Bookstore. We celebrated 51 years this year. Would like to thank all of our supporters, the supporters of Scott Anderson and julian sank ten. The output of luck for bookstor bookstore. We have adapted to the Current Situation had to adapt again. So we are bring you the things you love the most about books through these Virtual Events but were also offering Curbside Pickup which is scheduled to resume this coming saturday. You can order scotts book and pick it up starting again on saturday. Or, if you are anywhere in the country you can have it mailed to you. We offer a variety of mailing options. And we can get the book in the mail to you wherever you are. We are happy to be able to bring our events theories virtual. It advances our way to expand our mind and make the world a better place but we hope you enjoy this event and hope you support Scott Anderson and purchase a book for you and all of your friends. This keeps events or is going, its what keeps our doors, whether they are open. You know it is what keeps us getting your books is what is most important. So when you buy a book you keep your money here in st. Louis. And it helps us be a better bookstore. To thank you all so much for your support. I am shame molen i am the defense coordinator. The fantastic team here in st. Louis. Well be taking questions of the audience and be sure to type your questions at the comments will get to those at the end of the event. Be sure to publish on facebook to be notified of all of our fantastic events. From the bestselling author of lawrence in arabia, a gripping history of the early cold war predeceased covid battles against communism and the tragic consequences would still affect america in the world today. The end of world war ii the United States dollar into the world militarily, economically and in moral standing. Seen as a victor over tyrant in a champion of freedom it was clear too some that the soviet union was already executing a plan to expand, implement, revolution around the world. The american strategy relied on the response of the secret efforts of a newly formed cia. The quiet americans chronicle the four sides. Michael burke a charming former football star fallen on hard times, frank wisner the sign of a wealthy southern family. A sophisticated german jew who escaped the nancys. Edward a brilliant ad executive. The Covid Operations on the klobuchar trying to outwit the kgb in berlin. Plotting coups and directing wars against communist insurgents in asia. But again their efforts went awry. Thwarted by a combination of stupidity and ideological rigidity at the highest levels of the government and more profoundly the decision to abandon american ideals. By the mid 1850s the soviet union had a stranglehold on Eastern Europe. The u. S. Had begun its disastrous intervention in vietnam and america. The beacon of democracy was overthrowing it democratically elected government in earning the hatred of much of the world. All this culminated into an act of betrayal and cowardice that would lock the cold war into place for decades to come. Anderson brings to the telling of the story all of the narrative deep research skeptical eye and loudly pros make lawrence in arabia and Major International bestseller. The intro leading lives of these men is a common purpose of defending freedom of the ravages of the cold war led them to different fates. To equip the cia and spare stricken by the moral compromise they had to make with the duplicitous and destructive american site. Will be so heartbroken he would take his own life. The quiet americans is the story of these four members also the story of how the United States at the very pinnacle of its power managed to permanently damage its moral standing in the world. And patrick the authors say nothing says in this sweeping vivid beautifully observed a book, Scott Anderson unearths the devastating secret history of the United States lost during the cold war. By focusing on this twisty colorful lives of four legendary spies, anderson distills the larger geopolitical saga into an intimate story of flawed but talented men of the disease of empires. At of the inescapable moral hazard of american idealism and power. Is a hell of a book with themes about the unintended consequences of espionage, intervention that still resonates powerfully today. Scott anderson is the author of two novels and for works of nonfiction including lawrence of arabia and International Bestseller that was a finalist for the National Critic book circle award. In a New York Times notable book. As a correspondent he is a corresponding writer for the nearest times magazine. And tonight, Scott Anderson will be in conversation with julian santon. Julian is a senior features editor and has included publications with vanity fair, esquire and bloomberg. As the author of the upcoming Nonfiction Book madhouse at the end of the world, but an illfated 19th century antarctic expedition will be providing a link for that as wellin the comments pretty fun to preorder that you can too. I am so happy and thrilled to be able to walk and Scott Anderson and julian santon to reinstate today is the publication day which is a very exciting day for authors when they get to see their book and the wild for the first time. Self everyone at home and please help me in celebrating that by giving both scott and juliet a hearty round of applause wherever you are. Loud enough so we could all hear it. Thank you so much. Stomach thank you so much for having me in having us. And for everybody tuning in. Scott this is such a critical period of history or covering. In terms of geography and time in the couple decades youve covered so much goes on in that. You dealt with it well by focusing on four people who, why they are extremely influential or not household names. First of all, how did you settle on this approach . More importantly how did you settle on those poor guys . I was a product of the cold war. I grew up in east asia. Selfcreated indonesia. These were heavily militarized zones. Anticommunist they were. [inaudible] the sense of cold war as a real thing i kind of grew up with that. Id always wanted to explore that writing. And starting to do a little bit of research. I really came to the conclusion that so much of what was to come with that of the cold war almost 50 years, so much of what had become was set into place with world war ii in the mid 1950s. In 1944 fdr signed but world war p Connell Mcshane with the end of the empire. It was in america was going to be this harold of democracy. And we go 12 years on 1956, and now the United States is paying for the maintenance. In the not breeding democracy there overthrowing. So how did that happen that part of history . What also occurred to me was the kind of history like to write and read as the people on the front lines. Its not generals or statesmen sitting behind a desk. It is men and women who are moving up to the front lines. When it comes to the cold war with the flint frontline soldiers if you will or were stopped. Once the infiltrated each side, so i thought great. [laughter] i get to write about spies. But the process of finding thes these, i would love to found a kneejerk or. Unfortunately anytime. Im writing about all of the field operatives were old men. Two of the men, frank and edward were somewhat wellknown. The other to michael and peter not at all. So it took them a lot. I wanted to find people, big stuff had happened to them during this timeframe. They were also changed by it. And left a paper trail showing that change. We 25 Different Things to focus on. I ended up with these four. Its kind of the proverbial chest of letters in the attic. Peter is still live, he is 97 years old. He is the last surviving member of the cia of the early cold toward. And hes agreed to a whole series of interviews. Host speaking of paper trai trail, there were one challenge im sure you faces you are writing the history of an agency that is dedicated to secret deception. I assume that first of all and mustve been very hard to find people writing reliable stories at any length. And second of all, how does that, how does the cia they mustve had a hand in redacting what ever. You had a story but how you were to get unredacted with michael burke. In particular tells a little bit about that. Guest yes there is censorship. But fortunately the censorship tends to be fairly incompetent. I mean literally there may be a page that had been redacted by nature. Sometimes i can actually take out the name with the black sharpie that they had used. You could see letters when the name is been redacted. You can also triangulate information. This happens all the time. Two men are in a topsecret meeting and they both wrote memorandums of that meeting. You go to one of their member atoms in the almost all blacked out. The other barely touched. In the case of michael burke, he actually wrote an autobiography. And because he was in the cia had to go in front of the city i review board. They completely gutted his book. It was published all the best parts had been excised. But it was actually a cia official who said i happen to know theres the uncensored manuscript. At Boston University. And so sure enough they went to Boston University and there wasnt unredacted manuscript. So i could fill in all the details they had taken out. Host in the case of peter, and there were two others who struck me as people that could have made for a great character to focus on, phillips have been a great one. Anyway. The case of peter i believe you spoke to one of their 90yearold forget what his name was. Was it tough getting him to agree to talk about this . Or was he just sort of waiting for somebody to ask . Guest probably somewhere in between. Guys who are still around, they live under a lifelong, not bend but until the day they die there certain things they cant talk about legally. But what i really wanted to talk to peter about was what was it like . He was the station chief from the end of world war ii to 1952. So he had really been in ground zero of the confrontation during those years. So i wanted him to tell me essentially what was it like . What were the pressures he faced . He told me an amazing story. One thing is very clear about was how utterly clueless the americans were going up against the soviets who had deception and disinformation down to a fine art. The other thing i should add, again when peter showed up and west berlin to become the Covid Operations chief in 1945, there are thousands of soviets operating. Peter headed up a nine man unit and he just turned 24. The soviet model, he told the story 1956 they were running chains of informants all through east germany, eastern germany. And theyre all being run by former military german officers. And we talked about typical german arrogance. They were not concerned about how long these chains are running and the sub agent. And he talked about how one night one guy disappeared. With 24 or 48 hours everybody got grabbed. It was probably like 300 people. The kgb at them completely wired the whole time and they were just waiting. Even if some of the story, 67 years later he still gets emotional about it. All these people have vanished. Host it just seems that kgb throughout the period you talk about have their act together in a way that america never did. America was winging at the entire time. Where the kgb has almost get smart levels, sting operations. There are elaborate hoaxes. Has that always, is that still the case they have their ducks in a row . And whatever the inheritors of the kgb are . Were privy to all of this. I dont know, are we now living through the consequences for the continuation of the. You are talking about in terms of effectiveness in both agencies . Guest i think so. I think there are two things. I think you still see it today. Certainly we sought from the day and even before world war ii, the soviets understood that the next enemy was the western and the United States. We were absolutely going to be adversaries. You see that all the way down. The americans were very slow to understand that. Truman had just come in. And for a couple of really crucial years seek imagine the work Climate Alliance might be safe. These are two crucial live in china years in which the americans were demilitarized while the soviets were taking over all of Eastern Europe. So that is one thing. The second thing is the soviets, the things they would do in the field and deal espionage, to the western mind kind of unbelievable. When things have do quite and they did it very recently is theyll call eight dangle across to the west. Its essentially a false defective rated come across and say what two defects. And to build up his own, he will rat out other russian or soviet agents in the field. These are his colleagues. The guys get arrested and thrown into prison. And sometimes if it an important enough operation, one guy got rat out a dozen of his own colleagues. From the top. This is a coldblooded notice that, not that the cia could not be coldblooded in other ways. This is something that no western Intelligence Agency would conceive of. You dont sacrifice one of your men let alone 12 and order to help. Stuart you make that case of mentality stem from the pathology of one man, stalin. This whole idea of the paranoia to behave that way. And to go in and treat human life as expendable. Is that an exaggeration to say the kgb ml and the worthlessness of the soviets at the beginning is an extension of his own paranoia . Guest i think the figure of stalin absolutely adds to the feelings of paranoia and even panic. Already, they had nobody behind their iron curtain. To report what was going on there. I had no idea that in the 1950s the cia did not have a more anywhere near. Not even in the fifth layer of the ministry of agriculture. They had nobody. On top of that you got figures like stalin who essentially is a sociopath. And how do you ever predict what he is capable of doing next . Sounds kind of silly but have been facing the movie fargo, the geopolitics immediately after world war ii come into my head. Its basically a story of a gardenvariety crime planned of a crate where no one is supposed to get hurt. But the sociopaths is thrown into the middle of it. And all hell breaks loose. And i really think is so much of trying to figure out what was coming next and the aftermath of world war ii revolves around this utterly unpredictable character. She went one area where it seems like the cia has some success and the soviets didnt is far as i can tell did not be behind him was psychological warfare. First of all is that correct they were not doing on the levels of the americans . And second of all tell me about fortune and these tory. Guest he is one of the fourth followed pretty is operating in asia. He is an ad executive before the war. And he came out to asia at a time when a lot of times insurgencies were just starting up. And you know he had this very simple concept if you want to win of the populace you have to give the population of government to leave it in a state in the system. In place like the philippines. The country has been ruled for decades by very corrupt oligarchy. Kind of the same things have happened now. And his idea is we can reform the government. Confines of it he is to rob the country. As far as the actual fighting about the insurgency unity of the soldiers out of their barracks spacing as a force thats good. Actually bring and harvest. Not singlehandedly he had a huge role in the philippines. Hes so successful that by 1964 when vietnam was started the cia and famously the cia director said this to the thing thats in the book. Sweet goes out there actually tries. I do comes close to being successful. Like he did in the philippines were a kind of handpicked a president to come in. He handpicked a new Prime Minister in vietnam. And he was kind of visit whisper and hide defeat communist high for me barack or c. I got so big in vietnam the siam ideas got swept away by this huge military bureaucracy coming in. So 19624 he headed up the First American military mission to south vietnam. He and 12 other guys. Theyre the only game in town for a few years. Then of course eventually they were followed by 3 million more. Is a sort of near intervention what could have been an intervention in vietnam and how that might have let out crises. He mentioned several other that could have diffuse the cold war. Tell us about those and these moments where things could have gone much better, could have gone differently and ended more prints back on mentioned to mention roosevelt in 1934. What world war ii is supposed to bring in part of democracy. He dies three weeks before the end of the war. Truman comes in, truman is in way over his head. He first meets stalin any famously has the first meeting with stalin and that summer of 1945. Honest but he is smart as hell but i can deal with it. He does not have the selfassuredness. Hes pretty much wrong on all accounts. I think that is receiving the moment or fdrs death when it came was in this kind of awful fork in the road. He wouldve known how to deal with stalin he wouldve done the usurping of Eastern Europe in a way were truman to my mind was kind of a deer in the headlight headlights. The other great turning point was have the book on the hungarian revolution. There is a spontaneous revolution people rose up from the streets the military join this revolution. And there was this moment work crews jeff you know what, we have to let hungary go. We cannot do this militarily. So the tanks were leaving. And literally the very next day, november 1, 1956, over the course of the night cruise chest changes his mind. You know if the americans were do anything to help hungary and revolutionaries they lived at it by now. Theyre not coming. With hungary go, we are going to lose. Sony to try and go back in. The really incredibly sad thing with the Eisenhower Administration have been talking was the lack of communism. And encouraging people to rebel