With hitler, mussolini, and helped shape the way american saw the world in the 1930s and 1940s. Thank you so much for joining us today. In this afternoon session. The last call took on at war and signing at the book sale. The see a tent during the q a. Wean please use the standing mie here. Also a note by cspan. Its the richard w professor of historyes household gods. Come home and family secrets. From punk rock to world war i photography. As a contributing writer to the new york writer and a professor the Washington PostNational Staff but that miami herald. He is the author of michelle obama. Please join me and welcoming our distinguished guests today. [applause] thank you, thank you so much for that. Thanks everyone for being here. Ive been lookingor forward to this for many weeks. This is a wonderful book. It is both intricate and clarify which is a rare feat. Beautifully written and quite riveting about a time between the wars in europe when some of the momentous events in the 20th century were unfolding. And watching this and telling the stories back here for this remarkable crew of reporters whom deborah has discovered and has excavated their lives both their personal lives and the professional lives. I would love to start by asking about that contrast. He had this moment in 20s and 30s when the world is changing. They come to power the soviet union, worldbe war i is over. World warf ii may be viewing te rights of hitler, mussolini, the stock market crash. You focus not blow on Winston Churchill. Or in the journalism world on even william but these four rather unknown to us now journalist headed to discover them and to suspend these tales . Thank you for joining me its a privilege to be in conversation when you thank you so much to everyone for being here. I actually knew this group of people, at least a couple of them because the books of jon gunther were on my parents shelves and probably a number of other may be those of you in the audience shelves as well. He had more bestsellers american bestsellers that any author other than the romance novelist from the mid 1930s until the end of the 50s. So it used to bait you could not walk into a used bookstore without seeing a jon gunther book. And Vincent Sheehan had written a book in 1935 called personal history that was when these error defining books and my father, who was born in 19308 had been one of his favorite books. So i chose to focus on a group of american reporters. Two of whom had worked for chicago papers. But all of whom had come from small towns and midwestern cities. One of them from texas and had shot off to europe and to asia in the early 1920s. There they will become the most influential reporters of their day. So he does not make his name until the Second World War after it. Same thing with merle. If you are looking for who was really important in bringing the news home to millions of americans in 1820s and 1930s it was this group of folks. Can we just say who they were so jon gunther i had mentioned. Tension or jimmy sheehan, Dorothy Thompson and an man named knickerbocker. Known to one and all as nick possibly, inevitably. They did notm emerge from the east coast they did not emerge from the ivy leagues. They did not have pedigrees at all. Where did they come from . Tell us a little bit about that and what they brought because of that experience to these momentous events . They were outsiders. They were not people who were born to rule in any sense. Jon gunther grew up on wellington avenue in chicago at which a section where i live two. Vincent was s raised in a small mining town which had a population of 7500 and southeastern illinois. Southwestern illinois. Dorothy thompson was born a ministers daughter and a small town outside of buffalo and hr knickerbocker grew up in texas. What did they get from that experience . They were people who really understood what the people back home needed tot know. And what were the strategies of thatha reporting that would interest them . That a finely grained census is not just the crowd but also all the big interwar reporters like eric or marrero, and grew up in bloomington, illinois. So they knew with their neighbors back home wanted to know. The joke was they knew how to speak to people who thought prague was a sort of a ham. And their reporting tended to be much more focused on the kinds of almost tabloid subjects like politicians personal lives, jon gunther became famous for reporting inside your publisher 1936. The kind of psychodynamics of hitlers upbringing. The kind of relationships mussolini had with women. Those of the kind of things that that their neighbors would snap to attention. The way they operate is so intriguing. I would love to hear how you piece their stories together. But before we get to that the notion they had a feel for what audiences wanted long before focus groups andri metrics we he an hour news organizations today put the like interviews. They like to go find the people who were in power and find out about them. You have gunther intervene churchill pretty scone with the marceaux the hungariannd correspondent in search of hitlers relatives and found them. I think thompson and nick interviewed hitler. That was something european correspondence poohpoohed a little bit . Customer. For european correspondence thats a little bit less british but for Central European correspondence it was a less elevated way to try to get the news. The people i am talking about group and big city papers that is where they were couple reports of the Chicago Daily news orr tribune. They knew how to report on gangsters and r big city bosses. What they really liked was a sense of trying to take the measure of the man. One of the subjects they were reportingin on were dictators wo seem to all beri surface you see them in the newsreels. You see their polished perfection of their uniforms you see all the crowds in their stadium saluting you. The idea it was here is a way to get to the essence of this person which is sit down with them, try to crack the facade and see behind the man. I love the story you tell in last call about nick going to interview hitler. Which i would imagine was a tough interview to get. He sits with him and hitler is dressed in a rather dressing down i guess you could say. You write that nick wrote he seemed like a rising young District Attorney in the secondclass county in texas. Easily dismissed. And then however except once hitler began to talk you write turned out to be more impressive far from it idiot the mouth of talented dangerous demagogue. Thompsons having met him called him an agitator of genius. So it sitting down with him didnt change the stores it sounds like. I think itg did. We can see this in our own time with the emphasis on the big personalities the putin or zelenskyy. One of the problem is when you approach the news through these people sometimes the only thing you can see. You could say much more about that. It so difficult to gauge Public Opinion in the country were opinion is not free. And theret is no free press and that was the case across much of central and Eastern Europe by thert 30s. But one of the things they do is they sit down with these men but they also make some really big gaps. Knickerbocker totally understands hitler. He sees in for the rising district d. A. And the attorney on a small town in texas. But when he said south mussolini he has quite impressed by him. First about mussolini is a charmer. He is not the stuck up dictator type. He knows a lot. Mussolini is really wellinformed. If you want to understand the calculations of recovering from a great depression, mussolini is a guy you talk to and mussolini, informant reported himself loves reporters. Reign until there have this intricate psychological game between them that makes it knickerbocker think i would not say this about any other country but may be in a place like italy i divided backward country like italy, mussolini is exactly the ticket. And he changes his mind eventually. Buty for a very long time knickerbockers key sense is that the british and the french have to keep mussolini on their side where they have to keep mussolini and hitler from forming any kind of an alliance together. If i am not mistaken Dorothy Thompson first thought hitler might not be the first thing he would and perhaps in a Coalition Government. She did not early on for see any of the things that happened. Which gives a sense of relatively inexperienced in Foreign Affairs journalists feelingye their ways i would you sell . The part of the book that i wanted to preserve for the reader which is we tell our history backwards we are trying to explain what we know is the end points but here are smart, ambitious, aggressive people who were plucked down in the midst of events that are really difficult to figure out. They are living in the thick of things there is a huge burden on them to try to predict correctly what is going to happen and they make mistakes or is Dorothy Thompson said it doesnt matter forget wrong the first time is so long to get it right the second time. Or the third t time. So Dorothy Thompson when she says south hitler she thanks how could a man like this actually rule a nation like germany . This is ultimately, even if he comes to power he will be crushed in a Coalition Government by people who are able to outfoxnd him. Its her friends that say it was a comical terrible gaffe it was a huge mistake. On the other hand she became one of the most vehement agitators calling attention to the rise of fascism across europe. For the rest of the 1930s. It may not be a surprise to anyone in the audience but as i was reading this story about these journalists trying to see into the future. Trying to look at their crystal balls and know what was going to happen in europe through mussolini, hitler, and where the russians would fitit in i was thinking about 2015 and 2016 how journalists had to decide what to do with donald trump. We know how that story went and how many different paths that were what we knew now versus what we knew then. We tell history backwards we know how it turned out. In this case each of these journalists went through something of a transformation in their approach. In their conclusions. By the end of the 30s they had to decide whether to six sides in what to say but with a new wy knew per. Yes exactly. The dilemma we think about is running through reporting today is the socalled objectivity. The view from everywhere or both sides. Meaning if you report without in some ways declaring your opinion are you misleading leaders because you are misleading to put all information on the same plane. This is exactly the dilemma posed to these reporters in the 20s andes 30s. To what extent should they take sides . They had all been raised in thee newsroom of the early 20s were objectivity was enthroned. How was the reaction other spectacle papers like the Chicago Daily news against the hearst papers. And yet they go to europe. To go too asia. In finance they have and both sides being fair and how you can be fair begins to break down. They realize as they confront the rise of dictatorship are they confront press agents that are just lying to them that you cannot report the handouts that you are being given. That you have to take sides. An important correspondence and the United States had more latitude to actually put an interpretation without their opinion if that makes anyny sene on their reporting at this time. That was an avenue into doing this. But they ended up really as full throated partisans. Just toro give you an example Dorothy Thompson becomes an opinion columnist she is the first woman political opinion columnists in america from the later 1930s. Vincent becomes one of the most avid partisans for the anti imperial cause. He goes to israel im sorry he goes too palestine in 19209 and is therefore the rights of the western wall and essentiallysm says its another form of imperialism despite the fact is been sent there by a zionist press organization print all of them find themselves in a situation where unless they declared themselves, unless they showedd the reader the world through their eyes they are not doing their job. Is a remarkable moment where gunther i believe is sending back so many stories on a particular topic to his editor in chicago says oh please can we find a little bore better news . This great will detail you found. Guenther is there in berlin in 1933 after the nazis come to power. After hitler becomes the chancellor in late january 1933 and almost immediately there are brown houses as they are known brown after the color of the fascist uniforms were enemies of these socialist communist jews, professors are being beaten up in these places. Dorothy thompson is there reporting and she goes to the casualty reports of hospitals and tribes with european colleagues to try to figure out how many people have been murdered. Jon guenther comes he is also reporting the Chicago Daily news was a liberal paper. And yet guenther is sending back so much news of nazi atrocities his editor of the Chicago Daily news says we cannot just run stories from germany about nazi atrocities you need to send us other stories. I think as we consider the degree toch which what americans knew about the campaign against theab jews, about the plans to make your pink jewelry these reporters a plate a really, really crucial role. They are sending the news the fact it doesnt get reported should be laid at the feet of the editors. Editors are the bane of every reporters existence are they not . Ive been saved by many an editor. I say that as an aside. One of things at so remarkable about your book is how you almost live inside the heads of these characters and you write with Great Authority but the authority is backed up by exterminate bits of evidence. Tell us for all that came from. Yes. So that is one of the things that was captivating to me about this group of people. They left hundreds and hundreds of boxes of archives that put you squarely in the middle of the action. More than two and 50 boxes at that university of chicago just of the guenther papers alone. Thompson has a hundreds more boxes with the character he has boxes scattered really around the world. All of the places where he left stuff in hr at knickerbocker has a smaller collection for reasons youll see in the book. What the archives did for me were two things. One is they contain all of their notes so as guenthers interviewing you have the notes he is writing down about his impressions of the man. And so you can see the story. You are there, right there on the spot with him, incredible. But then you see another thing to which is a huge amount of the archive is devoted to enter life its not just him interviewing itss also him writing about his marriage and its him writing about his love affair with his best friends wife. Its him writing about his insecurities. These are archives a joke its like the opposite of a pandoras box which is leading them out i opened up the lid of the archives and was like sucked in. I kind of emerged many years later. But they put you in the center of dilemmas people were really experiencing after the first the sexual revolution of the 1920s. Not only are they a way of telling her story about reporting, anticolonialism and the coming of thet war but its also telling a history of private life that is otherwise incredibly difficult to access were good reasons people throw away the stuff they burn their diaries. They throw away the letters. The reason was all of this group of people felt there was an t intrinsic connection between the geopolitical events they were reporting r on and the way those events were coming to almost be rerouted to take a place in their soul in their relationships. They were permeable to the universe. Sometimes quite literally so jimmy thanks he is a finely honed lightning rod or almost tuning fork. He feels he can anticipate what is going to happen because there is no barrier between himself and the world. Wonderful is are the ways you interweave the personal and professional with the world events. As you and barca what did you think your book would be about . A threw away a version of this book. I wrote 100 or so pages. What i was hoping to because i thought these archives district typically start with 100 pages and then said no its a different book . Winchester with 100 pages and i thought i was very pleased with them of course. [laughter] will get to that part then i gave it to my agent i think and to a friend and everyone was bewildered. So i dont care what you doing here. So i sas threw all that away. What i was trying to do becauset i thought most archives here is a chance to actually tell history because of this extraordinary documentation literally through their eyes without any intervention is going to guide you along. But that ultimately did not work. I need to come back and refashion what i had done a profoundly rethink it. It was always a story i knew would have the big geopolitical events. Which i had hoped would be reinterpreted for some readers tso when you see the world as they see it it looks quite different. So events and austria in 1934 for instance is the austrian dictator fires on the socialist housing projects destroying them through austrian civil war come to beat much more significant in the way we tell the story of the 20s and 30s. And so anticolonialism. I knew i would always have the geopolitical events. I knew i would have the enter life story the personal story and i knew i would have the work. It was a question of managing the balance between them. Scripture story having to start over is a lesson to all of us. A reminder to all of us some wonderful things start off sometimes on the wrong track. I remember minded of a admitted to great pride and little trepidation when she waited and waited and he wrote back and said you have a very good book here it is not this book. [laughter] please start over. What she did its in printing. Sometimes that does happen. With 80000 words printer problem im sure you did not have. Ou [laughter] thankfully. I felt i could have written another water to thousand words that wouldve been ill advised. Everyone who writes a book and ithink i couldve written anothr book. Think back andha redo it. Did have that chance in some ways. I mean at the time i was unhappy. As your characters are exploring their intimate lives internet livesand applying thati you are with them doing the same because you have access to these voluminous diaries. Notes of al