Transcripts For CSPAN Q A At 10 20141225

In your book about al gore and the gridiron dinner. What was it . In the last year of the clinton presidency, bill clinton, the president , decided he would bag the gridiron dinner, where the president usually goes to speak. And he didnt like it much. It was the second time he didnt. And taking his place was al gore. I got a phone call just a few days before the dinner, wondering if id help in Vice President gores speech. I got a call from my friend, bob shrum, who was a media guy for gore. And what they wanted me to do was have a phony interview with him, where i would ask all kinds of questions not with him, but with president bush and they would have president bush saying general. Now, that was a little piece of tape that they got from an interview that george w. Bush had done earlier with a smart aleck guy up in massachusetts, who had asked him, do you know the name of the president of pakistan, general musharraf. And poor bush said, general, and he couldnt think of his name. So, they had all of these questions. And the answer to every one of them was general. It made a fool out of bush. He asked, if i, as a conservative, would be the fall guy and ask the questions. And i said, well, whats in it for me . And i said, would Vice President bush submit to an interview with me on evans and novak after it was novak, hunt and shields, i believe, at that time, on cnn . He hadnt agreed to an interview with me since 1988. And so, shrum said, absolutely. And i said, no. I said, ive got to get an assurance from the Vice President. And so, the Vice President called me at my apartment that night and assured me that he thanked me for doing this stunt, which kind of made me as a patsy but he would give me the interview. And checked after next week. And i checked the week after that and the week after that. He never would give me the interview. And he said he just didnt want to do it. So, i thought he was a big phony and a floorflusher for doing that. Another year at the gridiron, there was a song called thank heaven for little girls. It was a song that didnt get and i was the president of the gridiron that year. And there was a very clever song that everybody would have loved, because president clinton was having all the Monica Lewinsky trouble. And everybody would start roaring the minute they played thank heaven for little girls. But i killed the song as the president , because i was sitting next to the president for four hours that night. I was the president of the gridiron club. And i didnt want to be embarrassed. What was he like for four hours sitting next to . Well, to be honest with you, mr. Lamb, i wasnt talking to him for four hours. On my other side was the publisher of my newspaper, lord black who is now in a lot of trouble, but thats another story and they talked for most of the three hours about franklin roosevelt, i believe. Black had written a biography of roosevelt. So, the president was down to talking to me for just about an hour. And, you know, i wasnt tops on his hit parade. It was cordial. And i tried to lead him on in saying that the payroll taxes were too high, and he would look into that and he was interested. But he really wasnt. Nothing was ever done. And we talked a little. Im a basketball fan, and hes a basketball fan. We talked a little basketball, and made a few other comments, but nothing very exciting. Do you call this a memoir or an autobiography . Its a memoir. You also speaking of conrad black, whos been on trial in chicago for several weeks but you also and he owned the chicago suntimes you also tell the story about wanting him to jointly go with you at the university of illinois, your alma mater, to fund a chair. Explain that one. Well, i owe a lot and my family, my grandfather was an immigrant and i owe a lot to the university of illinois. My father and his three brothers were graduates, and im a graduate of the university of illinois. And i wanted to fund a chair in western civilization and culture, so that theyd be talking about dead white studying dead white men in perpetuity. And i found out it cost 1. 25 million to fund a chair. So, i went to lord black he wasnt lord black then, he was just conrad black and said, lets make this the Chicago Sun Times chair in western culture and civilization. Well each spend 650,000 on it. And he said, thats a great idea. Send me a letter and well get it done. I sent the letter, didnt get any reply. A lot of back and forth. Finally, another guy, who is now in jail the actual publisher of the suntimes, mr. Radler they said, this is a chicago matter. Youve got to see him. I went to see him and he says, no. Not on your life. We would never do anything like that. So, i had to pick up the whole tab myself. It turned out well, because it would have embarrassed the university of illinois to have a crook funding the chair. Youve done several things in your memoir that often you dont see. One of them is, you have told us all throughout this how much money you make. Thats right. Why did you decide to do that . Well, people are very interested in it, and ive never told anybody. And you will find, if you read it, that i made a lot less money than people thought i made for much of my life. I made very little money when i started off in the newspaper business, and even when i i wasnt making much money even when i started the column. I made a lot more money than i ever thought i would make as a journalist. Probably less than people thought i would make. But i think people are interested in that. Brian, i think that a lot of journalists write memoirs, and they dont tell you a thing. Maybe its the kind of business were in. Theyre very secretive. People who are ballet dancers and poets and artistes tell everything. They tell too much, if you want to know. So, i tried to hit a happy medium, so i tell something about my personal life, including how much money i made. You tell us that youre worth in the high singledigit like, 7 or 8 million. Yes. You tell us that, in the last year at cnn, you made 625,000. From cnn alone. From cnn alone. And you made 1. 2 million in i make less than that a lot less than that now. But what were you doing at cnn that made you 625,000 . I did various things. I was the coexecutive producer of capital gang, which was a lot of work. I spent an enormous amount of work on there. I was a regular on crossfire, two or three times a week. I had my own program called the novak zone, in which i did strange things like jump out of airplanes and drive boats, and things like that. And then i was a regular on the politics show, the inside politics shows, anchored by judy woodruff. I was on there once or twice a week. So, they got their money out of me. How much does a columnist make . For instance, i know you were with rowlie evans for years. But how much were you paid for the column itself . When i was with rowlie . When you first started. When i first started with rowlie, i was paid 12,000 wait a minute, 15,000 15,000. What year . That was 1963, which wasnt a lot of money even then. It was ok, but that did you split it with him . Or did no. That was what we each got, 15,000. At the height of the column, when you were making the most money, what kind of money were they paying you for the column . 100,000. And when would that be . Right now . Yes. How is that, do you think, for all the work you you write how many days a week now . I write three columns a week. You cant get rich being a columnist by itself. And thats much more than most columnists make. How long have you written a column . Since 1963, may 15, 1963. Its the secondlongestrunning column in america. You have, on page 432 of your book, a story about tip oneill saying he Left Congress in 1986. And he wrote a book called man of the house. And that theres a story in there about rowlie, Rowland Evans and you which constituted im quoting the worst lie about us ever committed to print by a public figure. He said that, when he became majority leader, before he was speaker, rowlie and i went to see him and we offered him a deal. He said that if he would give us news tidbits, wed pave his way to be speaker of the house, and he kicked us out of his office. Its an absolute lie. We did get to see him when he became majority leader. We congratulated him, hoped wed be able to see him. But we had a very Good Relationship after that. We wrote columns on it. He appeared on a forum that evans and i put on twice a year, the evansnovak political forum. He was on television with us. Every time hed see me hed cuff me on the head, which i didnt care for, but that was a sign of affection. And so, this was an absolute falsehood. And the reason was that we were doing an interview show for rko television, and he got himself in trouble in things he said nothing we did on that show. And i think it soured him on us. But he was known as a liar, and he certainly lied about us. You also do something that i dont know that ive ever seen before. You name tons of your sources. Yes. I had always thought that, when i wrote ive thought a long time i was going to write a memoir, and that i would divulge all my sources then, as i tripped into retirement. But im not going to retire. So, what i did was, i named dead sources. People who have died, i named. And people i think that really this cant hurt them, i name them. I still i dont name some of the sources. Im not really secretive about it. I try to tell you how i got stories and try to take some of the mystery on how a columnist or a reporter, who gets a lot of the exclusives actually gets the exclusives. You had something change between the time that you wrote the galleys, which we have been able to look at for some time, preparing for the interview, and when the final book comes out. So, im going to start on the source by asking you who mr. X was. In 1972, after George Mcgovern ran, won the massachusetts primary by a landslide, and it looked like he was going for the nomination, and a lot of democrats were very concerned. And i quoted a very liberal senator, without giving his name in the column, as saying that when the working people of the country find out that George Mcgovern is for legalization of marijuana, amnesty for draft dodgers and for abortion, they would turn sour on him, and it would be a disaster for the democrats. And so, that became humphrey, Hubert Humphrey was trying to get the nomination from them and he turned that into he was the aaa candidate amnesty, abortion and acid. And the mcgovern people said i had made it up. Ive never made up anything in my life for a column. They said i had made it up and this was a fictitious senator. This came out way after the election. Rowlie and i went to this senator, had lunch with him at the sans souci restaurant. He said he was running for reelection and the mcgovern people would kill him if we revealed his name. And so, many years later when im writing the book, the guys long gone out of politics, i ask if he would let his name be used. And he wrote i wrote him and he wrote me back and he said, no, it was off the record even this guy was out of politics, and there was no need for keeping it secret. So, we referred to him in the galley proof that you had as first senator x and then mr. X. And who is he . He died between the time that the galleys came out and the book came out, and it was Thomas Eagleton for a short time the running mate of George Mcgovern never dreaming, when he called him when he said those things about mcgovern, that he would be mcgoverns choice to be Vice President until he was kicked off the ticket, because he hadnt told him about a disorder, a nervous disorder he had, that had been treated, and had kept that secret. You remember that story. So, its a shocking story and ironic, that the man who used this aaa candidate, which haunted mcgovern and it haunted me was tom eagleton. Why do you feel you can reveal the source now that hes dead . Because he was the only person who knew about it. It was something that i think all bets are off once a source dies. A lot of sources i do reveal who arent dead, but the ones who are dead, i definitely reveal. I wrote a bunch down. Im going to name them, and then im going to read what you say about them. Ken duberstein. Who was he . You call him a longtime source. He was a longtime source of mine. He was Ronald Reagans last chief of staff. He was a highpowered lobbyist. And he revealed himself in another book as a source, as somebody who was a gobetween between me and Richard Armitage in the Valerie Plame case. Why would he be willing to do that . He revealed i would never have used his name, but his name came out in a book by david corn and mike isikoff. Did you ask him whether you could do this . No. The book has already appeared. His name has already appeared. The second name on the list is karl rove. He was a confirming source on the Valerie Plame story. He revealed himself as having he quoted himself of what he told me, so that the confidentiality was gone by his own statement. What do we mean when we say source . A source is somebody who tells you something about news. A reporter relies on sources. How long have you known karl rove . How long has he been a source . Karl rove has been a source since he was a young fellow as a consultant in austin, texas, in the 1970s. Whats the rule . What are the rules when you have a source . Did you name him in any of these columns . No. But everybody knew he was my source. What was not known was that he was a confirming source on the Valerie Plame story. But that information came out through him and his lawyer. Bill kristol. You write a lot about bill kristol. But youve had kind of a falling out. This is a very complicated story, but one of the leading neocons, david frum, wrote an attack on me in the national review, listed me and pat buchanan and other people as hating america, which is just ridiculous, an assault, because i was not in favor of the intervention in iraq. And frum had some grievances against me, and he wrote this piece. And when i heard this was running in the national review, i just called up bill kristol, who was a great neocon, and i asked him what he knew about this. And he said he never heard of the story. I couldnt believe that he didnt know about it. He never called me back, never returned the call never had another conversation with him. I used to talk to him once a week. He was the only conservative journalist i know who attacked me for the cia leak case, the Valerie Plame case, in which he referred to my action on cspan as reprehensible. And i believe that it had nothing to do with Valerie Plame. But i believe that there was a resentment on my position on israel and on the u. S. Intervention in iraq. Lets stop for a moment about the israel thing. Youre jewish, but converted to catholicism. And what is your position on israel . I am for israel. Im for the preservation of israel. But i believe their policy has been dangerous and selfdestructive, and my name has appeared in hundreds of columns which have been critical of israeli policy. Almost all those columns were written by Rowland Evans, but my name appeared on them. I supported him since he retired. And, of course, rowlie has passed away. But i think it is not an antiisraeli position. I was just in israel this year talking to journalists and people who share my opinion that they should take a more forthcoming position on a negotiated settlement. So, its just a difference in opinion. But the many jewishamericans, who are really more aggressive and unrelenting than israelis, have been critical of me, including some of the neocons. I cant understand why mr. Kristol had turned on me, but maybe thats the reason. When was the last time you saw him or talked to him . Oh, i see him at receptions and things, and i say hello. But we dont really converse. I mentioned converting to catholicism. A source was somewhat responsible for you converting to catholicism . Well, the person who first set me down that road although i believe it was the holy spirit who really guided me was jeff bell, who is a supplysider. He ran for the senate twice in new jersey. He was an aide to Ronald Reagan and jack kemp. A close friend of mine, as well as a source. And he started to proselytize me for catholicism. It was a long road after i almost died of spinal meningitis in 1982. I actually was referring to the priest at st. Matthews cathedral. Oh, the priest. That was monsignor peter vaghi. He was really more of a source of rowlies. He was a republican politician before he became a priest. And my wife and i, before we became catholics, we moved downtown and we started walking over to st. Patricks church, and suddenly found our old friend, peter vaghi, was one of the priests there and later became the pastor. And he was certainly a major factor in my conversion. You say he worked for senator pete domenici. And then what led to him being a priest . He had a late vocation in life. I dont know that he was ever on the staff of he was a lawyer in washington, and i think he was an advisor and a supporter of senator domenici. I dont know if he was ever on the staff. But he was a big very close to rowlie and a source of his. What year did you convert . I converted 11 years ago. 1996. 1996. What year did rowlie die . Rowlie evans . Im bad on remembering those years. How long had he been retired from writing the column . Hed been retired about five years. He retired from the column after 30 years. 1993 . 1993. I think he died about 1998. In the book is about your four cancers. Why do you tell us that, and what are the four . I had Prostate Cancer, lung cancer, a cancer on one kidney all removed. And i currently have a growth on the other kidney that appears to be a cancer, but its not growing. You tell the story about the whole business of the cancer there had been the kidney operation, when you went out to california. On the lung cancer. That was my second cancer. A very good doctor at johns hopkins, where they had removed my Prostate Cancer had a regimen that looked like it wasnt going to be it was going to be very painful. Id be laid up for a long time. Bob mccandless, who was a lobbyist in town and a great friend of mine, had represented transamerica. And one of their doctors was the head of the John Wayne Cancer Institute in santa monica, dr. Donald morton. He said, get this guy. You flew out. I flew out to california. And he said, i can take this out and have you out of the hospital in three days and back in washington in a week. Didnt anybody know it here that youd had that . I told people, yes. But i didnt make a fuss about it. And what impact has it had, these cancers, on your work . What are you, 76 years old . Im 76. I think they slow you down considerably, having all these ive broken both hips, had spinal meningitis. Im a miracle, im alive. And i think the good lord had some purpose for me. That makes you think about mortality and what your role is and what your place is. But im amazed that ive survived all that. How did you break both hips . I broke one walking out of a basketball game at the university of maryland. And the other one, i came out of the shower after the first debate of bush versus kerry at the university of miami in 2004. 2004. It wasnt that i was so upset about bush doing lousy in the debate, but i was about to catch a plane, trying to finish a column. And careless, like an old man, i slipped and broke the hip. I dont know if youve ever had anything like this, because youre a younger fellow, but be careful and dont slip, because its very painful. Back to the source. You name bill moyers as the best lbj source. Yes, thats right. He was 25 years old at the time. Thats right. He was trying to deal with the press, and we were trying to rowlie had great sources in the Kennedy White house, because he was very close to jack kennedy. And kennedy had had Pierre Salinger phone rowlie and tell him that your day is over here. You dont have any sources. Youre out of there. Bill has been very critical of me in years to come. He thinks i moved far to the right, and i think hes moved far to the left. Wilbur mills, a marvelous source. Who was he . He had a reputation as the smartest member of congress. And he was brilliant and had some very strong ideas on tax policy. He believed in tax cutting, but only in return for cutting tax advantages. And so, he got crossways with john f. Kennedy, who wanted to cut taxes without necessarily taking out the loopholes. You say you never criticize a source in your column. Try not to. Sometimes you do a little bit. You dont get total protection by being a source. But thats the way the world works. Very few reporters will admit that. The biggest scoop ever. Bob ellsworth, and as you call him in the book, melvie laird. Former secretary of defense. You call him your best congressional source . Melvin laird, yes. He was wonderful. Wed have a go up to his little Hideaway Office in the house of representatives, and wed have a when he was the he was really the most powerful republican in the house. Ford was nominally the leader, but laird was in charge. And hed say, shall we have a shooter . And wed have a little whiskey before dinner. Everybody drank in those days. And then hed really tell me what was going on in the house. But i got a scoop that he was being named secretary of defense, which was a total surprise. By nixon. Because everybody thought that scoop jackson, a democrat, was going to be named secretary of defense, because nixon wanted one democrat in the cabinet. That was a huge scoop, and it ran in front pages. We got it on a sunday night, put it out for monday morning, and most papers couldnt get their own story. So they used our column on page one. Why would Bob Ellsworth he was a congressman. Why would he slip this to you . Well, i asked him. I asked him if i could use his name as the source. And i asked him why he gave it to me, and he said, i liked you. I wanted to help you out. There was no ulterior motive. Reporters have to get people that are fond of them and want to help them out, as well as help themselves out by leaking information. I think he gave three or four reasons on why somebody would be a source and leak information. Well, one more thing is to kill the story, because it became public. One is to ingratiate himself with the person, so he gets a good press. One is to do damage to the story, to somebody in the story thats happening now. You also tell us about your drinking problem. I can remember you, a scenario. Around lunchtime youd have a couple of cutty sarks over and water. And then youd have wine or beer. Were you an alcoholic . Or are you . An easy day, was eight drinks. If i was covering a story or going to a dinner, a political dinner or a political reception, i had a lot more than that. I didnt ever miss appointments. Never missed a column. When i was cut off and couldnt drink, i didnt feel bad. Whether i was alcoholic or not, i dont know. Which, it probably would have caused great trouble for me, except for the fact that, in 1982, i got spinal meningitis and almost died. And i really couldnt drink after that. I couldnt drink scotch anymore. I know that. Do you drink at all now . I drink a little bit. As i say in the book, sometimes i found out in more recent years, if i just have a few drinks, its a few drinks too many. I fainted a couple of times. So, i cant really drink at all now. So, i will have maybe two or three drinks a week, and never more than one in a night. Who is the kid you punched in the face . At the Republican Convention in San Francisco in 1964, the column was only a year old, and newsweek was doing a real puff you and rowlie evans. Yes as the hottest reporting team since the alsop brothers broke up. So we wont even but they were a hot column team. And this young republican came up to me who said i had misquoted him, or quoted him when he was supposed to be off the record, and some racist remarks he had made to me at the Young Republicans National convention a few weeks earlier, also in San Francisco. And he started calling me slimy and other epithets. I had been out drinking the night before. I had a short temper, and so, i socked him. He was a much younger fellow than me. He probably could have wiped up the floor with me. But everybody grabbed us, and so, he never got to hit me back. I had told rowlie about it, so he didnt get a bad idea. And i said, now, keep it quiet. So, he went out to dinner that night and regaled everybody with the story at the dinner party. At the dinner party was herb caen, the famous columnist with the San Francisco chronicle, who put it in the column about me punching this guy. And, of course, newsweek was doing this article, and they said they were going to put it in the story. And so, i begged ben bradley, who was then the bureau chief Newsweek Washington Bureau chief not to use the stories. I said it was out of character. But he wasnt having any of it, and he ran the story. And they referred to me as i am the greatest, as a takeoff on muhammad ali. Rowlie evans died in 2001, march 23, 2001. What was the difference between you two as people . The chapter in the book is referred to as the odd couple. And rowlie was upper class wasp. He grew up with a governess, and he went to a boarding school. And he was in the georgetown social circuit. And i came from a jewish immigrant family and certainly certainly was not didnt ever travel in his social circle. You cite some oral histories that you saw for the first time in 2004, 2006 of things that you didnt know about rowlie evans, back when you were working together. And part of it was the relationship that he had with the kennedys. Things that kennedy had told him, which were relevant to things we were writing about on the column. He told the oral history at the Kennedy Library about it when he was interviewed about it, i believe, in the 1970s. What was your reaction when you saw that he hadnt told you . I was surprised. I loved rowlie, and he was long gone by then. You cant get mad at somebody like that. But i was surprised. It was interesting that he had this very he had this very close relationship with bobby. He told me that he was too close to bobby. He also told it to me, and that he would never, ever get that close to a politician again. Whats the story about the column, when you wrote something and he was very upset about it and worried that bobby was going to be mad . Bobby was on a collision course with lyndon johnson. He was a senator by this time, from new york. And he broke with him on the vietnam war, came out with a call for a coalition government. We were very hawkish on vietnam. I said to rowlie, weve got to take a hard line on this position. It was a pretty tough column, on bobby. Before it even ran, he told me seemed to have had second thoughts about the column for some reason, and suggested that we had to have single bylines in the future. I said that was impossible. And so, he said, well, maybe thats the end of the column. What i didnt know is that all this time he was in communication with bobby, and talking to him, and upset about it. Because the thing blew over, and i didnt know that bobby had told him, after the thing ran, that i think his friendship with rowlie was more important than recriminations. You also tell us a lot about the people that you were working with on capital gang, and with crossfire, and with John Mclaughlin. How would you like to express your feelings about John Mclaughlin . Well, i really grew to loathe John Mclaughlin. I was present at the creation of the Mclaughlin Group, when it was getting started. The whole idea of the Mclaughlin Group was an amazing thing. John had no experience at all in television, very little in journalism. He was a movie reviewer for a jesuit publication. He had been a priest, as you know. I was there at the beginning. As the fame of the program grew and john grew in hauteur and dominance over everything, our relationship deteriorated. We had a blowup over really nothing, on the set. He wouldnt talk to me afterwards. And i decided i had to leave it, and thats when i left him after several years and started the capital gang with cnn. But you would talk about going to a city where you would all get paid 2,500 to be on a panel. Hed get 10,000. Hed stay at a luxury hotel, and youd stay at a regular hotel. Jack germond, who was one of the originals on the company, he wouldnt have it anymore, but he wouldnt go on those road shows anymore. I didnt want to completely break. I also, i could use the 2,500. You told about the difficulties between al hunt and mona charen and others on capital gang. What was that about . Pat buchanan started on capital gang, and pat there was pat the regulars were pat and me, mark shields and al hunt. And i had selected them, and everybody got along very well. When pat left to become Ronald Reagans Communications Director im sorry, not Ronald Reagans Communications Director. When he left to run for president , i decided we had to have some women on the show, and we brought mona charen, who is a conservative woman, and there were sparks immediately between her and al hunt. It was a very unhappy marriage. And she finally was eased out. How would you know there were sparks . Oh, they were on the air. They never really attacked each other in private, but they really had embarrassing confrontations on the air. So, when people watch that, its not always an act. No, not always, particularly with mona and al. And then she was replaced by kate obeirne. But you say in the book that is kate obeirne your godmother jeff bell is my godfather. She didnt stand up for me, and she didnt alert me. And she kind of took a neutral view between me and frum. And i thought he had really slandered me and libeled me as being unpatriotic and hoping that america loses the war. I mean, that is really a vile thing to say. Do you have any relationship with david frum today . No. How do you with all these different personalities, how do you get along on a daytoday basis . You mean, how do i live with myself . No. I dont mean that at all. I mean, youre not the only one that has these disagreements in town. I think thats you know, i dont want to sound like a holy joe, but i think having faith is more important than these disagreements. I think trying to do a good job. I work very hard on the column. I try to write things that people dont read elsewhere, and dig out information. But i think these are all part of a life, and a life in washington that i hope people find interesting, that they may not imagine that this really exists. Why did former mayor john lindsay call you the prince of darkness . It wasnt former mayor john lindsay. It was a different john lindsay. Oh. What, a newsweek reporter . Yes. We used to sit late at night, waiting for wayne morris to finish his long speeches, so we could we couldnt leave the senate until it was adjourned in those days. And wed have long talks about philosophy and the course of western civilization. And i was very gloomy as a young man about the prospects for the west. And i was not, at that time, belonging to any religious faith, and i was deeply pessimistic. And he referred to me as the prince of darkness. What do you believe in . I believe in low taxes, limited government, limited Economic Limited power of the government individual economic freedom, Strong National defense, prudent and cautious in world affairs, and internationalist and global in trade and economics. At three places in the book, you insert a name. And i went to google to find out who it was, and im still not clear on it. I do know that hes a part of an ezra pound poem. Bertran de born. De born. Who is he . He was a nobleman in the middle ages. And he really caused hell. He burnt castles. He committed mayhem against fellow noblemen, he carried off maidens. And dante, in the inferno, said, in life because in life he had been a stirrer up of strife, in death he was condemned for eternity to stand at the gates of purgatory with his severed head in his hands. Ezra pound was very interested in bertran de born, and wrote about him. Thats where i first read about him, and then i looked him up in dante. I always felt that that was a good model for a journalist, to be a stirrer up of strife. And i hope, as i say at the end of the book, i hope i dont and some people hope i do but i hope i dont end up in purgatory with my severed head in my arms. What will be the news in this book, when they write about it . I think the news that the author of the aaa amnesty, abortion and acid on George Mcgovern was his temporary running mate and fellow liberal, tom eagleton. I think that is going to be news. But i think the broader news are the things i write about. Im very critical of lyndon johnson. Im very critical of jimmy carter, who i had lying to me. Im critical of jeane kirkpatrick. You say that Henry Kissinger, John Negroponte and al haig were all sources. They were more rowlies sources than my sources, yes. In what way . I got some contact with John Negroponte. I never got much out of haig and kissinger. But you do say that you dont remember ever criticizing Henry Kissinger in a column. No, i did. I criticized him a lot. I was highly critical of henry. But all the criticism in the column of henry was from me, and not from rowlie. These Little Things were more complicated, because we were a partnership. And you said that bob haldeman, chief of staff to richard nixon, was treated more harshly, because he refused to contact you, he refused to talk with you. I think so, yes. But probably justifiably so. Are you going to get criticized, in your opinion, do you think, by the Journalism Community for this kind of stuff . I think so. Journalists are not supposed to tell these things and how journalists really function. You talk about your partner on crossfire from time to time, tom braden. You talk about his wife and her relationship with robert mcnamara. Well, she talked about it. I know she did. But what was the tom braden thing . They let him go when he was 71. Television can be very rough. Of course, cspan is, i hope, more beneficent towards employees. But we are in a different business here, and you are in a commercial business at cnn. How did they treat you, do you think, over the years, and when you left after your argument with James Carville . They fired me after my argument with James Carville. I was ready to quit. I didnt want to work for them, and they didnt want me to work for them, so they let me go. But really, brian, they had killed all of my programs. I didnt have any programs left. They were looking for a reason to let me go. The programs i had crossfire, capital gang, inside politics and the novak zone were all cancelled. I was making a lot of money and doing very little. I knew my days were numbered there, whatever happened between me and James Carville. What age were you when you jumped from the airplane . And why did you do it . I guess was, what, 72, or 73 . The program on novak zone was a Little Program where id interview somebody every week. And wed try to have odd interviews like athletes or piano players or opera singers. And id do things. I was a super numeri in la traviata at the washington opera. I wanted to do an interview with the army parachute jumping team. They sent back a letter saying that we could do the interview, but why would mr. Novak like to jump . I am, essentially, a coward. Im always afraid that im going to be shown up as a coward, so i said, yes, ill jump. I was scared to death. I hadnt told my doctor i was going to do it, with all the illnesses ive had. But it was quite an experience, never to be repeated. You wrote that David Stockman might have been the best highlevel source youve ever had. David stockman was the budget director in the Reagan Administration a brilliant guy. And he was the prince of the supplyside economics. We had breakfast at the hayadams every other saturday. And the odd saturdays, he didnt talk to me, he talked to bill greider, who was a leftwing journalist. And he wrote an article for the atlantic monthly, quoting David Stockman on the record, just attacking the Reagan Administration. I said in the book it was like, in the middle of the russian revolution, stalin had turned against marxism. And it was an incredible stab in the back for reagan, who didnt fire stockman. He couldnt believe it. He believed stockman hadnt intended to do it, and he kept him on. He was a Disruptive Force for the rest of his time there in the white house. Why do you think he would have written in his book that he had the meetings with you, when they didnt happen . He said he had lunch with me and jack kemp when he decided to make him budget director. And the three of us never had lunch. I went over my records. Jack kemp went over his records. We never had lunch together. I had been told that he was pushed for it. I checked it out and found out he had already been just about picked. I wasnt in the business of promoting him. I have purposely not talked about the plame affair for a couple of reasons. One, we can talk about it at a later time. But, two, also, everybodys going to be asking you about it. But you wrote two chapters out of 46. I drove from my downtown apartment to the studios in far northwest washington to appear on nbcs meet the press for the 236th time. What was your approach in here about the plame affair . I just would give my role in it in detail and everything out in the open, not Holding Anything back. Thats what i did in the first chapter, which i tell what happened that week, and then the aftermath of it in the what was it, about the 44th chapter of the book. Near the end of the book. How many years did you work on the book . It took me three years to write the book and a year to cut the book, because its a thick book, as you can see. Its over 600 pages, but the manuscript was 1,400 pages. I just wrote everything. This is my sixth book i had never done that with any other book, written way over in length. Bill schulz, former washington editor of the Readers Digest i had been a roving editor for the Readers Digest he had cut my material for the Readers Digest, and he really was the one who cut the book down. Is there another book, then, after this . I dont think so. It doesnt really fit together as a book. Somebody might want to try to piece it together, but im content with this. Youre from joliet, illinois. Where is your wife, geraldine, from . Shes from hillsboro, texas. I was covering the hill for the wall street journal. You say she hates politics. She really does. She is a saint. But she had to be a saint to live with me all these years. We were married in 1962. She really doesnt like politics at all. She started off as a democrat, and shes a registered republican now. You have two children. One at least you mentioned in the book worked for regnery publishing. Alex. And the other one, zelda, worked for you at one point. Who do you want to read this book . And whats the message here . Because you paint a story of being very connected in washington for all these years. I would like to have people who are interested in politics, interested in government, who have watched me on television, maybe have read the column, to show what the real washington is like, what im like, what i really think, what moved me, how i moved from a, shall we say, a centerleft position to a rightwing position. The people, i think, that are the market for this book are people who are interested in politics and whats happening on the inside of politics, and how journalism works. You know, this always works for journalists. John sears was a young aide for the nixon administration. He was later a Campaign Manager for Ronald Reagan in 1976 and part of 1980. What year did he give you these words . This was was in 1971, when we were working on a book about nixon. He can be a very tough guy, as long as he doesnt have to see the other guy. In personal relationships, he has hes writing about nixon. Right. Thank you. In personal relationships he has a good bit of cowardice, because he cant do things they can do. He doesnt want to get involved in confrontations with people. Hes supposed to be a hard, tough politician, and he cant take what another politician is saying about him. Hes saying all those things to convince himself also to convince the people in the room, because thats part of convincing himself. Thats part of the reason he doesnt like to see a whole lot of people. Why did we just read this for the first time in this book . He had given it to me for use in the nixon book that we wrote, that we published, nixon the frustration of power, which was published in 1971. And it never fit in the book. And going through all my papers, i thought that that was we were talking about nixon i thought that that was an interesting thing to put in the book. You call yourself selfish and your wife, selfsacrificing. I think the specific was that we were on a trip, a reporting trip, in 1964, in south america, and discovered she was pregnant. And really, we all, we should have gone home immediately, but i had all these appointments. We went to bolivia and she was really sick. And she was just miserable, and the doctor said she should get down to sea level immediately. But i had an appointment with the military dictator, the guy who had just had a coup in bolivia, for the next morning. I didnt want to give up the appointment, and she stuck it out with me. Theres so much else. Robert matsui, a source . A congressman, now dead. Now dead. He was one of my most secret sources. He was a democrat, a liberal democrat from california. And we were on crossfire and capital gang, duking it out, fighting on cnn many times. Nobody would ever dream he was a source, but he really clued me in on what was happening in the democrats. And he did it, i believe, just so i got it straight and didnt get things wrong. He was a very honest man, a gentle man. And his wife now took his seat in congress. Are you still a fourpackaday smoker . I quit smoking when i started the column in 1963. And, mr. Lamb, thats why im alive today. Robert novak, author of the prince of darkness. Thank you very much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] d. V. D. , call on us. For free transcripts or to give comments about this at our, visit us website. Program is ten years old now. Each q a interview is available at cspan. Org. Any otherse and program, go to cspan. Org and our video library. Join us tomorrow for a conversation with the president the universityof of houston. She spoke about u. S. Competitiveness in the global collegesnd the role of and universities in preparing youth for the workforce. Q a on christmas day, here on cspan. Up next on cspan, president and the first family at the National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. First Lady Michelle obama with a look at this years White House Christmas decorations. That, House Speaker john boehner and other lawmakers at the Lighting Ceremony for the capitol christmas tree. Month, president obama and the first family helped light the national inistmas tree on the mall washington. The president and first lady spoke. And rita wilson cohosted the ceremony. Now, here are our hosts for this