Our principal rival in that race is china. As far as simply the facts, the quantum spy is a novel that imagines the characters involved, the battle to see who can steal the other secrets about world changing technology, principally the story of my hero, american of chinese descent who was a cia officer, asked to penetrate the Chinese Intelligence Service and in the process learns about himself and the cia and how the world works shake him to his foundations and we see in this novel how the Chinese Intelligence Service not so familiar to readers of spy fiction, we have been with carla, the russians by world is your to us so one of the pleasures for me if it takes us into the world of state security, very secretive Chinese Intelligence Agency that is the principal antagonist in this book. Host how much of it is true . I always say in the prefaces to my books they exist in an imagined world, if you take any book i write and think it is a recipe for how to bake a cake you are going to end up with a but by because all sorts of things are thrown in. That said i do a lot of research for every one of my novels, the quantum spy is my 10th novel, i researched it for many months, went to computer laboratories where Quantum Computers are being experimented with that one has been built. I travel everyplace mentioned in the book, looked at it, studied the Chinese Intelligence Service in all sorts of ways. My answer would be it is a novel, the story is imagine terry, it is drawn from real life. It is as real as i could make it be and still be a work of fiction. One of the conflicts is science and whether it should be open and fair and you write that science has no flag. Science shouldnt have flags. The problem in the area i was writing about where you have a superpowerful technology, the reason want to computing is so important is if you built a quantum computer it could shred any symptom subsystem of encryption. All of your adversaries most secret messages, documents, information, it has that real purpose in the world. Host when it comes to quantum computing is at the future . Quantum computing is coming at us fast. In my book i describe a technology that is a kind of quantum computer, purists say it is quantum kneeling and i wont bore your viewers with the details of the different. It assembles cubits, a standard computer has bits, 0 or one, on or off and become Quantum Computers made of cubits, strange as it sounds are 0 and one at the same time. They have this ambiguous state and that means as you assemble these cubits, as you entangle them to use the phrase technologists use, they begin to build a computer in every direction simultaneously, vastly more powerful than any supercomputer of her bills, a problem that would take thousands of years even for the most powerful supercomputers to be done in a few seconds with Quantum Computers because of the power of these cubits so whoever gets that technology is going to have an instrument that would be potentially world changing and it could change the world and lots of other ways, discovering drugs, new materials, anything that involves lots of computation, simulation, these computers will be able to do in an entirely different way and that is why everybody is excited about it. It used to be said this was 20 years out, then people began to fade is 10 years out. The most recent estimates i heard are maybe it is 5 years out. As i mentioned there is a company in vancouver, British Columbia that built 2000 cubits and can be powerful in some areas. So talk to people who do technology they get excited about this but nobody can give you precise prediction when it is coming. And classification. A lot of this computer research, it companies, companies that change the world, google, microsoft, have proprietary limits on their technology, they own it but it was not classified, move it out as quickly as you can, with so many applications like quantum computing there has been ground for 20 years, and effort to take the most sensitive technologies and do some of that research with classification. There was disclosure of the nsas secret black budget, when i first thought Something Like this in 2014, there is a battle between scientists who want the most of the world possible, we share information, ideas, from china, russia, wherever they come from, and others who say it is too valuable, you wouldnt have brought germans into los alamos during the Manhattan Project so they need controls. That is one of the issues of debate. Host americanism is questions. Harris chain, our hero, grew up in flagstaff, arizona, i bleed red, white and blue, served in the army in iraq, recruited into the cia, feels entirely american. Never occurred to him is that ground would be subject to manipulation and he finds in the course of the book that both for the chinese who try to manipulate him using his ancestry and for some americans in the Intelligence Community doubt him because of his ancestry, ends that being central to his experience, deeply upsetting as a person and that is where the arc of his story is coming, to realize people see him in a way he doesnt see himself and by the end of the book, readers describe, he is the quantum spy. Host has that been true in the Intelligence Community since the 40s or whenever that somebodys nationality or their heritage can affect how they are viewed . I think our Intelligence Community has always been eager to use the richness of our National Fabric to draw people who speak languages, cultural skills, case officers who worked the soviet file with russia or ukraine, east european backgrounds, in the middle east, people who speak arabic, fluency through their families or others, drawn into that part of the agencys operations, it has always been part of that. The danger is when people feel they are being seen in stereotypical ways, the arabamerican is good at the set of things but not that. Had a similar problem with gender. Women for decades felt all those were given responsible roles they were not given the heart of what the cia does, encouraged to go out and spy which is how you make your mark in the cia and they felt limited, careers were stunted. That is another theme, a woman who felt she was in a sense robbed of success and experience she might have had as an Intelligence Officer because of her gender and having a deeper age about that, that was another part of this book. With a novel like this you start with conclusion and work backwards . You start with the idea, the team you want to play with to understand quantum computing. Im always looking for something to do as a journalist. I love to grab a report and find information so i got interested in quantum computing when i saw the chinese were our principal rivals that interested me. Wasnt until i could see the characters, harris chang in a hotel room in singapore that i started writing this book after coming back on the plane, a long plane ride and suddenly i understood where it would start rolling in this tale starting at a hotel room in singapore. For the writer, the process of taking the themes, making those themes alive and characters understand, the places those characters inhabit and to be honest, the essential thing in writing this book and every book i have written is rewriting it, the first draft in which you have done your first kind of rough sketch and then you need to go in ruthlessly and look at what works and what doesnt, the characters who were fully developed and the ones that dont work and you need people who are really honest with you to say this just isnt there yet, you have to go back and do it again, that person for me principally in my recent books has been my wife, the hardest thing in the world to see her husband slaving away and got the first draft done and give it to you like a puppy and i would say what do you think . And she would read it carefully and say i just dont get is there yet or very believable so you go back and hopefully get another honest evaluation. Even the very best writers are capable of writing stuff but it is not very good, not real and we need people who tell us the things we may love in our books, just arent there yet, do it again. I have learned the value, not good enough. Host denise, mike flanagan, some of the characters in the quantum spy, what do those project . Those project diverse agencies, this is one in terms of every variable. A lot of women work in the agency and i think one thing that has changed about the cia, once thought to be an ivy league playground, basically gail was the feeders school to the cia, more diverse in that way, every educational background, looking for the unconventional interest and backgrounds. There is a blue collar side of the cia, kate sturm, who supported my book, an important part of the cia not often recognized and safehouses and airplanes and shooters to guard the case officers, to do unglamorous stuff you have to get done. They carry themselves that way with a chip on their shoulder and interested in people. And how they think. Host they have unlimited safehouses, unlimited money, unlimited resources, is that based on reallife . Guest the cia doesnt suffer for resources. It suffers from ideas, difficulties as a country, operating in clandestine ways, people, americans are not great at keeping secrets or telling lies. There is a natural straightforwardness to the american character, i think. The cia in a period when American Power was strongest, in the cold war years, had the wind at its back. Everybody around the world wanted to be americas friend, enormously powerful economy, engine of global prosperity, i once joked it was hard to find a person who wasnt the cia contractor. I am a friend of america. They are more reluctant to be seen on that side of america. To make their fortune. The wind at our back, a strong head wind. Starting to find people who take those risks when the us does find them, to be protecting them, the secrets they are sharing with the us government. My tense novel, the first was published, what i have seen, has lost its way a little bit, struggles most of all with superpowerful, to be our friend today, we see looking around the world we are not superpowerful, we have stronger rivals and everyone doesnt want to be our friend. Host there is not necessarily a clearcut could guy bad guy. Spy novels as we say are painted in shades of gray, moral ambiguities, what this work is all about, the basic ambience. In my books, operators who are most ruthless and effective, the chief clandestine Operation Agency in my new book, the quantum spy come in terms of being a tough character, if it is simple, ask the state department to do it. If you want something complicated and morally complex we are the right people. Operators like that, the reader will see as competent professionals but there are questions that harris chang, the hero of this book. If they are ruthless to the point of shattering the reason he got in. Host your first book in 1987, agents of innocence takes place in beirut and about that book you wrote it was obvious the only way i could share this was through fiction. What were you referring to . I had written for the wall street journal as middle east correspondent in february 1983, worked on the story for two years, the front page story said the cia the United States recruited chief of intelligence. And terrorist adversary. As cia asset. And in 1980 the 1979 by israel. And taken israeli lives. Two months after publishing that on the front page. And wild ames came and went to visit the cia station, we met with the military attache the same day. Just after 1 00 in april 1983, the biggest car bomb anyone had ever seen in beirut exploded the door of the embassy. I had gone back up the hill. A shattering roar, ran down the hill, the embassy just shattered. The flesh of the building had been ripped away. And this hero of the cia, had been killed along with every member of the cia stationing. They were all at lunch. In the aftermath of the tragedy the arabs who had been working us on this long line case. Chief of intelligence in constant contact. They can be involved in that and knew about it, needed to grieve over the loss of what we believed in. Working on the story for two years i was the only american alive, journalist coming in beirut, they felt they could talk to so people coming to me that a journalist doesnt here. I began to accumulate richness of information about a story whose basic outline, i began to know so much more, what on earth are you going to do with this . The answer was write a novel. I had no idea how it was, at the wall street journal for eight years, i said down, wrote the first draft, second draft, sent it to ten publishers, finally, the publisher was still my publisher, said that we will publish agents of innocence on condition you give us a nonfiction book. They didnt want the novel that much either but the nonfiction books that they thought journalists should write, that is how agents of innocence was published in 1987. It was essentially a true story, page 1 to the end. People who were most involved in the cia and intelligence agencies, israel, all of them knew immediately what when the book came out that it was all real. The book began to get a real cash with readers who knew and it began to be read. People at the cia say they give it out to explain versus what the business was about. I had over the years a dozen at various places around the world walk up to me i cant tell you who i am but i want to tell my mom and dad what i really did. It had the virtue of the basics of what an Intelligence Officer does told through the story of one of the great cases, brilliantly executed. And this guy was a man and that got me started and i never stopped. I taught myself how to write a novel and witness those rejection slips, and i began to learn the craft of writing fiction and got hooked on it and it played off of journalism. There is so much more i would like to say, to unpack ideas, issues in a way i say at the end of this book, when agents of innocence was published, that i would choose between being a journalist or novelist, i am glad i never had to make that choice. Host can we draw any Straight Lines from your column to your novel . You can draw Straight Lines in terms of subject matters. I have written a lot, i visited iran. Fascinated by the Iranian Nuclear program with intense interests. This the perfect setting. Imagining an Iranian Nuclear side, a vw. If you have something to tell us, do it. A lot of people coming in from iran. It is describing assault on the iranian supply chain that is eerily like stuck net, making some lucky guesses, more factual then i realized at the time. Readers read my columns when i was there. I was taking every piece that i could find and guidebook or restaurant, scrolling them all away to try to reconstruct a fictional iran. Host in depth, David Ignatius has anyone ever felt outed by you buy a character in one of your books . Guest people joked with me the other day, former Intelligence Officer said i am the real harry patterson, principal character in the book i just described, i didnt hear anger in that. A bit of a bragging right, the first novel, agents of innocence, was about things that are so sensitive that when a was published i didnt know what the consequences would be. I had never done this before. To get this has right as i can. Initially there was shock. To write sympathetically about that may be so but over the years i have written things that made peoples hair stand on end but never had anybody i try to be careful about not taking any character per se, peoples identities are at risk if they are disclosed. Host you have a former cia director who blurbed your book the bank of fear in 1995. How did you get that . Over the years these books have been read by a lot of cia officers. My new book the quantum spy has emerged from three former directors. I have been shameless in asking people no matter who they are, tv journalists, readers know, the quote on the back page, it could be embarrassing to knock on the door and say please please please read my book. And it was so difficult to get started but pretty much anybody who asks me to write a blurb for a book on a subject like that is a reason to read it, i will say yes. And give somebody else the start, the boost i had as a young writer, including former cia directors. Host good afternoon and welcome to booktv on cspan2 and this is the kickoff addition of our special fiction edition year of in depth. David ignatius is our guest this first month and all year long we will have fiction writers, bestselling fiction writers on the in Depth Program to talk about their books. The number the 2027488200. In the east and central time zone 7488201, mountain and pacific time zone and want to participate in our conversation this afternoon, you can participate in social media and that includes facebook, twitter, instagram and email, just remember, booktv is our handle and email address is booktv cspan. Org. As we mentioned, David Ignatius is a Washington Post columnist on National Security issues and author of these ten books. Agents of innocence which we talked about came out in 1987, hero 1991, the bank of fear in 1995, the firing offense in 1997, the sun king in 1999, perhaps you saw the movie, body of lies came out in 2007, the increment in 2009, blood money 2011, the director in 2014, and the quantum spy just came out in the last couple months. David ignatius, your books have moved from beirut to iran, iraq, washington, keeping up with all the threats. I wanted to write about china very deliberately. In terms of National Security threats Going Forward and opportunities. China needs to be at the top of the list. China announced that it intends to dominate commanding heights of technology. By 2030, sustained through 2050, they have been very specific and task their Intelligence Service to gather information, to reinforce that position,