will be plenty of communications going back and forth. your intel system is going to pick it up. i said i'll probably call you. we're not going to attack you. just settle down. it's not going to happen. >> you write in your book it took an hour and a half for milley to convey that thos chinese counterpart and when milley hung up you write, he was convinced the situation was grave. lee remained unusually rattled putting the two nations on the knife edge of disaster. from your reporting, how close was the u.s. to some military -- >> well, milley's whole point in this is that miscommunication is the seed of war. and as we know now, the relations with china, all of these exercises going on around taiwan and the south china sea, it is -- it could not be more of a dangerous environment. as we know, china is on the march. they are reasserting themselves in many ways. and if you examine these, and