Join the conversation with phone calls, tweets, texts and facebook messages. On booktv on cspan. Welcome. Thank you for joining us for our latest future tense social. This is very exciting for me because aim other huge fan of erik larsons books and we got to listen to a little churchill as we were warming um. Im andres martinez, the editorial director of future tense, collaboration between new america, and Arizona State university. We look at the implications of impact of technology on society and im prefer of practice our Cronkite School of journalism at Arizona State university. Its a pleasure to have you here and your latest book othe splendid and the vial a saga of churchill family and defiance during the blitz. Erik is the author of such fabulous books as dead week in the garden of beats, thunder struck, devil in white city. I have read most of your book but not read your first book. Was intrigued looking at your biography that you wrote a book called the naked consumer. How companies spy on individual consumers, which is actually a very future tensey subject. So maybe we will have you come back and talk about that one if also loved on your website, which you should listening to check out. I think its eriklarsonbooks. Com. You have an alternative biography which is fantastic and you describe the naked consumer is a book you really liked but nobody else did. And i seriously doubt that but ill take a look at that. Because were having this conversation today of all days i feel like shy ask the question on everyones mind and thats how did Winston Churchill celebrate cinco dimayo no. Im kidding. Guest that would stump me. Host okay. Youre right, that was not one of the things we discussed. All seriousness, we are having this event on zoom as opposed to in person which i would have loved. Because were on lock young quarantine, house arrest, choose your term in the face of the Global Pandemic, and so i just want to read a paragraph from your book to set a scene here. You wrote, churchills notion of what constituted an office was expansive. Often generals, ministers and Staff Members would find themselves meeting with churchill while he was in the bathtub, one of his Favorite Places to work help liked working in bed, and spent hours there each morning going through dispatches and reports with a teachist seated northeastern always present was the box. A black dispatch back that minutes. So, clearly Winston Churchill was someone who had mastered the art of working from home. Guest yes. Host something were all struggling to do these days and so maybe not the place that these conversations about your book usually start but im curious whether you think churchill would have some working frock home. Guest if i were Winston Churchill doing the zoom interview with you right now i would be in the bathtub. Actually churchill had no sense of vanity and very likely would have been completely naked doing it. He was an ace work at homer. The guy would get up relatively late in the morning and work in bed. He had his typist, his personal secretary, nearby with a at all times with a typewriter taking notes and more than likely have a cigar and also frankly morn lookly would have this is very appropriate for today very likely have a tumbler full of water and whiskey. Very little whiskey but nonetheless a whiskey and water. Host its interesting you talk about we tend to think of this epic relationship, friendship, partnership, alliance, whatever you want to call it, between fdr and churchill, and the Communications Going back and forth between washington and london and the summits. But i was it was interesting reading your book how a lot of the early conversations in d. C. When churchill first enters office is about the drinking and sort of some of his over the top nature of his personality and sort of i guess people were wondering is there somebody we can take seriously. Guest well, drinking has always been something that people have noted about churchill, but it is a mistake to ever think he was a drunk or an alcoholic. Certainly was not. In fact, his very close private secretary, John Colville wrote he had never seen churchill drunk or in any way with his faculties limited by alcohol. Churchill himself once said to clementine, he said ive taken a lot more of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me. So that is how he felt. Going back to the working at home aspect. One thing that sortly resonates today is that churchill in this period spent a lot of time the Prime Minister country home, and dividing his time between two Country Homes which other people are doing now. She would have been very likely quite at home with this whole was donate. Guest it was donated in 1914. Dont quote me. Donated the government. The idea being that chequers was to be used no work was to debun there no work was to be done there a place for Prime Ministers could just enjoy the buie alcoholic countryside and let their faculties restore. Churchill took that very, very differently. He decided to make this his country command post and packedded every weekend with guest and booze and fun. Host so, i have to confess that when i first heard that this was a subject of your next book, i was intrigued. I feel like i had read quite a lot about this first year of churchills being in office and that moment the finest hour that britain faced and the blitz and so forth and i think its and recent recently i read i think andrew drew roberts biogf churchill and we have been inundated with books about this great historical character and i might have skipped this book had it not been written by you. Having read your other book is felt like he is going to have a new angling, new insight, some new fame framing. Was it daunting at install tide you write about churchill because there were too many books written about lincoln . What drew you to guest listen i was totally daunted. Let me be clear. It was not actually churchill that drew me to do this work. Churchill kind of became entered the party a little late in the process because what happened is that i had decided for a variety of complicated reasons it would be very interesting to look into how it was that people actually got through the day during the blitz, during the german air campaign and including that portion we know as the blitz. Hough did they actually do it . And the reason was the reason was that we had my wife and i moved from seattle to new york city, and no sooner than i moved to new york city i had this epiphany what 9 11 had been like for new yorkers versus what the rest of us who rapid watched in realtime experience. A world of difference, the sense of violation of having your home city attacked and that made we write about how pea got through the blitz. 57 custody nights of bombing. 57 consecutive nights of bombing. I thought maybe id just write but the typical london family, and then i thought, why not the quintessential london family, churchill, his family, his advisers and see how they got through the day, and really nobody had actually done that, decided to take a close look at that daytoday experience, and thats what really helped me get through it. But was i daunted . Oh, yes. Oh, yes, once i realized how much material had been written but churchill and how much good stuff. Andrew roberts, my favorite of the churchill scholars, a brilliant writer. So much material had been done that i had to do had to make a strategic decision how to pursue the research. The idea of reading everything that had ever been written about churchill or by churchill which would have been herculean test, i realize would be a fools errand and would take me a decade and even then by the time i got to the tenth year, i wouldnt be done because eight more books would come out about churchill. So i did a made a strategic decision it would read us a much as i could and get a sense of churchill and the landscape and then dive into the archives to see what was really there. Thats where i feel most comfortable with original materials and so forth. So thats how i managed to kind of pare things down but i would have just been overwhelmed. Not to say that every single day for the last four and a half years i did not in fact and myself what am i doing . Host it was very interesting to see how it did feel like a portrait of churchills orbit. You had we were looking often seeing churchill and that historical moment through the eyes of his personal secretary or his daughter or other advisers that sometimes are not quite we dont necessarily see things through their perspective as much and some of the other accounts i have read. You mentioned churchills own writing. One thing that astonished me reading the roberts biography what i had no never had realized just how prolific really histories he wrote after the war but the fact that throughout his life, he would always get himself out of financial holes by his own writing and he was so prolific and commanded quite a lot of money for his journalistic writings earlier in a way i had not fully appreciated. Guest ultimately his writing got him finally out of the financial hole. One thing about churchill that is so remarkable is that he was extremely wellread, extremely talented writer, and also quite good painter but he also all this win into the machine that was churchills brain it and all really helped him in this process of trying to lead the nation through this particular through the crisis of that german air campaign. Host so, its interesting that you said you gravitated towards this moment by thinking about what it must have been like to be in new york on 9 11 and then sort of multiply that by 57 nights of the blitz and so forth. And then your book comes out in early 2020 and of course, we are now the entire world is fighting off this Global Pandemic which is an existential challenge to our society that is quite different from war, although we see people roaching for those analogies. The analogy it is unquestionable is the need for leadership to mobilize society, to meet the crisis at hap, that requires extraordinary effort and sacrifices, and so i want to ask you about that and whether theres a secret sauce to churchills leadership, but before we get to that, maybe just sort of set the scene, may 10, 1940, amazing day in history, its where your account starts, 80 years from this coming sunday, i was thinking about that in preparation of this. So just sort of set the scene in terms of describing what it was that the uk and Winston Churchill were facing. Guest so may 5, 1940, when the action starts in my poock was the day that churchill became Prime Minister, the greatest day in ohio life. I think even he would agree. The thing he wanted most of all. He payment prime he became pe minister owing to something of a rebellion free house of commons and the consents was that neville chamberlain, the prior Prime Minister, was not up to the challenge of dealing with hitler and germany. The same day, main 10, 1940, the phony war became a shot, shooting war when hitler invited the low countries. So heres this situation where churchill the greatest day of his life and also one of the darkest days in the history of the world. This did not daunt churchill. Churchill thought this si this like add spice to the challenge, the idea of being in charge of this great empire at such a dire time really kind of thrilled him. So, he becomes Prime Minister, really a immediately appoint thursday cabinet and this is crucial, the main characters in this book who i think in other works have been relegated to simply the secondary posture, but he quickly appoints his cabinet and immediately is confronting you talk about existential threats the presumption at the time was once germany consolidate its hold over france, that britished fors being he can eled the entire picture would change, prior to france falling, the assumption was that france would always stand, that this would keep the air force would not have the endures to fly to britain. With france falling that were german air bases on the coast of the english channel, just minutes away from england and london, something that planners in brian had never even speculated out. You hat thad three and the very real fear that germany would invade in a crosschannel attack. Seemed to most people at that time be a certainty. If germany ever attained air superiority over the channel other there would be a invasion. So taking control of britain at this time when not only has history hitler begun innovating country now facing an a threat in termed of invasion across the channel. What a hellish pros special for any normal mortal but not for churchill he took this on with a verve and gust score that came through time good time again in subsequent months. Host we were listening to snip. Snippets of his speech and his oratory we have all been exposed to it and a lot of hollywood renditions. And yously he had a gift, a language. But when you think of the his recipe for leadership, i think theyre a ten den si to focus on the oratory and that ability to communicate and inspire through the leveraging the english language man shouldnt be unestimated but was it mostly that he was a great communicator or how much of the ratio of elements and guest a mix of things. First of all were all familiar if oratory, the great line, never has so much been owed by so many to so few. Thats not strong point of his speeches. In fact at the time that particular line did not necessarily have the same resonance it does now for all of us. Basically a speech, just a speech, but the thing that made churchill i think particularly excellent at communicating not just news and information put also communicating also a sense of reason for courage, is how he structured his speeches with got a taste of the opening speech about dunkirk. Hayes a great story teller and he was telling as you heard in the opening moments, he was telling it as a story, as this is what was happening, this is hough it was up following, sort of unfolding, sort of a thrilling story. He would give you give his audience a sober appraisal of the situation. Not happy talk. Just a down to erring, sober sometimes too sober and detailed and scared the heck out of the audience and then follow with comments about, real grounds for why people should be optimistic, like how this problem of the blitz, of dunkirk, of the potential for a german invasion how this can be resolved, positive reason for optimism, and not happy talk. Real grounds for optimism, and then would come the rhetorical force at the end that would metaphorically have people rising from their seats and saying im going to be part of this. Were going to take this guy on, goddamnity and this is how it well be. Weeing beat hitler. That was a very powerful thing but theres another element to churchills leadership. One of is that come booze may the terms of his able to communicate. Being this great reader of history, he had this ability to put people to place people into the grand epic of british history to make them feel as if they were part of this great islands story has he would put it and that was important to make them feel part of this thing, this great tradition, and also he had a real understanding of the power and sim pollic act of symbolic acts, something as simple as refusing to call hitler by his name. He would say, that man, or that wicked man, which when you think, very subtle but very powerful thing. If you dont identify, if you dont demonize your enemy, mate makes them seem like this presence off in distance, then other end of this continuum, he learn very early on in the blitz of the power of visiting bombed out areas and showing him there, showing himself surveying the damage, talking to people, expressing emotions. Not afraid at all of weeping in public and also showing his resolve simply by by being there he was engagings in a courageous act and showing tee defians. I had to landfill, graham way the i had to laugh when we saw vicepresident mime pence at the mayo clinic without a mask when everybody else was wearing a mask, and to think of that to think of the optics of that, possibly appealing to a tiny slice of america maybe but somebody like churchill would be wearing this mask, charging around, saying this is what we do. That power of sim pollic acts and if you symbolicking as and if you engage symbolic acts that create you dont wear a mask when your audience knows damn well you should be wearing the mask, thats problem that uncutsor credibility as a leader. Churchill had this acute sense of the power of symbolic acts. Another example is he certainly seemed to be utterly fearless and frankly i think fearlessness is ineffect infectious and can be taught. When there were air raids churchill was more than likely to good on the nearest roof and watch the air raid and bring people with him, including staff. Thats the kind of leader he wase ive been to the bunker which they now expand into a nice museum in london at that time was there for them and then to read that he wasnt going to be very not going to spend much time there because he was going to he rooftop snow only spent three nights in the churchill war room. Host one thing that fascinates me, and i dont maybe talk but this as a source the extent to which we have some realtime information on how people responded to his speeches and so forth through the project, the Mass Observation, something i first learn about reading britain residents war and describing the Mass Observation phenomenon. A sociological process. Can you describe that . I dont know todays equivalent, social media or google searches. Guest Mass Observation was a social Sciences Organization that was founded before the war, the opinion being to create as the to create a social psychology of ourselves, the idea being to recruit hundreds of diarists to just write about daily life in britain, the one way that the diarists were recruited to do this were to sharpen their skills was to describe things on their man tellpiece. Its that kind of daily personal detail. So all these diarists submitting them for analysis and then he war starts and then they continue to keep their diary is. What a tremendous resource. One of my favorite diarists of the mass 0 observation group, olivia, who is she is a clerk for scotland yard, dating an old are man well, a married man. Shes in this love affair with an older man, and her diary shows this i think shows in metaphorically what the broader culture in britain was experiencing, and how they evolved. Here comes the blitz, dem 7, 1940. She is officers. Like everybody else in london she is terrified like he everybody necessary london am shocking thing. Up until then the belief was that for whatever reason london would not be attacked digerman bomberes directly. Sheers terrify. Over time, she becomes less terrified. The Pivotal Moment when an incendiary bomb lands outside her house. The germans attacked at night and would first well, in many cases they would first drop a live incendiary bomb, the opinion being to set things on fire so the flames would serve as a beacon for bombers to follow because this was an era when night at night was best done with moonlight and if you didnt have moonlight you had to have fires as beacons. One of these incendiary bombs landed outside her house. She put out the incendiary bomb and was so proud of herself, so elated, that really suddenly she would no longer afraid. She had stood up to this awful assault from germany and she had had the courage to do this and hat the courage to put this thing out. Meanwhile her lover became as she is quite candid about hour lover and their sex life actually her lover became more and more fearful, and my favorite moment is as the temperature proceeds, as time passes, theyre walking during dash as an air raid begins to occur and hear two bombs falling. They have distinctive sound. They hear two bombs falling and her lover shouts for her to get down and she said, not in my new coat im not. Host thats great. So, we are future tense, we are usually focused on our relationship to technology and the impact of technology on society and, so part of the reason i wanted to have this conversation with you, other than the fact im a fan of your books and a history buff, there is sort of a future tense connection here which is one are of the other things was struck by reading your book, however familiar i may or hey not have the been with churchill, you really portray him as a i dont know if you call him a technologist in todays sense of the word but like a tech enthusiast and the character professor behindman in the book is an interesting one and his role as part of churchills circle. So, if you could just talk about that radar or cryptography with the enigma code and technology was a huge part of what turned the tide and helped the allies and particularly the english contributions. But that was not something we think of we have this image oft churchill as this antiquated figure from the distant past and not necessarily Technology Savvy isnt necessary thely the first thing that come dozen mind put your book that was an interesting theme. Guest first of all he loved the idea of secret weapons. He was a big believer in the potential for tech nothing to give britain a significant edge in terms of weaponry and so forking. One of the advisers he appointed this is another aspect of his leadership smarts, his special sauce if you will, was that he appointed advisers that he knew would give him the straight story. He at any time appoint people who would simply suck up to him and say, yes, my lord, youre doing exactly the right thing. Frederick lindeman was one of the most thoroughly disliked men in the government, in white hall, the strict of considered to be the british government. He was disliked by just about everybody except mr. Churchill and churchs wife and children because Frederick Lindeman, aka the prof, never froth their birthdays. He appointed lindeman to be his personal scientific adviser, very smart, savvy move. It gave churchill an insight into what technological things were actually happening within britain, but also it gave Frederick Lindeman cart blanc to investigating in he wanted to, any technological issue, and this was very powerful because it assured churchill would get the straight story, not something that was fabricated or massaged, because Frederick Lindeman had this ability to look into anybodys affairs, any ministrys affairs and bring back a report to churchill. In some cases he wrote his own memoranda for churchill to sign that would be distributed then to the ministers in question. This proved to be a very valuable thing. For example, it turn out that the british didnt really actually know how many planes no surprise but didnt know how many aircraft germany had. Kind 0 an important thing to go in terms of what kind of offensive they can wage and also didnt know how many aircraft the raf had. Another issue and that comes out in the saga as well. In fact such a conundrum that churchill decided he would actually hire a criminal court judge to review the evidence on both sides. This was the judge who had actually handled very famous murder case called the jigsaw murder because the bodys chopped up into so many bases because the bodies had to reassembled to determine who the victims were. So he actually had to hire a judge to sit in on this meeting of the minds about just statistically reckon sense of other technological elements, to try to determine how many planes did these people have and how many plane does we have so fascinating. But the prof is a character who gets short shrift in history. Host theres also im sorry. Im think what youve said about churchill not needing to surround himself with yes men who are going to tell him i dont now if its a cultural shift but in our present politics you cannot have any press conference or Cabinet Meeting without everybody going around and thanking the leader for tremendous and in the Trump Administration has taken that to a completely new level but i think it is broader than that. More widespread. Remember the sense that was there were updates about the situation on the frontlines, that they spent 2030 minutes thanking churchill for his great leadership. Guest an analogy to the con tell pear situation. I argue that Anthony Fauci serve this purpose of Frederick Lindeman. The Current Administration doesnt want that kind of input and doesnt like having somebody like fauci out there as a loose cannon and churchill wanted Frederick Lindeman to be in everybodys face. This was his mandate to get out there and cause trouble and he did in spades. Host i want to remind people that you can upload questions on the q a feature and we starting to get some. But dont forget about that. And then on the sort of industrial side, erik, you have lord beaverbrook who was the production czar and he is an interesting character that might be a little more familiar, but we havent analogous characters once the u. S. Entered the word, a former ceo of gm was brought in for a dollar a year famously by fdr to ramp up production, and beaverbrook, he didnt know how many planes they had but the raf determined they needed a lot explore he was brought . Guest beforebrook is there have been biographies of him but i feel in larger biographies of churchill he gets somewhat short shrift but was crucial in this era. The he was widely hated as well. And in that case even Clementine Churchill did not like warren beaverbrook. Of churchill became Prime Minister he appointed both brooke the minister of aircraft protection and set up the ministry of aircraft production. Churchill recognized something early on and that is and his military advisers recognized that if they were if britain was ever to be able to repel an invasion it would require first would require they hold the the to lutfwafe at bay and the realize the only way to prevent germany from getting air superiority was through the use of fighter aircraft, to take down their fighter and bombers so he appoints beaverbrook to the minister of aircraft with the express role of ramping up aircraft manufacture. Much more had to be done, britain needed vast numbers of fighter to repel this assault. Beaverbrook had never been an industrial object before help was a newspaper baron, and he knew about ramping up circulation and knowing the dirt on everything else. So now suddenly he is put in the charge of the ministry of aircraft production and the whole opinion was to shake things up. He knew this guy was hated but was incredibly smart and if anybody do do the job would we lord beaverbrook and he came through to an incredible degree. And really kind of saved the day. So, there, too, it was not exactly the Technology Side but he really understood not the manufacturing of aircraft. He understood the motivation of people and one of the most interesting things he did was he made sure that raf pilots, actual pilots, people who actually had their wings, would visit aircraft industry Aircraft Manufacturing Companies to talk but what the planes were doing and how valuable it was they were doing it. Another thing here, too, very good at the power of symbolic gestures as well. He would they would bring german aircraft that were shot down, they would put them on the back of the truck and drive them through towns as if just simply reclaiming the aircraft and bringing it back. The point was to show people with hey done this, we brought down this german aircraft which is a little detail. Host one of the things that its also easy to forget is the longevity that churchill had on historical scene. He doesnt become Prime Minister until 1940, may 10th. As you say and by that point he is how old . Guest when he becomes Prime Minister . 65. Host okay, 65. But he had been this famous character even in his youth because of his experiences in the boar wars and his writings about it and then he is in a high position in the cabinet during world war i, with some controversies involving gallipoli, but theres guest he gets kicked out of his post as first lord of the admiralty because of gallipoli. Host i was putting it nicely but youre right. So jackson has a question, in the audience some she is asking, an interesting question but bring up the longevity. Churchill was the first lord of the admiralty during the time frame i think of the sinking of the lusitania and so he is a character in dead wake, your book about the lusitania which is amazing and i highly recommend. So amys question was did you research for this book change the image of churchill you had then and portrayed in dead weight . And is that one thing that led you to want to write more about this character. Guest so the answer to your question is, no. The answer to your question, a very interesting question. I writing about churchill in the book out the lusitania, i like churchill even then. I know he screwed up with gallipoli. And that is really very an interesting story in and of itself but i think rather than changing my perception of him, it sort of fleshed out my sense of what churchill was really all about. And made him seem to me a richer his experience during world war i informed my research in this current book by making him seem more of a nuanced character. A flawed, which, which he was, deeply flawed. And make no mistake, you can criticize churchill for many, many things especially in his postworld war ii goals and also in some of the thing hes he did prior basically an imperialist but he was the leader of the moment, the man of the hour, and his experience during world war i was i think important to know because he screwed up. He screwed up bigtime in that prior experience, and now here he was coming into this war during this even i think actually graver apparent existential threat, and how he then how he mustered the confidence to do so. A tremendous story. The two the first did not lead me to do this at all. Host gotcha. You talk about his him being a flawed character, and him being sort of an arch imperialist and i get the sense this comes across in the roberts biography, too, that even in his days he seemed somewhat his way of thinking seemed a little outdated and ultimately nostalgic, and in the 30s he is i think he seen by many people as a bit preposterous and over the top and to mellow mellow dramatickic and partly because he is beating the drum on the threat the nazis pose. You think about the kind of leadership we need when a Democratic Society is casing an existential crisis, is the persona and the traits you want you need in a leader maybe theyre different from the kinds of leaders and traits in your leaders you want in a time of normalcy. In may 1940 they turn to churchill, who was sort of this larger than life and character that was sort of had been so out of the mainstream until events caught up, they had no more choice in a way, and then one of the things that is just so poignant but the whole saga of the war from the british perspective and the churchill protagonist, he get voted out of office two months after ve day, a month before the war ends in japan. Thats so unimaginable to us reading, to us learning about this 80 years on and that would happen to somebody who charred at the country through this experience on his shoulders. Was there a realization then that this guy is great for an emergency but too much too much melodrama in this type of leadership for peacetime. Guest i dont know but the melodrama part but clearly what brought churchill in was a profound sense that neville chim chamberlin was not up to the task and the British Public justify best the end of the war had the same feeling but chunk while he was great during the war, confident, strong, and really able to rouse the public with his rhetoric, maybe that is not what we need now. Maybe now we need a little more stability and a little bit to manage the postwar era. So, yeah issue think there are people who are not suited to certain kinds of leadership. There are certain generals who are suited for desk jobs and certain generals suited for being out there on the battlefield, and so, yeah. Host right. A couple of questions here about coventry which are interesting. Its something that you hear off and on about and im not clear exactly what urban legend at is truth. A movie indicate that churchill was told by the decoderred that bout an impending attack by germany and churchill told not to warn the target because that would make the german realize their code has hat had been tracked inch truth to story. Guest not in the case of coventry. The story of Kevin Coventry is this. Thanks to code breaking. He knew there was a big raid coming, called moonlight sonata but wasnt clear where it was going to do. The presumption among the intelligence was british air intelligence presumes was the attack would be on london and on a particular night. It actually happened on one night earlier. Churchill was a report was done full of detail and that was meant for the Prime Minister, was given to him apparently, according to one accountant, given to him in the car as he was leaving town to go to chequers, and it was so alarming, suggesting that there was this massive raid going to occur against london that night. He came back and in fact he was on the rooftop of the air ministry building, waiting for this huge raid that he feared would come but it was not coming to london. It was coming to coventry. Did huh know it would . He did no a raid was coming, he presumed the target would be london help had no idea that coventry would be involved. Host and also on the subject of coventry, and you described the aftermath very movingly, david peters thanks you for joining us, and he says he found your description of that aftermath of the bombing apropos to our current moment, particularly the pooch by the bishop at the first mass funeraly he says let us vow before god good be better friends and neighbors in the future because we have suffered this together and have stood here today. From writing this book and your many others what morals, Police Officers have what would be the murder day equivalent of that bishops speech . Guest the modern day equivalent of that bishops speech . That we have heard thus far . Nothing frankly from the federal government but i think that the new york state governor andrew cuomo, one thing ive been impressed by in his dale dailey briefings is hi emphasis on things are improving now, rates of hoppings are coming hospitalizations are coming down in new york state. Always very careful to emphasize how tragic, the disaster of all the nights. Never let us all forget the fact that what even though were in this race now to reduce the virus, to make it subside, he is always reminding us of the grave losses we are still experiencing. Never loses that perspective and thats very important thing. Now, another aspect of leadership and churchill had this as well first of all i think to be a powerful not powerful but to be an effective leader you have to have a strong wellbalanced moral compass and one ancillary effect of having a strong moral compass your able to experience and express empathy, and thats something that churchill was very, very good about. He could manage both. Manage waging war, the first to confess he loved the thrill of war, but he was also deeply empathic and understand on a very personal level what the people of britain were experiencing. The speech by the bishop was a very, very moving and very christian in the best sense. I find found it very important to make reference to that. Host so, were seeing a lot of nice things about churchill in terms of his rising to the occasion in the first year and meeting the moment but janice asked a question the book is very little attention to any unhappiness in the population with churchill and his handling of the war. Was there very little of this . Guest well, i can go through all the home intelligence reports and tell you what i found and didnt find. The oversense was people were satisfied about there were moments when they were less satisfied. Generally their overall sense i got about the public and churchill, from the diaries was people were very impressed with him and they were very, very satisfied and happy with his leadership. There were critics but that seem to be the overriding sense. Host in the time of war, theres a rally around the flag effect. You mentioned obviously over time people adjusted and as we talk about four years later voted him out of officey. Talked about 9 11. We can fraught that two manages after 9 11 in november 2001, george w. Bushs approve ratings stood at 91 here in the u. S. And so that kind of effect is obviously in a Global Pandemic with all of the current environment, not necessarily going to play out the same way. Guest its also one important thing to note but churchill, one reasons he became Prime Minister in the first place is because he had overwhelming public support, and this is something that the king and the rebels actually had to acknowledge, the parliamentarian rebels had to acknowledge he had this great reservoir of popularity and it persists through this at least through this period. Host a couple of people i want to get to this. A couple of people watching and this is my reaction, too felt like Mary Churchills diary was an amazing addition to your book. Somebody is asking, can you talk but the diary . Has this been used before . Other books . Guest yes. So, first of all Mary Churchill miss favorite character the diary was a tremendous asset in working on this book. When i got permission toite from her daughter, i was at that point one of only two people who had actually look at this diary. This diary is very knew in terms of new material and her perspective. She is a very, very smart, very astute and accurate observer of everything around here and she adored her father and he was 17. Guest she would grieve for him when he came under criticism which he did periodically for perceived errors but she was a wonderful observer and that but the thing that i really loved about mary was that she was exactly the kind of presence or observer that i was trying to corral for this book, for this lens i was trying to open. How they got through this thing, how did they do this daily. In addition to being a very, very astute observer and very smart, very articulate observer, she also was after all a 17 year girl who liked to have fun and there were references to snogging in the hayloft with raf pilots and going to parties at the bases and this is lovely counterpoint and she and a friend of hers at one opinion resolved they were going to learn all the shakespearean son knots, one per day during the summer. They did okay at that time that bun didnt complete the mission. So Mary Churchill was a wonderful, charming character. The makes the book honestly. Host so, lastly, we have a question from victoria who talks about how she is struck by churchills appropriation and understanding of history, something that maybe he did share with the previously reverend abraham lincoln. And so you can say a little bit about that and also her question is, what are you as somebody who appreciates history, choosing to read these days while you are homebound in new york. Guest well, i will tell you that when it comes to reading for pleasure, or in this particular time, i read totally for escape. Im doing the literary equivalent of cowering. I love thrillers. I have to qualify that. I just finished reading the lord of the flies. I reread it for whatever reason but it actually turned out to be a really great, comforting kind of read for this period. Id rather be sequestered in my house than been on that island with a bunch of Primal School boys bent on killing each other. I read for distraction. I loaf good thriller. One of my favorite things was the couple next door, terrific, nice, real request sharp, edgy thriller. So i read totally for escape. Thats my mission right now. Host eric, i this has bun such a mother. The hour flew by. On a personal note, i also wanted to mention that i read a lot of your other books as im sure a lot of us watching have, and in the garden of beasts, was really i had a slight personal connection to it because my father i grew up in mexico and my father, who was i am a mutt, me mom was american andty father was mexican. When my water goss together night school in mexico city in the 50s, he got he was offered like Administrative Office job by somebody named alfred stern, and got to know martha dodd and when i was a kid i would hear interesting story about the people. He was studying law at night and working in the during the day for this character who was of great interest to the u. S. Government and to read your book where martha dodd this daughter of the u. S. Ambassador in berlin 20 years before that and quite the character, it is an interesting corroboration and post script on the stories i would have from million schnur interesting. Host i thank you for that and i know we could have a side bar on. That. But thanks to all of you for guest thank you. For watching this latest future tense social. We do these tuesdays and thursdays at 4 00 eastern, of. Please check out the events page of new america or slate, and come join us for more of these, and, eric, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Host stay safe everybody. Thank you. Having lived through a loss of confidence in our institutions, a wave of cynicism that has left us unable to trust what we are told by anyone who calls themselves an expert. It becomes very difficult for us to rise to a challenge like this. We are our first reaction is to say theyre lying to us and a lot of our National Institutions have got to take on the challenge of persuading people again that they exist for us, theyre here nor country. Watch indepth public tv on cspan2. James patterson as our guest on book tv, the author of about 150 books or so
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