Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth 20240622

Internet opened to public use. It was visionary members of congress that understood there needs to be some regulation but you left it open. Yes. Gps really huge. Pizza hut track delivery with an app. I track fed x packages and ups ship. S all the time . We can do it. We have been doing it. Consumers havent seen it or seen the possibilities. But now theyre going to. Theyre going to. No reason why we cant. These technologies, they do sneak in. Often coming from defense. So its a little worry if were not spending on r d in the same way. Therefore we have to spend directly. I am a i know how much defense spending. Clearly, harvard and others. And i do not know the state of california and add all of the locations, some of the companies we mention. You mentioned google and others. And then out the location of automotive facilities and they were all alone the same track meaning they are moving from the midwest and from the south. It is their technology out or add a sunday or placing it at the center of a lot of activity in the Silicon Valley area a lot of activity around route 128 in the boston area. Guest this is a big change. One of the things that killed kodak as the company was that it stayed in rochester, new york and it was a Great Technology company. All the work that was happening was digital. I think thats exciting. I should mention mark field afford. He believes in connection and i think they get it that they are no longer in the metal bending business. Although thats a part of the period they are now in the mobility business and mobility as we said before his opportunity and a big part of our future and now dependent on Wireless Networks and other devices by which we control data and information. You want to be worthy and the gators are in the field. Its a big change and people will live differently and work differently in the future. I hope we can get the national will to have the conversation to make the optimistic scenario come through. Well, lets move. And with this book was well. Thank you dr. Cantor. Guest thank you very much, secretary slater. Poets are prizewinning not there Lawrence Wright recount in 1978 camp david accords for president jimmy carter brokered a peace treaty between the israeli Prime Minister and egyptian president. The author profiles the respective leaders and reports on their daily meetings over 13 days. This is about an hour 10 minute period host Lawrence Wright, thank you or been on booktv. Guest looking forward to it. Host lets start with your most recent book thirteen days in september. Where did the idea for this Peace Process and senate start . Guest it was actually rosalynn carters idea. Jimmy carter when he got elected hat in his mind that he wanted to bring peace to the middle east, which of course was a crazy dream. Nobody in the administration encouraged it, that he began auditing middle east leaders as they came in, trying to sound them out and he was really disappointed until he met nyc. He actually said he loved and morris about many times. Not the normal language of diplomacy. He was very discouraged about how its going and finally his wife as i can david and she said not why not bring him here and get them away from the press and they thought maybe three or four days and give it a chance. So that is why the whole Peace Process was born. Guest well, Menachem Begin was an obstinate individual and very difficult for carter to deal with. Carter came to believe he had to make the greatest sacrifice to camp david. Knock a bacon parents parents were both killed in the holocaust and he thought he had the whole burden of jewish history on the shoulders and his goal was to expand the zone of safety for jewish people and constantly enlarge the size of israel was his political agenda. For him to surrender the cyanide pill once conquered in 1957 was to forfeit a huge surface land that separated israel from the invading egyptian armies. So to trust his enemy was really hard for him to do. Host did the knock on bacon and said six other relationship . Guest yes. They were historical figures. They didnt like each other very much. It wasnt the relationship carter had my anwar sadat. But on the other hand they respected each other. And begin made a big show of going to his funeral at a time when not many World Leaders did. Host what exactly was negotiated . Guest there are two parts to it. One is peace between egypt and israel. Egypt is the only arab country that really posed a threat to israels existence. This was as i said very difficult for begin to surrender all the territory and the trust of his historic enemy. There is another part of the agreement which was peace between israel and the palestinians and that is never been implemented. Its a roadmap to what the reinvention and is a worthy and just means. Ever since the camp david accords were signed, the subsequent attempts have been to try to realize the unfulfilled promise of the camp david accords. Host was there any thought given to giving the palestinians directly to the summit . Guest does a big album. No palestinians present. At the time the only representative was yasir arafat. It was very difficult for carter to actually negotiate. You remember the u. N. Ambassador met with the palestinians at one point and got tremendously criticized for saying hello. Host in your book thirteen days in september you quote David Bengurion israels finder. Begin is a distinctly touristic type. Guest while David Bengurion and the knock on begin did not like each other. He was a terrorist. It is embarrassing to many people in israel that he had the background and played a role in the establishment of the jewish state. He was always a marginal figure decried by many. But they use them. For instance the attack on the palestinian village is seen by begins terrorist organization was actually authorized by bengurion and although he claimed deniability afterwards. The official jewish forces provided cover for this attack and began to blame and accepted it. Host Lawrence Wright, previous to thirteen days in september, going clear National Book award finalist. What does the phrase going clear mean . Guest is a phrase of scientology. To understand that, Alvin Hubbard populated via two separate lines. One is the analytical mind which is perfect. Its like an ideal computer. It forgets nothing. In your rational mind, every single detail of your experience is available for recall. And then there is the react to mind in which all your fears and neuroses and no one are settled. Not just in this life, their previous lives. If you can go through your react to mind and eliminate those dramatic experiences from that part of your mind you will be left with the perfect mind and your i. Q. Will be higher. You wont get sick. You will be healthy and smarter than anyone else see me and then hell be clear. Host how did ill run hubbard developed his theories . Guest he was a Science Fiction writer. So largely he made them up. You can see a lot of what was then his book which preceded scientology and also his many scientology books parenthetically he holds the guinness book of World Records for the number of titles published, more than a thousand books. So you can see the precursors of the philosophy and Science Fiction. The book which was a huge New York Times bestseller list was anyway a model for others postworld war ii selfhelp works that came along afterwards. And the red dianetics clubs all over the country. It was like a hula loop which is kind of contemporary with that. There is a big deal and he wrote it in like six weeks. He quoted studies that never occurred. In the scientific community, look at it with kind of amused all. Was like psychological folk art. For a lot of people it was a revelation. You could have therapy. All you need is a friend who would help you get through these traumas and get rid of the emotional assets attached to them. And then you are clear. It took the country by storm. It was an international phenomenon. Host how many scientologists are there . Guest well, depends whether you believe churches official figures which are range of 10 million, if you look at the statistical abstract of the United States, there are fewer than 25000. Less than half of them called call themselves for a safari in. But if you are a member of the International Association of scientologists which you restart late urge to be worldwide theres 50000. Host what is their impact . Guest you know, im describing a Small Organization. The impact has been disproportionately large. A lot of people and the community of former psion college he is actually quite large and the number of people whose lives have been disrupted or impact by scientology is trace of a large at least to me because i go to speeches and make talks. Oftentimes people in the audience had been in scientology or lost family members who are told to disconnect from them no longer talk to their mother or son or said in like that. Its created a lot of heart ache in many different families. Host do you consider it a cult . Guest i dont use the word colt because i feel like it is a smear word. You can call almost any new religion of colt. I am not after offending scientologists. I do question the abuses that take place inside the church. All religion is full of exotic release some times quiet bizarre ones. That is fascinating to me. Ive always been a treat to why people are drawn to one religious belief rather than another. But i dont criticize them because a lot of times people attach themselves to religion not because of the beliefs but because of the community or personal problems there may be addressed inside the police organization. Scientology does offer those things to adherence. Inside the church there are a considerable number of the abuses that i think should be addressed and physical abuse and the incarceration of some of the people in its clergy. These are the things that i think Law Enforcement and perhaps the irs should take another look at the Tax Organization which is what keeps the organization alive. Host how did they get the exemption . Guest normally would think is a pretty fierce opponent. The church stood more than 2400 lawsuits. They hired private investigators to follow around individual agents. They went to convention where you might have irs employees drinking too much or flirting with people they shouldnt be talking to. They would publish stories in their scientology magazine about this kind of behavior. This in theory again as imagine. On the other hand a deal was struck in 1992 at the time of scientology a back taxes of a billion dollars and day dl that was struck on whatever the scientology case was padilla was they would drop the lawsuit and then returned to billion dollars to be forgiving. The final finalist 12 million scientology was given a Tax Exemption and the right to determine what portion of the entire deserves a Tax Exemption so the novels are not taxed. Host does the church have a billion dollars . Guest 3 billion would be more like it. A billion dollars in cash reserves, most of it in off shore accounts according to executives. Thats a lot of money. The Catholic Church would be hardpressed to come up with a billion dollars in cash. But this rather Small Organization essentially free labor on the part of the clergy they get paid 50 a week and they have a lot of rich members in the church that are very generous in their contributions. So theyve been able to acquire a tremendous amount of money and an impressive battery of lawyers. Host theyve also got a hollywood connection. Where did that come from . Guest from the very beginning. He chose to set up in los angeles and create the Celebrity Center in hollywood because he do americans really do worship one thing and that is celebrities. The church put out a list of potential scientologists and included people like walt disney marlena dietrich, Howard Hughes the most famous people in the world. They didnt get those people that they did get a lot of famous people who came into the church. Typically they didnt last very long. Like rock hudson briefly in the church according to legend they lost because he was in an auditing session and is parking meter had overrun and the scientology auditor wouldnt let them feed the meter so we stormed out and that was the end of rock hudson and scientology. They were constantly on the lookout for celebrities who excelled in religion the same way a sports star but to excel on a box of wheaties. The first notable faces john travolta. He was a huge star. He was the biggest star in the world at one point. And then he was superseded by tom cruise also the biggest male star in the world. Those are very powerful cards to put down when youre trying to attract people, and especially in the entertainment industry. Host what was the reaction from the church of scientology when it came out coming your hbo documentary, et cetera. Guest when i started the book is started as a magazine profile paul haggis a twotime Academy Award writer and director and he dropped out after 34 years. Ive been looking for a way to write about scientology. Im interested in religion and heres the most stigmatized in america and yet very notable people who lend their names to it. I dont think they get anything out of it in terms of career advancement. Its like Public Relations murdered him. But there they are. So why . When he dropped out i thought i could write about his experience. So i contacted his Business Manager on the field at the die hard. But saturday to write an article about the decision to leave the church of scientology good are you kidding, we would never do that. Click. That was the entire conversation except for the expletives. The next day i got pauls personal email address and i sent him a note and i said i had a conversation with your Business Manager. He said this wasnt the best time for you to talk but if theres a time and like to discuss your spiritual and intellectual development id be honored to tell the story. 20 minutes later, very flattered. Lets have lunch on tuesday. He was in new york. I flew out had lunch. I said of course we are going to be talking about your decision to leave the church and his eyes got wide that he forged ahead. Months later he admitted it had never occurred to him it was going to be about scientology. He was so floured they were going to do a profile he didnt want to think about it. He turned out to be a courageous source on that. As soon as he agreed i called the church and spoke to the International Sports person, tommy davis, whose mother is a famous scientologists and a wonderful act of actress. He said we dont want to see the church depicted through the eyes of a heretic. He agreed to take me through scientology. And we would need enough time. He arranged to come out over the Labor Day Weekend so i came out on thursday may friday saturday. Sunday afternoon, tommy and his wife came to the hotel said they actually were going to take me through scientology. They just wanted to have the opportunity to tell me face to face. Well thanks a lot. You cost my magazine a considerable amount of money. You couldve done this this over the phone. He agreed to answer Fact Checking questions. Im not sure he understood exactly what that meant a new yorker context because we take Fact Checking very seriously. Especially when dealing with david did and litigious organization such as scientology. We had a check or one checker is on the article for six months full time. By the end we had five including the head of the Fact Checking department with the most carefully vetted story Anthony Akers new yorkers long history of Fact Checking. The first question to the church as 968 queries. That elicited the response for lawyers coming to new york along with spokes people. 47 volumes of response to stuart 958 queries. It stretched for seven and a half feet. I measured because i was fascinated. They are giving me all this material. The editor pulled me aside and said he know what youve got here. Youve got a boat. I said no. But it was my interview with the church that lasted all day. It is very contentious very good and after that we received innumerable legal threats from the church and individuals mentioned in that continued to the publication of the book in the documentary and to this day theres a legal threat and other kinds of harassment and the kinds of things have been subjected to. They dont compare to what it will to actually cooperate with us, just continual harassment by private detectives people who show up at the go pro cameras, harassing them at home. One of our sources was noticing a bird house across the street that hadnt been there. There is a camera inside the bird house. We had our premier at sundance and a couple sources were followed in videotape at the airport in salt lake city. Sarah continually goes on. Host train for another magazine that became a book was the looming tower. Where were you on 9 11 and how does the process work for you . Guest well, i was in spanish class. I used to have breakfast every Tuesday Morning with a group of people who like to keep their language at. We were [speaking in spanish] so we are having our conversation and i got into the car and heard about the airplane had struck a tower and by the time i got home the second tower had just been hit. Bear in mind i have lived in egypt. I used to speak arabic much better. I had the experience of living in a Muslim Country in europe and id written a movie called sch weekend saw washington and tony show loop and it was about what would happen in our country is terrified at the charity had in some european cities or tel aviv other places. Prefigured the events of 9 11 and what happened after the persecution of muslims, the torture and all of that was in a creepy way already imagined in the movie. So when 9 11 happened, people said it was like a movie and to me it out like my movie. I heard he had a vision were sent him like this happen. I decided id have to write about what happened, what led up to it. You remember the planes were down for several days. I couldnt get to new york right away. I began examining a feature where you send streaming online looking for a story, a way and. Normally i look for an individual that i call a donkey. Who can carry a lot of information on his back it can take the reader into an exotic world that he doesnt know about. So on the Washington Post site there was an obituary of john oneill who had been the head of counterterrorism in the new York Division which was the same division id written about in the siege. Ive spoken to some of those people although i never met oneill. The obit made him sound like a disgrace. Yet taking classified information out of the bureau and because of that he had gotten fired. He became the head of security at the World Trade Center. I read that and i thought well instead of getting bin laden, bin laden got him. One of a donkey. You can take the world into the leader of counterterrorism and show why it failed. So use the very first of the carrot is i enlisted to take this vast tragedy and humanize it, tell it in a series of interweaving biographies that included i meant all solitary who is now the head of al qaeda and bin laden of course and prince turki are safe who was at that time head of saudi intelligence. Host you basically have three days to read a new yorker piece on 9 11. Host yeah that was an amazing time. Because all these quiet on the ground, where they lived and i actually decided i was kind of quitting journalism. I was going to become a movie director knows writing scripts for me to direct. 9 11 happened and email with a working. A lot of the phones were down. I sent an email to the editor said put me to work. We had a conference called and i remember jane mayer and Jeff Goldberg were on the call in washington and you could hear the sirens in the street. Other writers in San Francisco in one all talking about what can we do about this. The idea was we were just file a report and he would weave them together into some kind of narrative. In austin that was hard for me to figure out how to get a purchase on the period there was a young man who had been a reporter for an investment magazine and he told me when i contacted him there for the first time he was supposed to have a meaning of the restaurant on top of the World Trade Center. He was supposed to be there a little after 9 00. He slept through a subway stop. First time it ever happened. He was running late so we got on the train coming back recede into the World Trade Center. The Elevator Bank was up an escalator. The elevator operator remembers him as been a big black guy who mustve played fullback in college and he held the door for a very welldressed businesswoman who is getting on the elevator. My source was really impatient because he was late. She stepped onto the elevator and he noted she had a rose tattoo on her ankle and the airplane hit. He didnt know what it happened. Nobody knew. The elevator doors accordion and so he walked out of the elevator. It was kind of a surreal experience. Pieces of concrete were falling. They just seem to manifest themselves and some were small and some of the size of office desk. He was walking through and he couldnt find his way outside because he was disoriented and finally went out into what he thought was a patio. It looked like there were suitcases. You thought that was puzzling and realized they were torsos. People who had fallen or jumped out of the building. His story of tried to get home is almost like a ulysses journey, got back to queens became the spine of what was the famous black issue of the new yorker. Host this is what tv on cspan2. We are live in chicago with Lawrence Wright. He is our in depth just this month. We will begin taking your phone calls. 202 7488400. You can also send an email or to eat or a comment on facebook booktv is our twitter handle. You can make a comment on facebook. Com tv or send an email. We are live in the Chicago Tribune printers row with us in chicago and mr. Wright has written several books very quickly beginning with his most recent trained eyes just came out last year. Going clear the book we talked about on centile g came out in 2013. The looming tower Pulitzer Prize winner 2006. Gods favorite is a novel he wrote in 2000. Twins came out in 1999. Remembering satan was in 94. Sub two in 1993. His autobiography or comingofage story in the new world. 19641984 came out in 87. And finally city children country summer was his first book. Where did that story come from the first boot. And editor reached out to me and my guess is that me off on this road where i often find myself in communities of different belief. Youre the omniscient central pennsylvania. They are wonderful people. We enjoyed our time with them. They are quite fundamentalist. Its interesting to have the same practices of scientology in terms of disconnection. This particular belly has three different colors of ip. The white, black and yellow. If your daughter marries out of the way buggy into the yellow buddy come universe to her again. Even though they live in the same community we found that hard to her, hard to understand. On the other hand they were very generous to us. A fascinating experience. Fresh air to export goods, black and latin kids out of new york in to farm families not just in pennsylvania but in the region. The contrast between the amish in the ghetto kids is fascinating to write about. Host you have alluded to this a couple times. What is it about religion that attracts you . Guest you know it is odd. I didnt intend this as a career statement by any means. It has been my observation strong religious beliefs are far more influential in peoples lives and Strong Political beliefs. You can hold powerful opinions about politics. It may not affect your life at all. If you have strong religious feelings it is likely they guide your life in some profound way and reshape societies. I dont think we spend enough time examining true motivators of peoples behavior. If you look at the level you have to look at the level of belief. Pasco if you have questions for Lawrence Wright as well well hear from you. If you line up we would get to your questions as well. Where did you grow up . Guest normally when you asked that question is where did you go to high school. I grew up in a lot of different places. Oklahoma city, abilene texas. I graduated from high school in dallas texas. Close to what your life like . Guest s kind of isolated for me. My dad was a banker and i didnt understand why folks so intellectually stranded. A very conservative community. There were a lot of paradoxes at the time. It prided itself on being the most religious community in america. It had the largest baptist and episcopalian or one of the largest Catholic Churches. It was very churchgoing. Also the highest murder rate in divorce rate so there were all these trends above the surface and below the surface. I was smart enough to detect there is something going on that wasnt explained. My dad taught sunday school and he was quite a religious man. His fate had been enforced by his experience of seven years in wartime. I think he was an early example a believer he made an impression on me. I was in a group called young lives. The command control group of the organization. I was pretty pious at that time. I guess i have seen the force of their religious faith in my own life and i also walked away from that. Dallas when i was there was when kennedy was killed and is preceded by a number of events that were shocking to us but in some dreadful way carrots touristic of the nature of the city. Adlai stevenson was the u. S. Ambassador and he came to dallas and then spat up on and some group of women who surrounded him, one had a fine save if you seek peace jesus. She had them over the head with the sign. Lyndon johnson was making a speech in dallas and he was greeted by a group of rightwing women. They were later dubbed the main coat bob. When dan and lady barakat arrived and had to walk across the street. The strip is just wrong with these wealthy, well cared for women many whom are friends of my mothers. We watch this on tv. They appeared to be spitting on the job as. Later did they said they were spitting, they were frothing. The treatment. One of them took ladies bird claws and threw them into the gutter. But to this point, politics in america had seemed rather civil. They broke the taboo and i can remember my mother just a gas. They were in bridge clubs together and so on. Made a real impression on me. Host how old were you in 1963 and where were you on the day kennedy was assassinated . Guest i was 16 in geometry class. In dallas. It was an odd day because that morning they all had these anticipatory kennedy is coming into the heart of the enemies. On our doorstep there was a wanted poster for jfk wanted for treason and absurd crimes that never happened. But that was the paired with. And the dalla had this big ad welcomed mr. Kennedy to dallas. So i guess it shouldnt have been so surprising when the three talents came on the pa system and there is a pause. This totally broken voice of our principal saying the president has been shot. I remember these is the looks of surprise on the faces of my classmates. There is a store in one of the magazines that dallas schoolchildren had laughed when they heard the news. I think theres some truth to that. I remember these dizzy smiles like can you believe this sort of smiles. This awkwardness of adolescence. I later had myself hypnotized to see if i laughed because i wasnt sure. I just remember the shock being so great. I later determined to my satisfaction that i had laughed. After dallas was like you were related to a mass murderer somehow. If we were driving out of state who had an instance where the guy filling the car with gas looked into our car with three kids in the backseat instead you all killed our president. When i was in college the operator would place my calls in dallas. We were in mexico on a Family Vacation and they heard us talking about dallas and i got up and left their meals. You felt so ostracized. They probably changed my character in ways i still dont understand. Having been marked out that way certainly shaped seal and it shapes the city. My feeling is the assassination made dallas a better place. It was a noble by shame and had grown from the tragedy. Host the right that daddy had his own soft spot. Guest my father had decided then there was a little righteous. He walked out of dr. Chicago because it was too. He was capable about these things when he was a young man and rather heroic soldier great career he had a law degree and thought as you might expect some political ambition. He was chamber of commerce in oklahoma shortly after he went into the banking career. He was asked to host at that time senator kennedy and make the arrangements. And by the way the senator will need a woman. My dad was the wrong guy to ask. He did know exactly how you would go about doing such thing. He was frozen by this. It curdled his own political dreams because he could kind of see and the assumption of that request but there is the side of the life he could not embrace. Yet it was a disappointment that he was never able to go along and try that side of his life. Host before we get to phone calls a couple questions from the audience. You write we were middle class. Already the term sounded like a death sentence. Guest i was an existentialist at the time. Host what does that mean . Guest all the pretense of a budding intellectual. I would look when we went to church on sunday. The parking lot was full of cars. Some people were in cadillacs. They were the ones who were blessed. I could see something wrong with this scenario. Id read the bible and i saw the rich men passing through the needle seemed very contradictory to what we were supposed to be believing. Honestly i should be grateful that we were middle class because my dad grew up in the dust bowl in kansas. Family was shattered by that. Many of them didnt do very well after that. Those who did not become okies under the california and those who remain behind played very hard lives and my father was the only one who got outcome made a life for himself in created the situation that allowed me to become an existentialist. Host 202 [inaudible] if you have a question or comment for author Lawrence Wright. Lets begin with this young lady here in chicago with a question. I do question about your book going clear. I know you interviewed over 200 current and former members. I was wondering the church typically says people leaving the organization that they are bitter liars. I was wondering if during these interviews you found that to bring a little true for individuals. Host certainly a lot of bitter people left the church. I talked to current members. Its not accurate that i talked only to former members. After a point to church cut them off so i didnt have access to the people i wouldve liked to talk to. Theres also a lot of shame. People who feel they misled their lives. They gave away their education especially with the people who go into the see your, the clergy. They go with his children and forfeit their educations. They are impoverished and then it hit middle age they decide id been told i made a mistake they have no family and all their friends, their entire community has no job skills they can accurately report on and they go into a world they are not familiar with. You can understand not just the bitterness that the anxiety heartbreak and shame attached to having been part of an organization that may have hurt you or people you loved. Host this is a tweaked for mary. What is to counteract that by scientology by the author or the interviewees . Guest deal that little bit i can do as a writer and documentarian is to shed light on it. The fbi when i started my investigation was ongoing at the same time. Part of it has to do with the c. York the clergy had a base in california. There is a pair of double wide trailers that have been married together. In 2006 the leader of the church began incarcerating members of his executive group up to 100 at some point and took out all the furniture. They slept on sleeping bags and sometimes ate slop out of a bucket. One of them had to mop the toilet floor with his tone. A lot of physical abuse going on. People were beaten all the time. People were in there for years. One of the italian experience is that i found truly revelatory about the nature of faith and the power it has come a one the scottish cavemen with a boombox and announced we were going to play musical chairs. So he had shares broadband and said the lastminute person to be seated. Youre out of here. We are going to send it to some posts and to give credence to this yet airlines printed up in the travel office. This went on for hours and fight or a cow closer to one, chairs were broken. People were fighting to stay in the hole as they called this place. This was their chance of liberation. If you can understand that, if you can incorporate that they would rather stay in those quarters then be free to go about their lives, you can see the grip the community has on them. Host robert is calling in from seattle. You on the air with author Lawrence Wright. Guest hi there. In 1976 at the same time my sister had joined scientology previously and she was married and she and her husband were in honolulu. So through the years she and i went different paths. As time went on i came to the teachings of l. Ron hubbard regarding behavior. Get the organization itself seems almost paradoxical to the teaching and that is what i observed the people involved are very strong about recruiting unless he really became forceful about it. It just sounded a little bit ironic. I guess even i can pair a true group of people who have taken bible and taken it easy on. I dont know if thats an accurate portrayal but i want your perspective on it. Host thank you very much. Lets hear from Lawrence Wright. Guest hubbard stumbled from many different sources his theology and is a common criticism inside the church right now that the founders vision has been lost. Just on the tail of this scientology does help people. I talk to many people who feel theyve been helped. There are things they are offered things such as therapy and if you admire in a fashion and i am the person being audited i hold a pair of aluminum cans. Used to be the symbol campbells soup can. Your galvanic skin response, essentially a sweaty palm. The legal moves command you ask me a question and i answer. You you can see that it is one 3rd of a lie detector. You can imagine the therapeutic situation is altered by having this machine between the two of us. And people go in with problems. So if you go in and the auditor says, you know whats going on with you today to welcome i had a fight with my wife. I can see that, and he can. The needle is moving. Tell me about it. So you talk about it and then you tell the story again. You diminish the emotional aspect. This is a common feature a lot of kinds of therapy. You rob the power you rob the power of the experience by repeating it and denaturing it. The auditor will say he remembers an instance in your earlier life where there something similar and you might say yes my mother scolded me in exactly the same words when i was five i have never forgotten it. Certainly you see the need to register. Been the auditor was and what about earlier . I dont remember anything earlier. Well, wait a minute. The needle just moved. What was that . I just had an image. Of what . Go back to that image. He opened the door and what d. C. . It looks like 17th century france. So okay walk out there. Whats happening is youre having a memory they say of an earlier life and the needle has just proved to you that its true. So this is good news. You have lived before and scientology can help you discover those earlier memories. It will help you understand that you are an eternal being. A lot of people feel extremely happy to learn that. So you see the adherence that many people give to scientology because they feel they have learned something so valuable that they are eternal beings and it comes as a tremendous relief. Host can it be expensive to be scientologist . Guest yes, sir it can be very expensive. There are many Different Levels of scientology. You progress go up to like base camp, after that theres operating levels. They are eight of them. So to get from where you are to the very top can run your hundreds of thousands of dollars. And then there are hello courses for auditing and many other Communications Courses and stuff like that. Then you are constantly asked to contribute, especially to the Legal Defense fund and other forms of charity. And thats why scientology has been able to enrich itself on the backs of not that many people. Host next question from our audience in chicago. I finish reading the looming tower on friday and ive been talking my friends ears off about it. So to be here talking to you is kind of a surreal moment. I appreciate your time. I was struck by the dichotomy of fundamentalism and modernism, particularly the justifications for jihad, a wireless one i think being a care in a democracy the fact that youre putting a human before god is essentially blasphemous and would justify me killing innocent people who are in a democracy. But my question was in your research and people you talk to was there anyone who made a jump from the fundamentalist beliefs to a more modern font . And what made the difference for that person . Its such a dichotomy it seems like if youre brought up in the fundamentalist thought that it would be just so hard to make believe. Host before getting into what you do in chicago . I work at an Afterschool Tutoring Program house of representatives why did you pick up the the looming tower . I listened to a long form podcasts which is fantastic. If others have not heard about it. And mr. Wright was featured on an old archive, probably a few years ago so just found it. Its very relevant today particularly with isis. So i found just the whole book was very it was great guesstimate thank you so much. I had a conversation with the Oldest University in the world is in cairo and the sheikh was involved in a deradicalization process in the prisons. And his analysis was that people move into radicalism. They come through it first big step is liberalism, that everything is literally true. And then becomes increasingly radical thoughts once that takes place to the point that you are justifying murder and thats when you become a terrorist at the very center of this circle. And he said if you people inside that circle, his experience was you can move them may be one concentric circle away from the core maybe two but to get them all the way out was in his experience almost impossible. And so the deradicalization project has mainly as its goal trying to unlock the violent aspect of it and try to move people away from violent jihad into simple liberalism without taking any kind of action. I have talk to tons of radical islamist and former terrorists come in pretty much they still come along that line, they are very literal minded and they believe in the fundamentalist approach to islam, but if they are talking to me either they are under the control of a Police Agency or they have a lease moved that one step away from violent jihad. Host in your newest addition of the the looming tower, you have a post death of osama bin laden. I want to know did you read Seymour Hershs recent piece on this issue marks what do you think about what he had to say . Guest he is a great reporter and a good friend, but i dont, i dont agree with all that he assumes to be true. And i wish if youre going to make such bold statements that the more broadly sourced. My feeling is that it could well be true that there was a walk in. Im not saying that but the idea that, you know, bin laden was dismembered and parts of his body were thrown out out of a helicopter and stuff like that. That scenario just seems unlikely to me. I dont think, you know, i cant say that the u. S. Was in connivance with the pakistani intelligence as cy does because the reactions have been one of humiliation and anger. But, you know without having more sources its really hard to say what actually happened. Host nancy, Redondo Beach california. You have been very patient are you on with Lawrence Wright. Caller thank you so much mr. Right. In 1992 i was a Convention Services director at the hotel for lax. In were going to be handling the meeting for cam, cold Awareness Network which publisher that called themselves back in the first place. The leader of the group was patricia ryan, leo ryans daughter. When i went to pick her up at the airport it was in the middle also of the rodney king alley riots when i went to pick her up at the airport. And i said i went to pick her up and she had this, like panicked look on her face and she said that scientologist for following the. Well ordinarily i wouldve thought that was crazy. However, they had been harassing me the weeks prior to the meeting come at this wasnt the meeting. This was just she and i getting together to handle logistics. In the next couple of weeks i ended up taking another job but protesters were around the hotel. And im wondering if you knew about the cold Awareness Network, whatever happened to them and if there is no group can help families who have family members that are in colts and i will hang up for your answer. Thank you so much. Guest the cult Awareness Network was an organization that i think it started in the 70s but it was prewellestablished. Remember we had all these the programs and stuff back in the 70s and so one. The cult Awareness Network, if you could call them and get somebody that would help you transition out of an organization that may be you are afraid to leave. And so scientology was one of the groups that people complained about and called the cult Awareness Network. So scientology along with other organizations but mainly scientology brought suit against the cult Awareness Network bankrupted them and then bought the name or assumed the name so that if youre calling a cult Awareness Network you may very well be speaking to a scientologist. Host lets go to another question in chicago. Thank you. There are many disturbing things in going clear. One of them that distribute greatly with something you referenced earlier, that was a successful intimidation of the irs back in 1992. Specifically my twopart question would be is there any way whatsoever that that decision and horrible in my opinion, could be reversed . And what is the status of the irs today in terms of how strong it is wax could another scientology be successful under another name i suing multiple times he irs . Thank you. Guest actually, you know, the director and i have been suggesting that its appropriate for the irs to take another look at that exemption. I dont know if the organization, having been so broken by its assault by the church, can withstand another confrontation. The church has a lot of money and it has a lot of lawyers and is willing to devote itself in a way that would occupy the irs is full attention as long as this goes on. The irs is perfectly aware of that. I dont know that they want to touch it. But on the other hand, there are good reasons to think that this kind of abuse thats going on in the church, an example ive talked to people who told me they were personally beaten up by the church leader. And many of them have witnessed other assaults. The leader of the church. To the american taxpayers need to support that . I think its worthy of examination house of representatives roger emailed him perhaps scientology make itself an easy target. You couldve written a similar book about any number of religious organizations which use the protections afforded by the first amendment. He goes on to say he was a jehovahs witness for 45 years because many more people have died for being jehovahs witnesses due to the Watchtower Society prohibition of lifesaving blood transfusions. And he asked the question of you, why does our government permit grants such benefits to religious organizations which routinely missed treat its citizens try to the jehovahs witnesses are all over me. I get Facebook Messages from the. They want me to take on their organization or the the former jehovahs witnesses. I think its a good question to ask about Tax Exemption for any religious organization. But the rules have been laid out pretty clearly and if an organization such as scientology stand aside from those rules and i think they should be called to account and thats true of any other group as well. Host going from michigan. You were on booktv on cspan2. Caller and you all very much. Mr. Wright, since camp david accords we have gave billions of dollars a year to egypt and israel. I think its going on close to a quarter of a trillion dollars now. And egypt of course is a militate or military dictatorship. And also israel isnt any kind of liberal democracy. As most americans imagined. The state of utah, for example have the same laws they would violate all of our civil rights laws and that kind of thing. So they can getting into the palestine abuse there. So youre talking about president kennedy before. He said that when you bake peaceful change impossible, you make violent change inevitable. Dont you think that spending billions and billions of dollars to help prop up these nonpopular nondemocratic regimes that use torture and abuse to stay in power actually promotes groups like alqaeda and isis and so on better than anything else really . Host glenn thank you very. Host well, we do spend we give israel and egypt several billion dollars a year. Its like 2. 5 billion to egypt and 3 billion to israel, and than half a billion to the palestinians since camp david. And a lot of people feel like we are paying them to be at peace. But honestly lets compare that to the cost of war. You know we spent a trillion and a half dollars in iraq. You know a few billion dollars every year doesnt even register and we dont have much stability in the middle east at all. Any stability is worth clinging to. And i think ive got problems with the governments of both egypt and israel but keeping them at peace is a tremendously important strategic goal for this country, and those billions of dollars just seem like a really inexpensive way to do it, if the actual have anything, you know interns, i dont think that if you withdrew those billions that they would immediately go to war. But it does help stabilize those countries and thats the most important thing in the middle east right now aspect from in the new world the right i have wondered at times that the country might have been different if nixon had won the election which are unaccounted, he probably would have. Guest votes in chicago had been fairly counted. [laughter] thats where the election was thrown. So you know, it is an interesting thought experiment that may be the time for nixon had come earlier. The country wouldve been different, and also it would have given kennedy a little more seasoning in the senate. It but wasnt able to use. He was pretty green when he came into office and the cuban missile crisis was a real test of that. Host charles mechanicsburg, pennsylvania. Please go ahead with your question or comment for Lawrence Wright. Caller i find your approach very sobering and peaceful kind of the when youre approaching. Growing up in unfamiliar with the amish and mennonite and the dynamics that they create. I also am acquainted with some who actually hates muslims in hyde park in england for the purpose of converting them to christianity for the purpose of saving their souls out of love it and am also interested in the historical approach to islam from someone like tom holland video documentary for bbc. I know youve already got your scientologist after you, and maybe the irs. Would you ever consider looking at mohammed and islam and approaching that in in the truthful, sober, peaceful way that you do . Guest well i have written about islam in the looming tower. You know, you asked if i use the word cult, peter. I think one could fairly say that alqaeda is a religious cult, a very violent one. And ive written about gosh, so many different religious groups. I wrote about the Orthodox Jews in jerusalem that wanted to destroy the dome of the rock on the temple mount and bring on a cataclysmic, maybe apocalyptic religious war. Ive written about satanists. Ive written fundamental baptists, ive written about jimmy swaggart, mormons. I have not into the category but i am, im perfectly willing to move on to some other pursuits than religion. Host is a book you are working on currently or an article youre working on that could potentially become a book . Have you become a playwright and an actor at this point in your career . Guest im using real actors now peter. But am working on a story for the new yorker about the behind the scenes negotiations to try to free the american hostages that were captured by isis. Its a heart stopping tragic story. So thats being fact checked right now. Im working on ive always for years and years ive wanted to write about i know, you dont know who she is. Very few people do. She was a fascinating warrior queen. The obvious glorious ruins. The reason they are ruins is she took up arms. Palmeri was part of the roman empire come on the edge of the roman empire and the persian empire. Her husband taking was murdered. She might have something to do with that but gaza she became the reason for her son and she let her own army, conquered egypt and that was a part of the roman empire. So the king, the emperor took a roman army to palmero and sackett and captured it and took her back to rome and the raiders to the city in golden chains. The story was that she wound up marrying the roman century and became a socialist. But she is a fascinating figure in predictors been completely forgotten and now the legacy of palmyra, those ruins are likely to be destroyed. And its one of the great examples of that kind of early roman, grecoroman architecture that its going to be a tragedy to watch ago but i thought before that happens if possible i would like to take note of this one extraordinary individual whos been so thoroughly forgotten by History House of representatives with the young men in chicago with a question. I also picked up the looming tower for random reason and went wow. And ive read lots of other stuff so im appreciative of the things you have done since september 11 centura talked about before, that switch. Off maybe i will give up journalism that and i was wondering, how what for you personally and also possibly what you would recommend to other people would be the reason to stay with the journalism stay with the true life stories rather than movies . Guest well, i realize now that im not ever going to do. I do a lot of different things. I write movies and plays in a television, and ive loved doing all of those things. Writing is a wonderful profession. May be financially erratic, but you know, as a journalist you have a passport into other peoples lives. You can to ask you know, pretty much anybody anything. Think how absurd that is. Would you feel like you have the right to walk up to people and say, why did you leave your wife . You know the its kind of amazing to think about we are invested with this kind of authority. I think we should be given subpoena power, but thats, you know [laughter] you can only talk to people who are willing to talk to you. But i thought about i like writing dramatic stories as well as narrative stories. That was the lure of the movie business but i didnt like not having control which was the idea about being a director as well. And i still write scripts and occasionally act in my one man shows. But i always come back to the fact, whats really interesting to me is what really happened. How did this happen . What events led to this . Im blessed with the fact that i can write for a magazine that can accommodate thousands and thousands of words. And, of course, i get paid by the word so that to consider. But the latest article that returned him to the new yorker is now 24,000 words. I dont know what they will publish it at that accused the room to go deep on a story and spend the time go to a number of places that i need to go to and talk to as many people as i can in order to understand it. All that is very fulfilling for me, and i think if we have a particular person quality that works to the advantage is that i try to be the compassionate listener. I think, you know everybody feels that they had historic detail, and why people talk to reporters is really mysterious. They trust you and i try to be the person that is in the moment nonjudgmental but also not allowing them to escape the questions that i know my reader would want me to ask. And so i have to put those questions forward in a nonthreatening way, but at least try to get into if i can understand why they did it, i can write about it if i cant understand it i find it very difficult for me to write. House of representatives 24000 words for a new yorker article. Whats the timeframe from okay im going to write about this to publication . Guest well it depends on the story. Ingoing clear it took about nine months. In this case i think that i made my first call in february so for me thats really compressed but you know, i felt under the gun and it didnt have any foreign travel involved which can consume a lot of time. I have a method thats very you know, i rely on it. It sounds ive been preaching this message for years and nobody has taken me up on it but i use no cards is like a graduate student in 1965. Notecards. Because my memory is not that good. If youre interviewing hundreds and hundreds of people and your reading countless books and articles and so on theres too much information to try to been spontaneously sit down and write it and retrieve it from your own mind. And as a young writer i found myself stopped because we did and who said that to me where can i find . I didnt know. I had all these notebooks with all these interviews in them and so finally i stopped. I went through everything again and put it down on notecards. Just by assembling the subjects, yeah, like bin laden family, lives, his first wife. Each of these is a category. Then want to get down to writing about this 14 yearold girl from syria that he married when he was 17 i have all the information that ive retrieved them all my interviews from all the books and all the articles i have translated. Everything is in a niche. So i get to that pull it out and i write about her. And its all there, and when i put it back in the box. Com it takes a lot of time to assemble all that but then the writing process is speeded up so much more and you are not stopped. I think theres a sense of momentum in the writing process that carries over in the readers experience house of representatives approximately how many words are in the looming tower . You got 24,000 in a new yorker article. Typical book about 100000 . Guest know 120, but i cant honestly how many words are in there but looking at the size of the unthinking probably about 220000. Host the next call comes from dave in santa fe, new mexico. Thanks for holding. You are on booktv. Caller figured am also an archaeologist. Im very sorry to hear about paul mara and uncertified we are not seeing similar things happening to the Cultural Resources happening to pull myra. My question was about your book into clear and this one if you perspective on archive facility that has been built in new mexico, east of albuquerque north of the small town cop and theres a geopolitical, a modern essentially signed constructed on the ground of some overlapping circles on the order of half a mile wide and with diamonds inside. I just cant its just amazing yet it is visible from space and i imagine Elron Hubbard created this symbology and nobody wanted his record secured in a secure archive. Your thoughts on that are appreciated. I will get off the phone. Thank you. Host there are several repositories in this country with the works of l. Ron hubbard are preserved in titanium canisters and argon gas filled caves so that they are there for perpetuity. And this site is talking but in new mexico, the are these interlocking circles that can you know, if aliens come to the u. S. , to land after humanity has disappeared from the planet they will be able to locate the works of l. Ron hubbard. Its also thought by some that if l. Ron hubbard comes back and is expected to he will be able to find it. Every Scientology Office has an office for him. Several facilities are homes for him. There is you know a novel on the bedside table table is set for one. His slippers are by the shower. But the interlocking circles someone very cleverly analyzed where that came from. He used to smoke kool cigarettes cigarettes, it looks exactly like the circles on the kool cigarettes. I wonder if that was the inspiration posner was l. Ron hubbard a true believer . Guest i believe he was. I know many people think of him as a con man and a fraud but if he had been come at some point he wouldve taken the money and run. He never did. He spent his whole life and especially the latter part of his life when he came upon the emea. Much of his day was spent by himself going trying to explore the inner recesses of his mind which was a very peculiar mind. Probably no mind has been as thoroughly explored in history as a that of l. Ron hubbard by himself. Its fascinating but also dangerous because he was a disturbed individual and he thought that himself. He sought out psychiatric help but never actually as far as i can tell received it. But i think dianetics and later scientology in some respects were a form of self therapy. Host David Miscavige to what is his life like . Is the wealthy . Is the isolated . Guest David Miscavige is the leader of the church. He divides his life from living in l. A. And the base in Southern California and also in clearwater which is scientology spiritual headquarters. His wife, shelley, he exiled years ago to one of these spots in Southern California where they have the archive of hubbards works. And she hasnt been seen in public for many years. To his personal life is hard to know. I know he keeps to himself on an incredible physical regiment. He works out, very tough. His chefs have to count the calories even in the cream in his coffee every morning. In the book he will have a detailed many of his daily diet. Host another question here in chicago. Yes, thank you so much for conversation and sharing this money. I was inspired by by a comment a few to go about how you organized your notes. And im an archivist and hope that not for l. Ron hubbard, but if you that you consider donating your Research Notes and papers to institution, or if youre already in conversation with that. Because the way you described your organization for writing is beautifully done for archivist. Im really inspired to do that. Its just a lot of aspect to your work thats beneficial for future researchers to use your materials if you choose to do that. Host what type of archivist are you speak was i work at Depaul University in chicago in the special collections and archives department. Guest well, right now im using my archives [laughter] and hope to continue. But at some point will have to get all that stuff out of the annals. Host have you been approached by anybody at Depaul University . Guest at one point the lbj library asked me what is doing and i said im using it. And theres a writers collection at texas state university. I dont know why. I am now renting a locker in one of these rental places. I dont know why i am hanging on to the. Theres boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff. I once offered, i did a story about the son of jim jones. This was 15 years after jonestown. The french episode happened. It happened. I am going to get around to saying i offer those what were i think, precious interviews to california state historical society. And they didnt want them. But i had decided my editor, tina brown, asked me if i would go to waco and write about under the siege. I feel that i would be useful but i had been really moved by the fact that just before the apocalyptic ending there was a van of children sent out of the compound. They looked so lost. And they went through the police line the atf, the fbi were there and they went through the media with all of the camera and so on. And you could see their faces. And i thought they are leaving everybody and searching with the cults in the past and i found that jim jones actually had three sons who survived jones town because they were off in the capital of giana, georgetown in a basketball tournament and never shared their story. So, and i am not sure exactly why they agreed to talk to me. There are three sons and two of them are adopted. Steven, the natural son, looks so much like his father and extroidinarily handsome with this fathers cheek bones. And 15 years has passed since 900 people died and tim had never told his wife. And one surprised his wife. We went to a restaurant and tim is physically a formable guy who is curl a one pounds with either hand and he could not get on an elevator. Last time he tried to fly he made the plane turn around and take him back to the gate. And within minutes of sitting down, you know he was sobbing and pounding the table and the waiter was waking a big detour and people were starring at their plates of food. He told the story of having to go back to georgetown because he was the one who identified the 900 people and they included his wife and children at the time his natural parents, his adopted parents his whole world he had to go identify. And after that i have been in awe of the power of religious belief to take people like that and plunge them into tragic ad ventures. Host why did you leave the Methodist Church . Guest it wasnt just meth methodist i left. It was organized religion. The minister strangled his wife and got away with it and i wrote an article about it in the texas monthly. His mistress was the woman that play played the role. And i was trying to to believe thick things i wasnt sure were true was hard to believe. Host i was an unconscious racist. A fact i discovered in dr. Criswelds church. Guest he was the leader of the biggest Methodist Church. He spoke out against kennedy before. But i had a date to that church and she was partly philippine and i was uncomfortable. I had never gone out with a girl i had gone out with very few girls but she wasnt entirely white and i felt unnerved by that and then later in college, i actually had the experience of getting to be friends with a black person. I went through school in dallas texas with the brown verses board of education in 1954 and i graduated not seeing blacks or hispanics. There was a high school for hispanics in north dallas. So i was unexposed to other races. It was difficult with me along with that and the womans movement, they were movements that changed the way i was in the world, who i am and i later wound up writing about civil rights. That is how i got into journalism journalism. I didnt know what to make it. Host jim from Tacoma Washington you have been patient. Caller i want to talk about the movie the siege. I like it very much. Very smart and great dialogue between washington and benning. I am curious how it came together and how you got hooked up with it and why you havent done more of that kind of work. Guest as i said, there was a time when i was going to be a movie director. I think writing the siege was, you know a great experience in many respects. I had a friend linda oaks who was a movie producer and she had approached me with what she said was a movie idea which was with a woman in the cia. That is not really a movie idea. That is kind of a notion. She wanted me to come up with a plot that we could sell. It was after the cold war was over. So what is the cia anymore . It seemed irrelevant. Communist behavior was dead so how do you write a story . I realized the cia did have a real life antagonist. And it was the fbi. Once i realized that and they were fighting over at the time it was who would control terrorism inside the United States states. The fbi won that battle. But it was fiercely fought turf battle between the two agencies. Washington plays the fbi agent and bening is the cia agent and there is a terrorist in it. That movie was a heart breaker for me in many respects because i had rather carefully worked with some of the Arab American Association associations. There had never been a movie with an arab American Hero and tony who is an arab american played an fbi agent and a heroic won and never had the opportunity to play an arab before. I thought they would be in favor of the movie. But when it came out there was a campaign waiting into the room for the next movie that had an arab terrorist in it. And mine was the next movie. So there were protesters around the theater and people dont want to go to the movies if they are crossing a picket line. And then after 9 11 it was the most rented movie in america. I am puzzled over that. Because it was creepy similar to what might happen. The movie has a good ending. I think after 9 11 people were looking for good endings. Right after that, trailers showed a bombing in south cape africa that killed two people and a little girl lost her leg. It was said that the balmomberbombers did it because of the trailer of the siege and they picked the restaurant boston bruce willis was a coowner of it and in the movie. It was very upsetting to me because i felt they were attacking my imagination. I had written this story and suddenly people are dead. Host dan in bridge water, new jersey. Caller the World Trade Center was twice attacked. I was in there on 9 11 and really shocked by how much confusion there was and that delay of the people getting out from the other building that was hit. The other side of the coin is if you look our soldiers fought in iraq, afghanistan, and other places, they killed to stay alive. Most of the jihadis kill their own people. The more we kill the more offenders we created and we are still looking for military solutions for these things. And i wonder what you have learned throughout the years about the american propensity to go involve itself there and regulate what is going on with generals excusing or explaining all of the failures as successes. Well, i would be happy to talk about our military. The war of when i was a man and i am a conscious objector no doubt my opinion. But what blow back did we get . We got both people and the stereotype is they came and took over Convenience Stores and their kids are now in ivy league kids. But on balance, we didnt think we didnt have to pay a price for watt we did in vietnam but that is not true in iraq. I think we will be paying a price for that until the end of this century probably. It is fought all americas fault. I dont want to it sound like we are engaged trying to manage a volatile region of the world and the reason we are there is there are resources that the rest of the world defends. And trying to keep some kind of control and order in the Oil Producing regions is a strategic goal of this country. Keeping the see lanes open no one is going to do. If you study the middle east and look at the history of the wars there they always turn out badly and prepare the ground for the next war. Camp david is one example where diplomacy succeeded in an extraordinary way of preventing wars. There were four wars in a single generation between egypt and israel and that document put an end to it. There hasnt been a single violation of that treaty since. If you measure the success of the wars we have been engaged in or others against the triumph of diplomacy it is clear what side we should put effort in. Host you can make a comment via twitter, facebook or email. At booktv is our twitter handle. Facebook. booktv you can make a comment there at the top of the page is where you can make a comment and you can send an email as well. Next call for Lawrence Wright comes from martha in irvine california. Hi, martha. Caller hi, peter. In my conversations with the muslim and other groups and jewish people is that the media makes the differences look gray greater than they are. What did you find most agree on between the two . Guest the muslims and jews their religions are similar in many respects especially the legalistic qualities of them. A message i have been trying to get out that i thought would solve the israeli and palestinian group. The jews and the palestinians are the same people. Dna evidence has shown these are the same people both descended from the can nites and both lived in the same region for thousands of years. And in fact david van buren, the first Prime Minister and israels second president wrote a book in 1918 when they were living in new york and they talked about the palestinians being jew and the evidence put forward was interesting. There was a battle where the kingdom was invaded and all of injew the jews with money and talent were taken and put in babylon were they stayed until alexander the great freed them. And they came back and claimed to be the original jews. Those people many of them converted to islam or christianity. They think they are right. Scientific and historical evidence sports this. Supports this. And there is no difference when i aired this. Host we have more people lined up here. I have not read 12 days but have read the others and my question is about what you are talking about. One of the themes are came away with could be summed up in three words lack of trust. I am wondering if this lack of trust between the parties and whether there will be middle east peace in our lifetime do you come across that as well . Guest lack of trust is essential to what is keeping these parties from making peace with each other. 25 years ago what is happening is they will know each other and if i was thinking about 25 years ago you could drive from gaza city to go on hikes without knowing through a checkpoint. Israelis used to drive down and have sea food on the gazea beach. Many israelis spoke arabic and many arabics spoke hebrew. They knew each other. And now the are walls and fences between the two and they dont know each other. It is easier to hate people when you dont know each other. To try to establish trust, the first thing to is get acquainted. Host david is calling in from houston. Caller mr. Wright wright, this question is about your book on scientologist. I was studying this subject and turned on to his book that i felt had practical issues and tools for psychology majors and people like me cases involving communication tools, person interaction and the whole issue of end grams and there seems to be a very compelling and seemingly legit application for Mental Health time issues and problems. But i always had a healthy uncertainty going in and i was looking for inconsistency and there was papers trying to come out for students that were taking classes in scientology and dinetteics. And i could not find any. Just the sheer amount of work he put out was impressive and then i found out he was a successful Science Fiction writer and had impressive books. I read fear and final blackout. And in many ways he seemed to be ahead of his time in terms of predicting things that were happening involving Nuclear Fusion and nuclear war and things like that. I guess what i am saying is i can understand how people could have gotten drawn into it because i was. And felt like i learned positive things and it wasnt until the end of my time where i began to feel the sense of paranoia or there is not the right word but an effort to keep people from leaving the classes. But nothing more than the hard cell tactics we have today sell i wanted to give that perspective and get your take on it. Guest a lot of people read dinetics and thought they were getting the key to understanding their problems and Mental Health. He talked about the clear as a phenomenal when no one has been declared this. He had at one point clear and he did so in los angeles and a young woman i think she was a physics student. And she was lying on a couch and he had an audience and he was talking about all of the attributes she has. And someone asked when hubbards back was to her, what color tie does mr. Hubbard have on because she is supposed to remember everything. One question after another testing her memory and intelli intelligence. And it was a disaster. It was a long time before they brought another clearer in. What was interesting in reading the dianetics is this breezy sense of authority that cast a spell. And of course reading the proof he is enlisting at the moment he is writing it. Host as we continue to take your calls, emails, Facebook Comments and tweets we have an audience here in chicago and he a gentlemen waiting to ask you a question. Thank you. Back to the book 13 days in september i had the impression that you felt megan reneged on the latter parts of the potential peace treaty. What happened there . Guest carter also felt begin lied to him. It had to do with the settlement building so carter felt very betrayed by that. You know the camp david accord, that part of it is unfortunate. It is still a huge diplomatic triumph that they were able to make peace between these two nations. You were asking earlier about carters opinion of again. Neither of these men liked each other. Neither of them thought it was going to go on. Can you imagine to be experienced because the president of the United States disappeared for two weeks. Not just one president , but the heads of three countries are gone from the world scene. Nobody knows what is going on. And this was carter was at a time when the shah was going down. Doubledigit inflation. The crime rate was 20 . Younger people wouldnt know what that is late, but it is bizarre. Huge gas lines, it is a very physical time in international and domestic politics. So for him to take the time off seems crazy and egypt and israel were also going through various dreadful times. Bremen after 13 days carter felt he finally had it it in the can. Everything had been initial. The Communications Director had told thered be a president ial address. They were going to interrupt the enemies. They are setting up the east room of the white house. Carter had made a side letter. Oftentimes the International Diplomatic accords are decorated with things we dont agree on. We agree to disagree. One of the five letters was about americas position on jerusalem which has been since it was occupied in 1967 that it occupied territory in east jerusalem. This goes back through several administrations, republican and democrat. He specified in the letter that we didnt agree on this and he pledged to anwar sadat he would put it forward. I found its way into begins hands in defeat and withdraw it the agreement was off. Carter was astounded. It has nothing to do with the accord. Egypt and israel had letters about jerusalem as well. He said i cant do that. I cant go back on my promise. This was the lowest moments in jimmy carters life because not only was this a failure, it was a fiasco. He was walking back to his cabinet. His secretary gave him some photographs. Some pictures to give to his grandchildren of carter begin inside out. Three men sitting on the porch of the aspen lodge of the president ial cabin. Carter had gotten the secretary to call and get the names of begins nine grandchildren. He signed to each of them ensign love jimmy carter. He had to take the pictures back and he never wanted to see him again but he felt obligated so he went back to the cabin and he was absolutely icy. Hello, mr. President. I just came to say goodbye. Goodbye, mr. President. He handed him the envelope and said i got this for your grandchildren. He pulled out the pictures and thought it was signed one after another and he began to weep. Carter said i hoped i could write this is where your grandfather and i made peace in the middle east. He went back to tell him the agreement was off. One human moment after 13 days made all the difference. Host this is one of those emails from victor paypal. Always a pleasure to listen to you. How do you divide your time between the new yorker, book writing and your other creative endeavors. When you relax and what is your favorite restaurant . Guest okay thats a lot of questions. I love my work. I love my family. I love my band. I am initially in. I took a vpn that when i was 38 and a half in order to play great of fire on my 40th birthday and im still taking lessons many years later. I go to work in the morning, try to get started by 9 00. I work at home. I have a very nice office and i have a white word that outlines what im working on. My wife and i love card name. When i get up i usually go out several times a day just to take it in. And then go back to work. I usually quit around 6 00 and get some exercise and play the pm no and then we had dinner. I think that is paradise. I love the order. As a reporter i go out and talk to people that have been in great turmoil and have been terribly, terribly traumatized often times. I think is a balanced attack, my own life i keep as even as possible. Host what about restaurants . Guest ive been to many of our famous barbecue restaurant. I think the restaurant my wife and i tend to go to more than any other is called eastside cafe. What is nice as it has a garden in the back of it so great vegetables and i really like the place. Anyplace where you can talk and have good food and theres not latin music playing, that would register on my favorite list. Host firm macedonia in texas. Hey larry are you still playing music around austin . Has your band found a new venue . Guest we used to play in a text tags restaurant. We often let you people sit in with us to get the experience. They had a judge with a 12yearold daughter that wanted to play, so we let her play. The next day the fbi closed the place down. They blew the doors off. It is a harrowing den. Its a little embarrassing because im an Investigative Reporter and so is our harmonica player john burnett with npr. We did notice the food wasnt very good. 11 people were arrested and it turned out the owner restaurant has served time for three murders and how they got a Liquor License in austin texas was a little mysterious. We found a club that we think theres no Legal Committee going on. It is called onetoone on sophomore in austin. Host another question from chicago. Are just wondering. But he think is the future of politics with religion and vice versa . Well religion plays a big role in our country obviously. If you look at candidates in the primaries still hear a lot of religious declarations. I think it is unfortunate that it gets too mixed up into our political system because for one thing i dont live a lot of it. I think often times they are pandering and it disgraceful and hypocritical. Yet there are parts of the social agenda. One of the reasons i think about the power of religious beliefs and peoples lives. If you take the liberals and their attitude about helping the poor and empowering people through Government Policies which is fine but when there are poor people on christmas that need turkeys or an earthquake in nicaragua, who goes out to help those people . Church people do. Those are the people putting their hands out and doing things. Religion has a place in our society and its a valuable place. Because there is so posted they can wait us into dangerous shoals. I spend a lot of time were religion is so predominant in so unified. In our country you can believe anything you want. If you dont see it on the shelf, you make it a period a lot of countries you can only believe one thing more or less. Those countries have also terrible problems with religion and its a constant problem in the middle east are the forces of religion and Secular Society are in such eternal combat. You see something that the country of turkey where you have a secularizing later who tried to push religion on the simple life and now its coming back. The same ties at work right now in egypt. Morrissey was selected by the muslim brothers and the military took control once again. These forces are very, very powerful in all countries, especially in the middle east. Host david is in tulsa, oklahoma. You are on booktv with Lawrence Wright. Caller thank you for taking my call. Im a middleschool teacher and i believe im teaching the first generation who has no conscious memory of 9 11. If you walked into my classroom and was asked about 9 11, how would you initiate a dialogue and go about teaching these students who have no memory, not her fault have no memory of 9 11 . That is a good question you would expect from a teacher. I think the thing that was so dramatic for americans is we were so invulnerable in the world. The idea that we could be attacked on our own soil for the First Time Since the british someone, especially a man in a cave in afghanistan could plan something that would result in such horrible devastation in such a tremendous National Trauma and they would then produce into these wars that have lasted ever since then and cost our country in so many different directions. The initial trauma that happened here came to america where we have our oceans separating us and we have canada and mexico on either side of it. We felt so protected from the worlds ills and the difference that 9 11 made as we now know we are not invulnerable. We are exposed to the world and we will always be so. Host another gentleman here in chicago at the question. Three comments. One, you spoke of jewish being one vehicle. David duran said that they are caught, the jewish god was not the god of anybody else. None of the muslims, not of the christians. Valid the one thing that keeps them apart. That kind of thinking. A second thing you spoke at the camp david accords as being a diplomatic triumph. I regard diplomacy is coming out of the nature of the state the nature of the state even more they are for diplomacy expresses the nature of the state. I dont expect from diplomacy getting rid of the state. Israel and lebanon. And so forth. They take everything from the palestinians they need to. Finally, how i would teach 9 11 when i do teach 9 11 its an inside job. To get the wars in iraq and so forth for israel. Host and if we could start with Lawrence Wright, 9 11 been in and tie job. [laughter] guest it is not then. I have been followed by troopers. How these conspiracies began is that first of all a worldview. I grew up in dallas so i am familiar with conspiracy theorists and spent my whole life talking about these were imagining who really killed kennedy and that sort of thing. The evidence is Lee Harvey Oswald did it by himself. Said the mind of the conspiracies is such that this doesnt correspond to my view of the world. Now in the case of 9 11 people who think the United States and israel are the avatars of the world would feel that we did it to ourselves. But you start to examine the evidence that it. For most of the conspiracies i dont know if this gentleman believes, that the usual take is we knew we were going to be attacked and the attack would not be successful enough. So in order to make it succeed we had to plant explosives inside the World Trade Center to make sure they would fall down because it wouldnt have been better planned fully loaded jet hangar running into a skyscraper would cause it to fall down. The experiment has only been performed twice. There it is that their buildings in the neighborhood that caught fire and were undermined and destroyed at the tremendous cataclysm that took place. And then there is part of the Conspiracy Theory that says the pentagon was actually attacked by a missile. In that case where is the plane . Where are the passengers . If you start taking apart the things logically, you can see there is no evidence to support them. There is only the firm belief that wouldnt happen if you were in an airplane into a skyscraper or that the United States is so evil that we have to do something to our own people. This i think is pernicious and it is shameful in our country that weve allowed people in the middle east, for instance, to get off to a culturally. One of my sources in saudi arabia was bin ladens brotherinlaw, very useful source to me. He had been coming to terms with the fact that the saudis were the hijackers and were responsible for 9 11. It was hard for head because the implications are quite fast. Terrible indictment of his culture. The last time i talked to him he said he no longer believed that. He said he did it to yourself. Where did you hear that . People like this were doing documentaries about how america had done it. His feeling was why should i accept the blame. Your own people are saying you did it yourself. Host lets move on to letter in centralia, washington. You are on booktv. Hi. Caller i have to take a history class from you. Its amazing. My question is the end of religious wars will only come after we receive the end of religion. Back to the crusades there were 200 years long, 9 Million People slaughtered and killed and still one after another throughout history. I wonder, what was the origin of the belief, i think superstition was a lot of it. When the volcano, it will blow again. But if the human psyche thinking that they need religion at all . A child should not the taught anything until late as 21 years old and then decide what religion he wants to be. That is for every buddhist throughout the world. I would like your comments off the air. Thank you. Guest i dont think we will see the end of wars in which religion is involved anytime soon. Although we seem to be steering ourselves into some kind of taking right now in the middle east what i see that i find very disturbing in the middle east now and not just the middle east in a number of different religions is apocalyptic and. Those who are longing for the apocalypse dont care about victory. They only care about distraction. It is obvious and easier to see that their goal is the reason they are fighting in syria and iraq is iraq is supposed to be this place where the imposters of the muslim religion are put to death and the imposters in the Isis Al Qaeda framework are the shiites. Isis and al qaeda are a sunni organization trying to create the civil war between the sunnis and shiites and with the annihilation in syria is where the final battle between the muslims and the christians will take place in a place called to be the name of the isis online magazine. So they are inviting us into a war in which their goal is the end of civilization. We can see this apocalyptic thinking clearly. Theres a strain of it in christianity and judaism that goes back a long way but especially 1967. Holocaust wasnt a generation away. There was a tremendous amount of anxiety about where they were. So if you imagine the anxiety, just another ghetto another trap for views. They were leaving israel in vast numbers. An that summer of 1967 nasser, the egyptian president , threw peacekeepers out of the sinaikeep and closed straights tehran and blocking israel access to the red sea this israel considered acts of war. Re anxiety in israel was tremendous. Egypt at that time, was engagedtr in a war in yemen using chemical weapons. Gas masks were passed out and trenches dug for the mass graves they expected they would need and they struck and we call it the six day war but you could call it the six minute war because it was all over after that defeat. The psychological affect of this on all three religions was transformive. There was an influx of and they became the backbone of this. And the prophecy toward the end time and when the leader comes. And many christians look at this as well and thought we are steering in the end times. And they asked why would god turn against us . The answer and that is when radical islam began to awaken. Host that last caller said he would like to take a history class from you. Do you teach . Guest no i would love to teach but my schedule is erratic so i dont know how i could take a semester off. I thought about it and enjoyed working with students. Host clint posted on our facebook page. Mr. Wright, you mentioned being hypnotized. Have you ever taken a poly graph test . Guest no i havent. I was interested in hypnosis. In high school i read the whole shelf on books and hypnotized my sister laying out her between two chairs and stick pens in her. Host does she still speak to you . Guest yeah i dont think she remembers is. I was always grateful for the Dallas Library for the knowledge. One of my books is called remembering satan and it is about the recovered memory episode. There were thousands of people mainly young people who were diagnosed with having multiply personality and they would uncover memories of being abused by satinist and i got involved because my own therapist said they were seeing all of these multiple personalities and were interested in having me right it. They said satinist were responsible for 50 murders a year in austin and we have never had that many by satinist or anyone else. There is a workshop and they said satinist were responsible for 50,000 murders in the United States. Far exceeding the National Murder rate. And these were cops. So i thought there was something to this. Tina brown was the editor and i went to her saying i would like to write about multiply personality disorder. And people suing their parents for abuses they had forgotten and now remembered and were the cause of all of their eating disorders and one person was one person was convicted of this a crime. Paul ingram, a Deputy Sheriff in olympia washington. And his daughters had made these accusations and, and he confessed to them and, went to prison. And so i thought, well, if there is anything to it. And bear in mind, this was a trope on day time talk shows and television shows. Many, many books like sybil, and three faces of eve. There were whole recovered memory pham none swamped popular culture. In austin we have four t hospitals. Ltur there were dissocialtive disorder wings to accommodate influx of multiple personalities. They actually occupied one room. Personalities were all over the place. I met one who claimed to have 316 personalities which was an impressive management problem but, so, i got involved this. I went up to olympia, washington and there was, it turned out other people got arrested. Some of paul ingrams friends, including a guy named jim rabee also in the sheriffs departmentho and actually had been in the sexen crimes division. So he was accused by university todays of having participated in these satanic rights and he, demanded a polygraph. See it does go back to polygraph. So he, and but im going to take a little excursion. In in writing there are certain tricks of the trade and one of them, a friend taught me, was the rubberband theory. Which is, if you plant a question in the readers mind, you dont answer it immediately. You stretch it a little bit. And so that the reader is saying, what is going to happen . You keep pulling on it and reminding the reader. So that is what causes pages to turn. So jim rabee demanded polygraph. This article two parts, big new yorker thing. And they asked him you know, if h he hadim ever been a sate anists andr abused girls and failed on every response. N e that was the end of the first part of the story. And in the new yorker. Greatest rubberband that i because left reader thinkingber well maybe there is something to this. And but, it posed a problem to me as a reporter and writer because i knew the reader would think, maybe he did do it. I know i would plan for him to have another graph. If he failed that i dont know where they would be. I made a plan for him to have the head of the polygraph examine him and he passed with flying colors. But had i not done that i think it would have defeated the story in the minds of people. We have a young lady with a question. I wonder if you can help us understand the prosspectpects of diplomacy. Usually it is between nation states. All are any possibilities with diplomacy for groups like alqaeda and isis when it isnt a nation state and the apocalyp apocalypse is their goal and when religion underlies their work in the world too. Any possibilities for diplomacy and not just war with groups like isis and alqaeda . Guest i think we will have to talk to a lot of groups we dont want to talk to. And you know for instance hezbollah. We had boots on the ground in iran and a lot are regular troops and some kind of coordination is obviously going on and different and different militant gro groups and u. S. In order to keep us from bombing the wrong peopleng eventually, you know it could come to the point where we will talk to al nusra, which is an al qaeda offshoot that is in the way of gaining control of the country of syria. And, i cant envision right now having a conversation with isis at anytime in the future but al nusra is, actually likely if, if the assad regime falls, and it seems increasingly likely to fall then, what will fill the vacuum and the Strongest Force right now is al nusra. E f if i could ask a followup . Hasnt american policy been we dont negotiate with terrorists . Iate you know thats a, that is an unfortunate trope in ourunat diplomacy, not actually true but it has been very damaging in the cases of our hostages who were taken by isis. Tr the origin of that idea is not providing Material Support to terrorists. So the idea is ransoms. Material support to terrorist. Say your child is kidnapped, and this happened to American Families whose children were kidnapped by isis you go to the fbi and state department and help and you get well we will do what we can but we dont negotiate with terrorist. Who do you negotiate with if you dont with terrorist holding your children . And then was we dont talk to terrorist. So people turning to the government were help were told we dont talk to terrorist. Why not . They are holding my child and they need help. I am hopeful after this article comes out that the government is doing a policy review that we will clarify the issues and we do talk to people we dont agree with. We do negotiate with them and have done so throughout history. Maybe we dont pay and provide support to terrorist. Talking and negotiating are two different things. Host when will that be published . Reporter it is scheduled for the end of the month. Host dave you are live. We have about ten minutes left. Caller it sounds like hubbard had the best version of the rubber band theory and create new levels. And what has been the response to the church and the book . Any legal challenges you wis to discuss. And regarding the emeter, i know it is one part of the pauloly graph, but what it is measuring that allows them to tout as a reliable measure. Thank you very much for your work. Guest in terms of the emeter it measures your sweaty palms and how you grab the can. It has been tried on me and the experiment was to think about a thought that i knew was true. Sometimes it would pinch you on the neck and you would remember the pinch and the needle moved. But i didnt have that. I forgot the first part of the question. Host we will go to mike. Caller mr. Wright thank you for your work. Interesting you mention multiply personality disorders, i think there is 135 cases of that in congress right now. I wonder if you had a thought about investigating the financial terrorism with the buffet and diamonds and the way we vilify the pursuit of money and the way this crowd is above the law when it comes to obviously convictions for fraud and Money Laundering and wire transfer. It is crazy. The current manipulation and on and on. It is like the swagger and hubbard of the day. I wonder about your take on that. Thanks again. In the case of scientology, guest in the case of scientology, he doesnt live an extroidinary extroidinary extraordinary life. I did write about jimmy swagger. His church was taking in half a million a day at one point. They had their own postal code. People were sending in letters with an unbelievable amount of money. People were sending in wedding rings of their own. And a lot of tv preachers live well what he seemed to be interested in was expanding his empire and i think that is pretty much the case with scientology as well. Host Lawrence Wright which of your books has gotten the most attention . Guest i think a looming tower. It has been translated into 25 languages and probably has had more attention in the world culture. In terms of recently going clear. People think of it as my last book because it was one before because of the documentary that put it back on the New York Times bestseller list when i was thankful for. But the book and documentary were impactful. There saturday night live skits and i was surprised. It never happened before. Host the looming tower steve huitewitt, brings it up. Guest i have a lot of conservative fans i think in part because i criticize the Clinton Administration but i do with the bushs as well. Facing terrorism is something that appeals not just to conservatives but maybe especially conservatives. If david from the new yorker calls saying i need you to write about election 2016. Where do you start