President s . Guest quite a few. My taste is about the same as everybody else. Well, maybe not. I will grant you theres been about on him and eisenhower. Again, you do get some wonderful privileges. She was kind enough to invite me the chief of staff another dear friend to come out to gettysburg to get a personal tour of the eisenhower postpresident ial homestead. And it was wonderful. It was one memory after another. Here is where i met khrushchev and the house. We were talking and i actually got close to the plane and 59. My dad was a Master Sergeant in the air force base and i will bl never forget us going out there to look at the plane that had brought Nikita Khrushchev to the united states. He was the most Senior Master on the base. It was wonderful. What a treat. Their grandmother and grandfather and what it was like and see the things in the home but have a personal hunch this is where i used to sit when my grandmother was doing this, that and the other. Host i dont know if you picked up Peter Carlson and the Washington Post the book about the trip. It was a big deal. It was nine or 10yearsold iron and are very well following on television all of us but again theres montgomery and blocking the battlefield with a grandfather and then the fun stuff like heres the barn and the forces, try to catch me or follow me. But again shes a wonderful person but a treat. The importance of William Shakespeare to the culture and politics in your view. Pretty profound. Its more influence on the way we think and talk. In the history of the language its wonderful obviously its a great art but its great history, too. The character and history really matter is that history isnt just a matter of demographic forces. The individuals count and matter. Motivations are complex. I think i am no shakespearean scholar but anybody that tells you they havent been the most influential certainly so to speak around the world in some ways because he has studied so many languages. After congress you decided to go back to teaching. You have to teach a class and get your students one book to read. Its an obnoxious question. Its something on American History i would probably pick stephen ambroses book he used to say im told i think i read someplace he had a three volume mixing and i think two volumes on eisenhower commandeered dday and band of brothers. He wrote one that was not widely known. I actually found a copy of it when i was going to little big horn battlefield. So i bought the book actually at the park a little place you get your trinkets and books and stuff like that and its a fabulous, fabulous book about these two very different warriors with different traditions. If you live on the plains like i do. We work with frank lucas and i was the secretary of state in private hands to get into the National Park system which is now think of this. But he describes perfectly everything from the weather to this vast tableau that shaped the other great plains tribes that were involved but its a great book and here is the guy thats been pulled into the character of crazy horse and he was so good i could figure out a bunch of other books but i picked this one and it wouldnt even necessarily be a history book. But a wonderful first manna from that book on politics is probably better than any history written at the time. Theres wonderful history. But what a tremendous historical novel. Thanks for joining us. Booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. Im reading three books right now. Kind of an eclectic reader ive been reading by erik larson which is a book about the sinking of the lusitania. I finished three felonies feloy at thtodayabout the policymakery are not specific could create legal problems for citizens that were unintended. Its a fascinating book for a policymaker like me to read. Finally im reading a book entitled to finance suc that thy book about the 11 recalcitrant prisoners of war including colonel sam johnson, one of my colleagues in the house about their experiences in vietnam. What drew you to those books . Im a bit of a history buff. So it was things that would be normal and also the authors of the books have a tendency to draw me. They wrote in the garden of beasts said hes been good. Then im a little bit of a libertarian streak in me so i wanted to just make sure when it comes to criminal Justice Reform into getting some Historical Perspective it was hopeful. Green Party President ial candidate jill stein holds a press conference. We will bring you the event is 10 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Tuesday a discussion about river basin management with officials who oversee the river in southeast asia. They take part in an event hosted by the Stimson Center in washington, d. C. That is live at 2 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Next, erik larson on his book dead wake the Last Crossing of the lusitania. It tells the story of the 1915 sinking of a luxury liner as it sails from new york to liverpo liverpool. Mr. Larson was interviewed at the fitzgerald theater in st. Paul minnesota. [applause] you cant believe how excited people are to see you. I am not kidding. They came for you when no other author could have done this. Tell that to my daughters. [laughter] i want to talk about this idea of why we are so intrigued by the idea and here is my theory. You tell me whether this fits. Is it something about the adventure and the optimism of the voyage polite in with this tragedy that passengers dont know they are ceiling into is it like ththat like the collision e ideas . No. [laughter] i often wondered about that myself because its kind of drew me to the lusitania was the fact that i have this maritime thing as i think we all do in the titanic. I think what happens is having something bad happen to you with no help available. Its the isolation and also the idea of the glamour of the crossing and suddenly the interrupting of the catastrophe. But its also because of my scandinavian roots i should point out in minnesota and south dakota. You had been at scandinavian. [laughter] there are probably 300 erik larsons. [laughter] we are a seafaring people coming to sioux falls. You wrote something about the fitzgerald. It wasnt all that glamorous. Its not Lake Superior and its something that anniversary for something that we observe or talk about every year. That i donbut i dont find t particularly romantic. I find it an amazing event. In the gravely and from what i understand they are terrible places to be. So that is the part of the edmund fitzgerald. You were studying the underwater photos and video of the lusitania. Why . Have i been wrong on every question. Let me elaborate on that a little bit. I did take a look at some of the photography that robert had done. But heres the thing. I didnt want that to color my impression of the research of what the voyage was like. I didnt want it to be on the floor of the ocean just what it is now. I wanted in my mind this great glamorous ship of the glamorous spaces and people walking aboard and so forth. So thats why i feel that way. Its in more than 300 feet of water. I dont want to jump too far ahead but do you know why it is whiny and the position that it is . On the port side im not sure in the end how it sank but i do know when it sank for much of the time it was only 18 minutes. But just before it went under it was so full of water there was no imbalance plunged underneath so whether it wound up i cant remember but how unusual is that . You dont think about the titanic. It was a rather leisurely sinking that there were not enough. Im not making light of the sinking. [laughter] it was a leisurely rate of sinking. There were not enough lifeboats. There were more than enough, there were 22 that you think of but then there wer are also a lf collapsible boats that were stored underneath it that is how they made up the difference. The problem with the lusitania is the net result was almost the same as the titanic because have were unusable because of this list if you can picture this. Once you try to let those go this one into the superstructu superstructure. They were lowered to the rails as the term 8 feet out from the home so if you could imagine getting into one of these, you are already 60 feet above the sea and now youve got to cross this span. I was using them as ladders and so forth. One of my favorite vignettes was able way that takes a running leap and jumps into the lifeboat. So anyway that was the problem with the lusitania and then the fact that it went so fast because of how it is struck. Since you mentioned the titanic, there is a connection with the captain of the lusitania and the titanic. Do i remember that right . Wasnt he being called to court there is a very interesting and the day before the departure captain turner was called to give testimony in a legal proceeding limitation of liability proceeding in new york trying to limit its exposure to the various lawsuits after the sinking and turner was called as an Expert Witness to testify why he was going so fast and turner didnt approve. Captain turner knew that there were risks to this crossing he was about to undertake and a lot of the passengers knew that, too. Im not quite sure that i agree with that. First, what we are talking about here is that i an interesting thing happened in new york. In the newspapers this morning in the shipping news pages which were widely read, the German Embassy had placed an advertisement or actually a notice we will say warning anybody who was traveling on a passenger liner or any kind of ship that when they entered the waters around the United Kingdom in the war zone germany declared back in february the notice was essentially reiterating and disabled on the ship into the waters you saile failed at yourn risk. The ad didnt name the lusitan lusitania, but it was widely interpreted and aimed because at the new york world with these notices appear for the lusitan lusitania. So it was that list. And there are a many people after the ship was late a few hours old which is a wonderful time to find out that captain turner, we knew that he knew about the warning. But i dont think that captain turner was at all fazed by it. He was a sailor of the old school and came up to the great sailing ships. He was the kind of guy when you get on an airplane or i hate to fly panicky so i look for the cues of what is going to happen. The. What would you do about it . [laughter] so, heres the kind of guy if you can picture him he would say yes this is the kind of guy i want. He wasnt fazed by the potential of the submarine attack. I think that he firmly believed his ship was faster and bigger than anything that any submarine could ever tackle. Thats something thats interesting. You describe how few people really understood how dangerous the german submarine was at that point. You note that the author of Sherlock Holmes actually got it. This is one of the fascinating elements. The thing is, see, i agree with you. [laughter] [applause] its going to be good from here on out. [laughter] the thing is whenever you write history the way i like to write it, one very important thing is to try to put yourself in the point of view of the era and one thing that was important to grasp for me was how new the submarine was at that time. There was bia was by the way non world war i and charges until after it was taken, so the submarine was actually brandnew and was not understood by anybody as to whether it would be a viable weapon and a couple guys got it. One before the war wrote this pressing short story about an imaginary european country called new orleans which was meant to be germany. Germany. An imaginary country that had a handful of submarines, and nonetheless managed to bring the British Empire to its knees. And that was his story which ran. He wrote it long before the war but it was published a month before the war. The other guy was jackie fisher. The admiral hierarchy in britain. There was the first lord of the admiralty and that was winston churchill, he was the top dog in the admiralty. Then there was his number two essentially the chief operating officer who was the first sea lord and he got it cut too mac. He understood that there were certain characteristics in the design of the submarine that virtually required used a certain way. Churchill completely dismissed. He didnt accept the idea tha ie submarine would ever be used against civilian shipping. It was too outrageous to contemplates. One of the things you notice what the submarines had when they were at sea. You say that once they captain was free to conduct his control in whatever manner suited him without supervision from above. What did that really translate to, what does that mean . With the translated to frankly was extremely high risk for germany the mistakes would be made. The elephant in the room, america, would climb into the war with guns blazing. What it meant is when youre the captain of the submarine, typically they were young men, late 20s, early 30s. A crew of about 36. Once youve got out of range of german transmitters, you were literally on your own. You could thin could make any du wanted. If you saw a target, you didnt have to call back to headquarters. You just went for it. So the autonomy was both thrilling from these guys but also a huge, huge responsibility. And i wonder how important it is to understand how the captain ocoming holidays to understand that he interpreted that. He took it and ran with it. He was one of the big submarine aces even early in the war. He was a very talented, a very talented hunter of ships using a submarine. However, when i went into this i was thinking i kind of knew that there was going to be this collision course between the submarine and the lusitania because the captain of the ship from the captain of the submarine had kept meticulous warlord detailing everything so i knew all of that and it made an obvious narrative thing to have the lusitania converging. I came across all this interesting information. I wanted him to be a classic villain. I would love a monocle. [laughter] like a scar. I got this guy become a, charis, loved by his crew come and one of his friend friends from a few commanders to defend he couldnt hurt a fly. This was after the war. So, just i opened the book to this room for the cadence. Is this the positioning, this is the report on the positioning. One of the remarkable things about the story when i started getting into reading about it, like i say, i came to the lusitania kind of reluctantly. I had nothing else on my plate. I had this maritime take and i started reading about it and getting more in my first exploratory archival trip and thatruck andthat is what cement. So churchill and a handful of others got together and formed room 40 which was to take advantage of these captured codebooks. They would use them to read wireless messages interception from the german navy. They became very adept at this. One of the most interesting things about the saga is that the submarine sent and received wireless messages. From the very beginning this room 40 new exactly what the submarines orders were. They knew exactly where it was supposed to end up on patrol, and what youre looking at during the first 24 hours that sees the wireless operator sent 14 position reports which the british in room 40 duly intercepted and decoded. They knew exactly where the submarine was for the first 24 hours. Thats the chapter youre looking at. In the book it is two a. M. , the exact lake casing, four a. M. , six a. M. , and then you say the report sees. Where was sees. Where was this information for you to find it . It is in the intercept, in the National Archives of the United Kingdom they have information and they have all the decoded intercepts, theyre all there in their files. Its really tremendous stuff. The thing also about the german submarine is that they were said to be they liked using their wireless and like chatting over the wireless. Apparently, i have to think that part of it might be because they knew that ultimately theyre going to be dealing with this amazing loneliness so it was comforting. But they had no clue that somebody was listening, they had no idea. Not only did they have no idea then, they had no idea through most of the war. The germans were so arrogant to believe that the codes were not going to be broken. How hard was that code to break . Well once you have the codebook. But there are two elements to this is the codebook which is key in that consisted of three letter groups including a three letter group of nantucket which is suggested certain aspirations but when the germans put them in code they use the codebook primarily as the first step and then there further scramble it. So there was a lot of code breaking i did have to go on even though, not cobreaking but breaking but deciphering, there is a difference, so it was relatively easy to break that cipher because of how regimented the german navy was in communications with its ships. I dont want to bore anybody with details of this, but essentially if you signal the same lightship every night at 6 00 p. M. , youre going to eventually catch on that this is the lightship and it 6 00 p. M. And message and you know what it is saying. So through that process there able to become very adept not only at deciphering but back to i had somebody in the audience asked me how you discover the lever of detail of what the lusitania was wearing, flower that somebody wore their pocket or Something Like that, where is where is all that information to be found . I hate to say but all that detail is in the very detail cataloguing personal effects found on the dead afterwards. Who did all of that cataloguing . Guest it was mostly the british navy, people in queenstown, maryland, some other people. Actually put out a confidential book after the sinking which contained every name, everybody, every listed person it affected and the reason he did it and it was because i hope that through all of these unidentified bodies something might trigger someones recollection and say maybe that is and mod. That kind of thing. That is where the all those things came from. Host you are listening to eric larson at the fitzgerald theater, his new book is called dead wake you can follow the thread at the thread and pr on. So lets place these two adversaries, the lusitania on the collision course. The the lusitania has been at sea for six days. The lusitania set out on may may 1. The torpedoing occurred on may 7. And the submarine set out on april 30. So what is happened on the voyage of the lusitania leading up to that . A lot of flirting, a lot of shuffleboard, they actually did play shuffleboard. The voyage, until thursday may 6 was uneventful. Was probably getting fairly tedious. I dont how many people have been on transatlantic voyages, before the research my wife and i did a voyage on the queen mary two. The maiden ship. We set out in november, after thanksgiving. It thanksgiving. It was midway through the research. We did the crossing and no soon sooner did we leave new york harbor but it spoke to me in my scandinavian heart. And actually affect the queen mary two is a very stable ship. Even in bad weather. One of the things that came home to me on this voyages after you leave the harbor it gets boring really fast. What it comes down to is you sort of live for meal to meal. Same thing was was happening on the ship. Meals were everything. Is it at your table and these fancy dining rooms and even third class supposed to be quite good and quite posh and very good. They wanted to attract the tray. So you had all of this cool shipboard stuff and people were writing about it, survivors had left stories about what was happening. Host but youre crossing to give you that sense of what its like to be with outside of lands and that isolation. It so did. By the way, the captain was a very very particular that this was not a cruise. This was a voyage, voyage. He was very proud. Whats the difference. Is very proud of the fact that it is a pointtopoint vessel. It does does not stop in the Caribbean Place to place, but it is really this amazing ship that transatlantic thing, is built to deal with everything that the atlantic has two offer. But the thing is, when youre in the middle of the ocean, there really is that feeling, even feeling, even today when your way out there and you look at your day and plot where you are on the course is if catastrophic were to happen, it could happen you could strike another ship in the fall, some i dont know but you are alone. And nobody can get to. Now for hours and hours. So thats really sobering. The most sobering thing is that now and this is not unfortunately the case with the lusitania but today when you are on a ship like that, before it leaves you are required to put on your lifejacket, strap it on and fitted in the new take it off. And im here to tell you that it gets your attention. When when you put that lifejacket a you realize that this is real. Now unfortunately those not the case with the lusitania they did not make me trying on. Did you have that moment we thought, what i have the presence of mind to know what to do if something happened to the ship . Well yes what what i do and of course in the context of all the research that he did in the lusitania it would be do i jump in . No do i try to get into a lifeboat . Yes i do i hope that they watch them better than the lusitania . Yes. So yes. So i really thought about it. I really also find myself periodically this is after leaving the gail and looking off the deck and trying to imagine this torpedo coming right toward the ship. While what with that of been like . It comes, if its a torpedo its like 35 or five or 45 Miles Per Hour which is not superfast. I thank you said 42. Thank you and here it is right here. [laughter] my point being that when youre standing there, you can see this thing coming because of the compressed air exhaust. Forms a very clear track on the surface of the sea and you would see this thing coming towards you. Its just revelatory to me. My gosh, your helpless. Theres nothing you can do. Its like the steve martin routine where hes marketing the product, its like the airline collision detector and gives you 22nd warning. So you know 20 seconds before everybody else, so what. So the lusitania has been at sea for six days, what is happening underwater on the uboats as it is given ever closer . To one important point to make, the captain was not stocking the lusitania. He was not hunting for the lusitania. His orders were to look for large transports that were leaving from an unusual part of britain, ordinarily the troops just left one side of the channel to the other. But the german intelligence had picked up for that third be these leaving from ports. On that there were going to be doing that because the german intelligence i come to believe that britain may be planning and amphibious invasion of germany to the north sea coast. So his orders were to look for these large transports. His patrol was just a misery of foul weather. Of zero targets, of one stretch being hunted by a patrol line of three destroyers that very nearly wouldve had very serious consequences if the patrol and destroyers had kept up their pursuit longer. He was having a horrible time. Ive heard some some readers who find themselves rooting for the captain. I dont know thats appropriate, but. Know what you think the conditions. 36 men in a metal tube, one laboratory. And guys who wear their leather suit see suit stay and adapt because whats the point of changing. He also had dioxins. Did that really humanize him, the dog did it. As a form dog on the rise just thinking like okay pooper scoop how do you deal with that on the other hand when youre living with 36 guys and leather is probably not relevant. But, we came about with the dioxins is that he had one docs of the board and then the torpedo ship sank and then the crew spotted this other docs and those in a box floating so they rescued the dioxin. There is a little hankypanky and then suddenly for puppies. On the submarine. So one point he had six docs. We have to talk about the cargo. I wanted to make sure asked you about this. You say that the lusitania is problematic but legal under u. S. Neutrality laws, the lusitania was carrying 50 barrels, 94 cases of aluminum powder, 50 powder, 50 cases of bronze powder, what for . Who knows what that was for. Those dont really qualify as munitions, they qualify zinc ingredients for munitions but also many other things. Those arent even the juiciest. Host and then the artillery. Guest will their shrapnel shells. In other words they did not pose much danger of explosion. Host and the cartridges that held. And then they carry tons of small arms ammunition which is also not any sort of threat because whether it took fire. None nonetheless theres no mystery, they were in fact munitions aboard the lusitania. They were listed quite openly on this cargo manifest. Has ever been controversy about the fact that the ship was carrying, what could potentially be seen as arms and . It has been one of the lingering issues about the lusitania. Its been in the context of was at the munitions that sank the lusitania . The answer to that is no. It was not. That is really pretty clear now to any serious student of the lusitania, but one Conspiracy Theory is that there were catches, maybe of explosives that have been smuggled aboard and disguised as for years or oysters. There may have been. I cannot say for sure that there werent. What i can say with 95 certainty certainty is that is not what sank the ship. Host so we have the uboat and they are not hunting specifically. Not hunting. Host but the lusitania comes into view, how does that happen . Guest its one of the many really strange things that had to come together for this incident to happen. There were so many bizarre moments, the range of forces that all had to come together at exactly the right time and place that cause the sinking is remarkable, one of which is at the as the lusitanias in the irish sea its sunken with fog because fog was a. He comes up takes a look, said theres nothing, total totally fog written. He goes back down deep because he doesnt want to get run over by a ship in these was referred to as the western approaches, these were the main sea routes into the irish sea toward liverpool and so forth. So you have this fog. Schrager doesnt say it and sure youre doesnt see the and he has had such a miserable voyage, miserable patrol that he come at this point has made the decision to turn around to go home. His decided decided to go home. So he turns around and decides to go home. He goes up to check the weather, miraculously the fog is gone. Not only is it gone but what it has left behind is a Beautiful Day that anyone can possibly remember. The sea is like glass. It is warm, sunny, there is no wins, its just one of the most gorgeous states you could possibly imagine. Through the periscope he sees the forest of what he described in his log as a forest of mass and smokestacks. He first thinks its several ships. As he watches this ship makes a turn that immediately puts it out of his reach. Hes really pissed off and starts cursing. He told a friend that he unleashes a torrent of profanity. But he decides that he is going to follow just in case. And miraculously the captain turner on the lusitania orders another turn which puts it right in the perfect sweet spot for the summary. Spee1 is of the lusitania alerted that there is a submarine active office south coast of ireland . Guest the message it receives and this is a point of real interesting controversy, the message captain turner received by way of warning were very generic messages like submarines active off south coast of ireland. Well thats a pretty big swath of water. It also said plural, submarines. But in fact there was so much more Information Available for the warnings that could have been sent to turner. This was very important point because they finally started to get lucky and he should sinks three ships but he was never told about those, moreover he is also never told that you 20 is for certain in the vicinity and that it has a patrol and has been assigned to a patrol zone right off of liverpool. And none of the documentation reveals why, why there is a specific junction or none at all . What what there is is a really startling absence of information in the archives about what specifically happened in terms of messages that should have been or should not have been sent. All we know is what was sent and we know that the chairman of q and r booth on the morning of when we had the newspapers the newspapers had the news of the sinking of the ships by you 20, and alan booth was in liverpool having breakfast and reading the paper. And you see it in the paper and suddenly he stops eating breakfast, gets up and goes right to the chief naval officer in liverpool and says look, we need to send a really direct message to turner. Look at this, once again a vague message was sent to turner. So at this turner is hearing that there are some marines, again very general warnings, submarines ahead of him submarines behind him, plural and so like a situation he was never trained for. He was never in a situation to anticipate or plan or plot a course for this kind of a circumstance. Host have you thought about what he could have done, even if he had been alerted to the presence of the summaries . Guest what could have and frankly should have happened, again were now talking to my dont say this in the book but what could have been done as first while he could of been given much more specific information which may have really gotten his attention. Its really wouldve gotten mine, and he could have been diverted into queenstown. He couldve been diverted there which is where lusitania in the past had stopped for male runs until they realize they were just too many incidents of scraping the bottom and shall harbor there he couldve been diverted there, there was a new and safer route that had just been open, the northern route which he couldve been diverted. And he couldve been escorted because several of them were available. In in fact lusitania and other ships had, will not the lusitania but other ships have been escorted in the past. So thats one of the really important lingering questions is why was it left so long . And you have not been able to join us specific conclusions on that . Theres no smoking memo from churchill or anybody saying lets leave this ship in harms way, theres nothing like that. But what there is is a body of evidence, bits and pieces of things that if you look at it and lets say you are in accord a lawn you tried to use use that evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the admiral one of the lusitania in harms way to get america into the were, you cannot prove it. At the same time, if you take the same body of evidence and you turn it around and use what scientists refer to as the new hypothesis approach and try to use the same evidence to disprove that there is a conspiracy, you cant do that either. Its too much stuff. So what i do, take in the cowardly approach, i look at a particular naval historian and former intelligence guy. Initially when he wrote a book again rule 40 and was talking about the lusitania he said that in his view it was in monumental mistake. But later in life is more evidence came this is something he says in an interview that is in the files at the war museum in london. Which which is a great place. It is a great place. In this interview he expresses a change of heart. He says im a lover of the royal navy, and but he says theres so much evidence that he has changed his mind and its come to believe at this point that there was a plot of some kind but he doesnt know what or where it originated, what kinda details that involved, he just felt like there was a plot. He says will have anybody can explain it in a different way please step forward and do so because its very hard to successfully do that. And the motivation of the plot if there was one letter been . Is clear that the motivation wouldve been that possibly american mightve entered the war there. One thing thing is very clear is that churchill wanted america to enter the war and actually in an earlier letter says as much. He says hes talking to the head of the border trade is talking to him a letter and he says we need the traffic from america, as much as of it as we can enhance an interesting line, he says if some of it gets in trouble, all of the better. So the plot thickens. With no real conclusion. You mentioned earlier that you stood on at the wilson on the deck of a q. Week. The queen mary two and you imagine what it mightve been like to see that torpedo come towards you. That is what happened isnt it . Werent werent there passengers who actually saw the torpedo approach. Host thats what. Guest thats one of the most spectacular things i came across. Many things exist in terms of testimony and personal accounts. What comes through most clearly about that particular moment. First of all we recall its a Beautiful Day. Everybodys thinking were home safe, there like 14 hours from liverpool, one woman actually says so where is this danger that we are all warned about . And everybody first classes finish line, the secondclass lunch sitting has just begun, kids are jumping rope, cruiser getting luggage on deck, people are hanging on hanging on the rails looking at the beautiful sea. Suddenly there is a bubble of air which is the first, as the torpedo was leaving the submarine and then you see the track, this compressed air track moving across this classy. People send standing at the rail saw this. And one guy standing there and woman came up and said is that a torpedo . And he can answer because as he says hes just sick at heart, one guy, this is what i love about from like 1890 to 1920, this eerie principle thing of people, one guy wont runs to the rail to watch this torpedo hit further down the hall and he says later, he says in his account, he says it was beautiful, the the most beautiful sight. This torpedo and he could actually see the torpedo 10 feet below the surface. The sea was so still and clear. And then because of the compressed air the track is back up here so like a fish surging through the sea. Host used as the torpedo advance, the the water rushing past its nose turned a small propeller which unscrewed a safety device that prevented detonation during storage. Then what happened . That tornado is on my life. Shark nato. [laughter] well then it is armed to when it makes contact with the whole it essentially a charges fired, the larger charge explodes. In a very characteristic signature by the way so a tall geyser of debris because of the physics and how these things explode against all. And so that was how the explosion occurred. I think this is what is incredible. What he writes about the torpedo striking home. Do you want to read it . Guest do you . Okay so sure ill just read this whole thing. So ill just read this to you. So it began with word trust for impact. He wrote quote torpedo hits close behind the bridge and im usually great technician follows with an explosive cloud. The explosion of the torpedo must of been accompanied by a second one, oil, coal, or powder. Host and that is very terse. Guest very descriptive. Im in this stuff is gold as a writer. Honestly if you have this war log was like oh my gosh i can work with this. Host tell me about opening that log and reading through flipping through to find that moment. Guest i read the entire log from day one to the end. It was all fascinating. In in some ways the launch and the impact were almost anti climatic. Host you get that sense. Guest all of these other things were happening on the way. But what was so useful about that is it allowed me to, the reason i did this book was because i saw an opportunity that had not existed for me passbooks to put on my Alfred Hitchcock hat make this an exercise in nonfiction suspense. The log was really pivotal for that. Crucial for that because thats the essence of suspense. Knowing where this guy is exactly what he is doing and what hes thinking and happening to him. And then knowing where the lusitania is in whats happening with them. Knowing as we know that they are on a convergence course although they dont know it. Its very powerful. Host im surprised to hear you say that about the suspense. I thought there is a lot of suspense and devil in the white city. Guest well thank you. But its a different kind of suspense. Well yes. A different intensity. I get you. I think so. Host the sos telegram from the lusitania reads, we think we are off kinsale, is that right . Late position 10 miles off kinsale, one, please come with all haste. Were they sang . Guest big list later, i only say that because she has whats referred to as the advance readers copy. Which by the way is heavily corrected. Host what are they communicating . Spee2 what what theyre saying is they been hit by the torpedo. What time do i have on that telegram . Host i dont know i will find it. Guest whats happening is the ship has taken on this amazing list in a very short time. Sprinkler at this point that the ship is floundering and everybody is stunned that this is even happening. That this gigantic ship, one torpedo and this is just really minutes after the impacts. So that was the message that one out. This big list. Host what happens as they are trying to send help . Guest the way the ship sank is so much, because the the torpedo hit just exactly the sweet spot in the whole and frankly it was not a vivid spot theyre aiming for, he was an accident. He had miscalculated the lusitania speed, the place it hit happened to be the perfect spot for various reasons. One, killed virtually half of the crew because they were all on the linkage hold getting the luggage together there was a shift change. And at that moment the torpedo destroys a part of the ship. Also the flooding of these longitudinal coal bunkers which are now mostly empty because the ship was dumped a voyage. It flooded the forward bunker, water was surging into the boiler rooms, the second socalled explosion knocked out the steam system and lost all control of the engine. So they cannot stop the ship, the engines were the brakes. Their progress in at 18 knots. So you have forced flooding which is water coming in at an incredible rate. So here you have a situation where all of this happened really fast, like i said 18 minutes before it disappeared. Host theres wonderful detail here is in this paragraph it is now 220 p. M. , ten, ten minutes since the torpedo struck. Youre talking about deckhands and passengers are waiting for the ship to slow to allow the launching of the boat. Guest which is a very important point. The ship is still moving right after at 18 knots and gradually slowing. The reason its important to know that the engines were no longer working is because you cannot stop the ship. If the ship doesnt stop you cant launch the lifeboats. Its lethal what is going at a very low rate their trained at a certain procedure. But but at 18 knots at suicide. Host then you have the junior third officer who says a strange silence prevailed and small, insignificant sound such as the whimper of a child, the cry of a single or the bang of the door assumed alarming proportion. You read his diary . This is a statement that he left. Host thats extraordinarily descriptive. As recently as 2012, a British Commission issued a report to say that the british were not to blame for the fast thinking of the ship and the loss of life. This is really onto the u. K. Guest yes it has. Whats funny, i came across an interesting document that was done after some revelations in the 60s or the admiralty even then had done a detailed, asked for the historical section to do a detailed look at the book and various charges. It dispelled most of what i came up with it but in the end the guy writes that in conclusion, i say let sleeping dogs lie. But yes, it is still to this day something thats funny. But it is because people get an idea in their heads about conspiracy and so forth and really attends to be overlooked is like in the last decade or so, to really excellent Forensic Engineering studies were done on the lusitania. Both came to the same conclusion independently that it was a disruption of the distribution and probably the main Steam Distribution line that failed because of contact most likely with water. Which interestingly is what captain turner concluded moments before the second host one last question before i go to the audience. You write about finding those photographs of the recovered bodies. Where are they . Guest right after the sinking, first bodies were recovered they were stored in in three makeshift marks in queenstown. In order to assure our record of the bodies when i was in liverpool at the university of liverpool which holds the archives i asked about the but were not gonna let you see them because we dont let anybody see them anymore. So what could you ask someone higher up to see if i could . So then i come in and say will let you look at those photographs. Then he said will was the change of heart . And they said the senior archivist [applause]. So i have to say that there would not let me bring my digital camera in which is how you do research these days, you dont photocopy them. So sitting there looking at these photographs really very powerful and moving and very important because it told me that this is what the story is about. Its not about the conspiracy theories are all that. Its not about the geopolitics involved, its about the fact that this was first and foremost a tragedy, human tragedy of great dimension. There were these people, men, women and children in these photographs dressed perfectly, wearing wearing exactly what they were wearing at lunch that day. And they were looking like they could walk out of those photographs in a silver blackandwhite photographs looking like they could walk out of these photographs and walk onto the stage. Its very powerful. Host thank you for an interesting conversation. Guest thank you for an interesting interview. Thank you. [applause]. Questions from the audience. Once again you have not accompanied the book with photographs and will you speak to that again . So yes he says once again. [laughter] i have not accompanied the book with photographs, my other books to just not a lot. It is the thing with me. Ill explain it. My feeling about what i do a book is that a book like this, my goal is to create as rich of historical experience for the reader as i possibly can. I want the reader to think into the past and then emerge at the end of having read even one sitting, emerge with a sense of having lived in that past time. Photographs in a nonfiction book, ca totally embrace it put forward by he writes novels but john gardner in a book called im becoming a novelist. He says that his job, its to create the fictional dream. Now my my job is to create a nonfiction dream. But the novelist job is to do the fictional dream and anything that takes you away from that is to be avoided whether its fancy language, bad punctuation, lousy grammar, italics, anything that takes away from the dream is a bad thing. Some of you dont like italics either . I dont. So my feeling about photographs his first role the reproduction is terrible in a trade nonfiction book. Second, they tend to be in the form of a signature and that gets stuck into the book sometimes maybe even two of the signatures is like a lighthouse in beacon. Youre reading this book and the ten tatian to go to this glossy thing and look for photographs is too great. Every time you read the story is an opportunity for you to leave the book altogether. I want to avoid it so this time i got my way. Mainly because because my new editor is brilliant. She felt the same way. If you think about a night to remember had no photographs. The bible had no photographs. Anyway,. Hello, i know set your book has a lot of death in them. Are you drawn to that aspect or is it just a byproduct of the amazing thing that happened. Guest its what makes things compelling. Tragedy, disaster and so forth. Enough i was to write about churchills walk through through hyde park on a sunday morning coming is lovely but nobodys going to read it. Its just where the stories are. Not drawn to to it, not looking to tell dark stories, its not like im hunting, this is too cheery im good to go do this, it is just what happens. The worlds fair wasnt that dark. [laughter] a question over here. I know you talked about doing the lusitania because he didnt have anything else to do. But would the devil in the white city and thunderstruck and then this one, to have a particular affinity to the late 1800s come early 1900s that trust you . That is for sure. I love the. From 1890 until about 1920. I loved that. Because there is something in first role, i do tend to read about american subjects because i feel my audience is american and thats my territory. The the thing about that 18901920. Thats when america was just a different place was this optimism and overconfident. And whenever you have that you have great stories. Dark stories as well. So i do love that. Another small thing about that although its very important is that it was also the heyday of the typewriter. Very important because you can go nuts reading correspondence. When it is all typed reports and typed reports its like having devil in the white city my favorite character was olmsted, but the man had dismal handwriting and i mean one days in my office and my wife came into the office and have my head down on the desk in my magnifying glass next mitch said whats wrong and i said olmsted. Just wanted you can talk little bit about the details included with president wilson in this book and why he decided to include that . Guest i really came to have a new appreciation for president wilson from this book because i thought he was a prim and proper stiff before hand, had no interest in him. But as i was in my research and going through wilsons papers in particular for the period around lusitania, i came across his love letters to his girlfriend. Now wilson, in august 1914 lost his wife of many years. About the same time the war blew up in europe. Was crushed to grief and loneliness and he really was affected by it. Then in 1915, he meets and falls head over heels in love with this woman this fortysomething widow in washington d. C. Who most often see tooling around town and her electric car. So he falls in love with her and is holding back a little bit. His writing these really passionate love letters which i came across in the library of congress. Some reading some of the most passionate in outpouring, after as i wanted to light a cigarette, its like my god. And so at that point i just said, i dont care, these are going in. This is going to be part of the story. In context is crucial, wilson was an important player in the saga. Trying to get into his, where he was in his mind during that period when the ship was making its crossing and coincidentally some of these letters were written during that week leading up to the sinking. So thats really perfect in terms of chronological cohesion in the narrative. I love that stuff. A question over here. Early on you spoke to the warning to the public about that there could be an issue with the uboat. Where the willingness of the passengers to go, was it based on the ignorance of the danger ahead or was it just so much, i guess the question is how many voyages were there happening daily, weekly thats it thought this cant happen to me. Again put yourself back in the point of view of the era. Very important. Look at the whole thing through the eyes of those who are going get on the ship that day. I dont know exactly how many people actually saw the warning, i think its obviously quite a few. But they still live in the context of here is this great ship said to be so vast, faster than any submarine and in fact if it were to do its top speed it would be far faster than any submarine, especially antisubmarine that has submerged. So there is that, this belief that it was too fast, too big to ever get a submarine and in fact they said as much in the official announcement after the departure responding to the german notice. It was also the case that from what i was able to tell that its pretty clear that cunard believed and the passengers believed that the royal navy would be looking out for them once they got to the iris c. So there is that. Another component which is the rules a maritime work fair against civilian vessels. For the prior century essentially they had forbidden attacks against passenger liners. They had forbidden belligerent ships from sinking merchant ships without warning. If they did think a merchant ship they had to make sure the crew was safe. They had to bring them aboard or even bring the merch