence gathering we will be surprised as we were surprised by the russian attack on the 2016 election. And as we will be surprised at what theyre going to do to us in the next five weeks. I want people to read this book to be aware of what Political Warfare is, how it operates, to understand a threat to our democracy. The most stunning chapter in this book, which you and i have discussed on multiple occasions, is the congo, which you mentioned a few minutes ago. Give us sort of the book talk version of the craziness that unfolded in congo in the middle of the 20th century. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, nations all over the world that had been captured under colonialism shook off their colonial masters. The largest of these nations was congo which had been controlled brutally by belgian for 85 years. And selected congolese leaders were invited to brussels and the elected prime minister. And neither the americans, who achieved interest in congo, built the atomic arsenal, gold, diamonds, strategic metals, neither the americans with the belgians like the prime minister. With help of the cia he was overthrown and later assassinated while in chains by a belgian paratrooper. In his place was a bought and paid for cia agent named joseph mobutu, superabundance of the general. Soon appointed himself general andrew of congo. Support for him, direct cia direct Cash Payments help them to run the government, pay off the leaders who supported him, was approved personally by president kennedy and the managing millions of dollars a year. And a group by president johnson after that and approved by president nixon after that. Support was unremitting. American support for this dictator who became a kleptocrat who brought his country blind, stole 5 billion in gold and diamonds and natural resources, all the extracted resource of the country, a murderous tyrannical kleptocrat was called bulwark against communism in africa. Why did americans support this man until he was finally toppled from power 33 years after the cia helped cement that power . It was the cold war was over. The conflagration that emerged from the collapse of the congo, almost unnoticed in america, was an African World war that consumed 5 million lives. These are the consequences of magmatic decisions made by president s in the cold war, in the war on countries. Lets come back to present day a little bit, or quads i present day. One of the things you let out in chapter after chapter, image and a couple already here tonight, is the way that the u. S. , cia meddled in other nations elections successfully and unsuccessfully across decades in the cold war era you have never in the book, i think you might remember offtopic or had Something Like 117, 137 between washington and moscow, direct covert election interference, and 117 elections in other countries, during the 20 century, second half of the 20th century. And you hear President Trump and secretary of state mike pompeo previously cia director mike pompeo sort of right off what russia did to the United States in 2016 as this is more of the same. They do to us all the time. We do it to them all the time. What do you think of that as an argument, and does 2016 2016 sd out to you as something that is fundamentally different in the long legacy that you lay out here of election interference . You know, garrett, im doing this podcast based on the book, and i have talked to a number of former cia directors, among many other people. I had to talk with mike hayden, general hayden ran the cia under president george w. Bush, former director of the National Security agency before that. Spent his entire life in National Security world. General hyten said that what the russian did to us in 2016 and what their continuing to do to us today is the most successful covert operation in history of modern intelligence. And it succeeded in part because Vladimir Putin has in donald trump and agent of influence. Trump amplifies russian propaganda. Pretty much every day. Trump distorts American Foreign policy in the kremlins favor. He kowtowed to Vladimir Putin. And that is no secret. The question is why. I mentioned before the american congressman Samuel Dickstein was an agent of influence from moscow in the 30s. Donald trump is an agent of influence for the Russian Federation in the white house. It is no secret that he kisses putin. The question is why. That question, which is the great counterintelligence question of the 21st century has never been addressed. It is never been investigated. The fbi started an investigation and vanished into thin air. It is possible that it is going on in the greatest secrecy as we speak, but i really doubt it. I think the Trump Justice Department strangled it in its crib, flubbed it to death, put in the u. S. Postal service sack and threw it in the potomac. And we see the reporting from your old employer over the last couple of days about the president s tax return and pretty good, too. And the question of these 421 million in debt at the president has coming due over the next four years, and without any sense of who owns that, who owns the people who owned that and do you have any theories . Well, i wrote a piece for wired which is my writing home two years ago looking at the questions of whether the Trump Organization was effectively a massive moneylaundering scheme for russian wealth. I think you were on to something there, dude. I have no knowledge of beyond what ive read in the New York Times over the last couple of days, but it seems to be a puzzle that the president is sinking an enormous amount of cash into his scottish gulf courses that appear to both, cash that doesnt appear to come from anywhere nor actually go anywhere since the scottish gulf courses continue to lose money. Garrett, the 421 million in debt which are coming due in the next couple of years, most of which trump is personally on the line for, not the Trump Organization. Trump is personally online for this, it raises two questions. To whom is of this money owed . And how is this money going to be paid back . Who is going to finance trumps that . You and i and i think some of our audience today know a few things about how security clearance works in this government. A number one red flag for security clearance is unexplained debt. Donald trump could not get a security clearance in any government, especially the american government, given what we now know about his finances. It is enormous National Security risk in and of itself leaving aside who his creditors are, because Vladimir Putin knows, because he runs an efficient intelligence service, a good deal about trumps finances, and the knowledge is in itself compromising information. So when we ask ourselves why trump kowtowed to putin, we have several theories which i explore in the folly and the glory. One, hes a useful idiot and he does putins bidding because he doesnt really know what he is doing. Two, he is an agent of influence, which is personally the theory i subscribe to. Putin flattered him on the campaign trail and offered him Political Support including but not limited to covert Political Support. Putin gains influence over trump and trump exchanges his influence in return for everything with trump is transactional in one way, shape, or form. And then theres money, and thats pretty much its always about the money with trump. If trump is out of office he loses the invisibility cloak of president ial power, and i think we will come to find out the answer as to why he kisses putins a ring, and is not going to be pretty. Let me ask you sort of one question building off of that that actually harkens back to another one of your books, and then well start to open it up for questions from the audience on the off chance that anyone actually has any questions about russia, u. S. Intelligence, trump or any of the other headline grabbing topics we have mentioned over the last 35 minutes. You wrote a biography of Richard Nixon, and now a lot of sort of the need of the modern frame of the folly and the glory is donald trump. I wonder as a historian who has thought deeply about these two men, you know, two of the three president s to have faced four president actually, who are faced impeachment. What sort of stands out to you and unites them, and how do you see them as different and the same . There is a line that runs from Richard Nixon the donald trump. And that light is roy cohn line would been Joe Mccarthys council during the Army Mccarthy hearings and his protector, who was against stiff competition possibly the most crooked lawyer in the United States for many years, with utterly amoral, utterly ruthless, and imbued some of that ruthlessness into both Richard Nixon and donald trump, whom he also counseled for the last decade of his life. Theres a shamelessness in the work of roy cohn that imbues the political life of both Richard Nixon and donald trump, a shamelessness and a recklessnes recklessness. Do you see them how do you see them as different . Nixon was way smarter. [laughing] nixon had a much better sense of power. I mean, say what you will about Richard Nixon, but he understood American Foreign policy. He had been Vice President for eight years under dwight eisenhower, possibly the most masterful president in Foreign Policy in the years since world war ii. He had been all over the world. She knew things. Donald trump is Richard Nixon on twitter minus 50 iq points. Richard nixon on twitter would actually be a really fascinating i know. Wonderful thing to try to play out. He actually does seem like he would take to it during the same dark night hours that donald trump does. Richard nixon on twitter would be something to behold. So, rachel, im fine diving into the chat and start to take some questions. Go right ahead if you would like you. Or we are happy to pull it out for you if youd rather have us take care of that. Anyone of you are out there and have a comment, long or short, just let us know in the chat and we would love open up this conversation. Kate asks the first question, which is effectively, i told trump is not only morally bankrupt but moreover, has multiple bankruptcy filings himself. How does he continue funding with or without foreign funding his Business Ventures . Through debt. Through these skillful manipulation of debt, and with the help, which remains mysterious, of one of the worlds most suspect major banks, deutsche bank. Thats all i can tell you about that. Talk to us of about the doctrine and what you learned about it in the course of this book and what america should know about it. He was assaulted and a russian general on the generals staff. The doctrine in short is that, and it was just allies in something he wrote seven years ago, is that all warfare is based on deception, and all warfare in the future would be decided by Information Warfare. And by Information Warfare we mean propaganda, disinformation, and the control of Cyber Operations that can distort what you, the opponent of russia perceives. The ability of the russian cyber commanders, their trolls, their social media puppets, to get inside the head of the president of the United States and Senior Republicans in congress, and get them to dance to a russian to is one of the most remarkable achievements in history of intelligence operations. And we dont know the half of it. What did this what did this book teach you about what u. S. Intelligence needs to be doing better . You know, if you were going to be sitting down with the new ci director or a new direction of national intelligence, what advice would you give them out of this book about what we have done well or not well . The next president of the United States, if there is one, is going to have to pick up the pieces of a large and powerful machine that donald trump has shattered and undermined. And imagine the power of america diplomatic military intelligence economic as a big orchestra, a Philharmonic Orchestra and everybody has instruments. There is no sheet music net. The instruments are broken and cacophony ensues. The next president will have to be old conductor and composure to get the band back together, as it were, and conduct it and make it play in harmony basically. Its a mammoth task. And what do you think, in terms of sort of strategy, what has the u. S. Succeeded at and not succeeded at, as you look back over these 75 years of Political Warfare . When america was able to project its power by representing american democracy as a far superior form of government, far superior way of life then soviet communism, which is kind of a nobrainer, it succeeded. One of the great crises for the present date is that we cannot reject american democracy. American democracy is in deep, deep trouble, antiauthoritarian order of governance of Vladimir Putin represents is a much more attractive model in much of europe, for example. There are nations, former soviet satellites like poland, hungary, the czech republic, that the United States embraced as a nato illiterate latour a light at the end of the 20th century because they look like they would become democracies. They are not functioning democracies right now. And in part that is because we are not a functioning democracy right now. We had been wounded by russian intelligence operations, and we are rubbing salt in those wounds ourselves. Were doing it to ourselves right now. Thank you. Thats one of the things that comes through in 2016 reporting around what russia accomplished in their attack on the United States, was what russias success and the success of the Internet Research Agency Online really was exacerbating existing Political Division that, you know, russia doesnt really have the ability to inject divisions that didnt already exist. What has the ability to do is to stoke fire and sort of exploit the scenes of western democracy, as they already exist. The number one target of russian disinformation operations in the 2016 election or black americans. And by rubbing salt in the wound of american Race Relations they sought out to suppress the black vote, which the Trump Campaign did, too. The ability of what the russians were doing and what the Trump Campaign did and is doing today to work in harmony is breathtaking. Marcia in the chat asks about bill barr and sort of how he fits into this political mess we are living through today, and i want to sort of thing that actually in the context of your answer about roy cohn, that donald trump has sort of repeatedly where is my roy cohn . Where is my roy cohn. That Jeff Sessions was not in his court in a way that he expected the attorney general to be. Bill barr clearly is. Talk to us a little bit about your view of bill barr and his work on, and the Justice Department over the last 18 months or so. Bill barr center role has been to try to erase the evidence, gathered through criminal and counterintelligence investigations of Robert Mueller and the fbi to exonerate the guilty, to investigate the investigators, to nullify jury verdicts against trumps hinchman like mike flynn and roger stone. And to pervert the administration of justice to protect a deeply corrupt president , and a deeply compromised president. And history will not be kind to william barr. Lest we forget, some 30 years ago william barr was the attorney general, too, under president bush, the elder. And he managed to get the criminal convictions and the criminal investigations and indictments of the Senior Bush Administration officials up to and including the secretary of the fence on bushes part in desk in christmas of 1992 as is but to leave office, and bush pardoned them all and that was the final coverup of the irancontra investigation and william barr did that. So he knows what he is doing. I i think weve got time here for one or two more questions, if you want to drop one or two more questions into the chat, please do so. One of the questions that a think a lot of people are struggling with, and deborah asks about this in the chat right now, is how do you play chess against someone who has offended the chessboard and strewn the pieces all over the room upended. What a mean is how does joe biden take on donald trump . What are your sort of thoughts and predictions about the debate tonight, and how do you think biden should tackle debating donald trump . Im not sure theres much joe biden can do at this point. We are now in, deep into what the great soviet author and journalist of the new yorker calls the authoritarian attempt. Donald trump has signaled, hes not hiding get, that he will not accept the result of the election and that he will stay in power no matter what the results is. Im not sure joe biden has got a trick in his trick bag to deal with that. We are in deep trouble, folks. And the only way around it is a massive landslide vote that would prevent trump from claiming that he won against a lesser opponent. Relatedly, tim, do you have any thoughts of what you expect to see from russia over the next five weeks . Intelligence officers divide, when theyre looking at what an opponent will do, divide what you see and what they can try to find out into capabilities and intentions. Im not sure anyone does know what russias intentions are except that they want to create chaos, and trump is that chaos candidate. In terms of their capabilities, they can, as theyve been doing, launch Ransomware Attacks against the companies that provide software for election power. They can get into Voter Registration rolls and create havoc. They have the capability to bring down the electrical grid of a large city on election night. That would create chaos. And do you think, how strongly do you think russia is tempted to play its hand over the next five weeks . You talk about sort of a realm of projects and operations with varying levels of deniability that would provoke presumably varying levels of response from from this president . Who wont even grapple with the fact that russians have paid fannies to kill american soldiers in afghanistan . This president will never counter russian intelligence operations. You know, i think the best way to put it is that chaos is their candidate. Trump is their vehicle. And having pulled off the most successful Political Warfare operation since the trojans took in that horse, i would be stunned if this sat on their hands and said, let the American People decide. Teeth and the chat asks, how did the fbi and the cia give so far behind technologically . You know that answer, garrett. At the time of 9 11 attacks and for some time thereafter, fbi agents could not send emails to each other. Isnt that right . They couldnt download a picture on their computers. In the late 90s the fbi director louis freeh called in the head of citizens operations ibm to tell him, you know, what can be done about this problem which had been a problem, you know, for 20 years. And the guy said to the director of the fbi, you guys are not on life support. You are dead. And while things have gotten marginally better, the fbi is no longer a pyramid of paper, as it was at the turn of the 21st century, theres an inherent problem here, and you, garret, have written about this brilliantly. If you want to protect information within the american government, you have to go to higher levels of security. If you want to share information among the fbi, the state department, the cia, you have to go to a lower level of security. And this is a dilemma. Every level of security escalates within your system screws things up. If your goal is to share and courtney information. And operations. And nobody has ever sold at that. That is the central problem of cybernetics. And let me ask a final question there, on weve seen the u. S. In recent years actually become more aggressive in cyberspace. The u. S. Actually did, and President Trump has actually acknowledge this now so the nsa can talk about it, but the nsa and u. S. Cyber command, the attack, u. S. Internet Research Agency over the fall of 2010 to try to protect the Midterm Election and discourage further interference. Do you think they are back. They are back. They are constituted. Do you think that with the change with the president that the u. S. Is in a position where it will have turned a corner and how it conducts Political Warfare or acknowledges and engages in Political Warfare . Or is this an area where you think just as a democracy that turns over its leadership as readily as we do regularly with different branches of government pursuing different priorities that we will always be behind in this . This president has broken the machinery of american National Security. The next president , if there is one, will have to rebuild it. And that includes not only putting competent individuals in charge at the top of the pyramid but rebuilding faith in those institutions, that this president has attacked as nazis and storm troopers, faith in american diplomacy, this president has attacked american diplomats as humans. Human scum. We are a broken country, we are a failing democracy. Russian intelligence operations has created some of that failure, but there triumph was to put an agent of influence and agent of chaos in the white house. We cant calibrate how many votes, how many minds russian disinformation operations swayed. It didnt have to be a lot, did it . There were certainly contributing factor to the election of donald trump, if not the this is a factor, a decisive factor. And that is a tragedy for american democracy. If we dont get back in the game there will be trouble ahead. Tim, thanks so much for joining us. Its been a pleasure talking to you tonight. The book the folly and the glory i highly recommend it, and incredible lesson in history. I thought i knew and i turned out to have been blown away page after page throughout reading this. So thanks so much for what you have done throughout your career, most recently with this book to shed light on some of the most opaque chapters of recent american history. Thank you, nor shyer and manchester and saratoga for hosting us and helping put this together tonight. This has been a great conversation, tim, and i really appreciate the chance to talk to you. One final word, thanks to nor shyer, thinks her food in manchester in Saratoga Springs and out there in zoom land if you want to learn more about this, i have just started a new podcast called whirlwind that is based on the book that goes above and beyond. I have had more fun doing this in the last couple of months than ive had in a long, long time. Its worth a listen and i encourage you, its called whirlwind. Check it out. Just found a link to that. Im popping a link in the chat, information on the podcast so that link is there. Camp and garrett, this is fascinating, disturbing but we would appreciate you taking time to put the second audience, great to see and well see you back to the rest of the week and rest of the month for as long as we keep doing this. Thanks everyone and have a great night. Appreciate it. You are watching booktv on cspan2 every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2, created by americas cabletelevision companies as a Public Service abroad today by your television provider. Weeknights is what were featuring booktv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan2 and tonight we focus on history. Enjoy booktv this week and every weekend on cspan2. Hello, everyone. We are live. This is Left Bank Books present online that a war correspondent and author Scott Anderson who will discuss his new book the quiet americans four cia spies at the dawn of the cold war a tragedy in three acts. Which just came out today, so it is a book birthday. Scott will be in conversation with senior features editor at the partridge magazine julian sancton. Left bank