By cochair susan tourial and im pleased to welcome me to the book festival awardwinning afternoon featuring journalist dan ephron in conversation with nancy updike, producer for this American Life. And her second journalist, mike kelly, Senior Executive producer at georgia public broadcasting. We are also happy to welcome cspan booktv to a book festival programming this afternoon. On behalf of the book festival we are truly grateful for the support of barbara, this years presenting sponsors greenberg and wells fargo. In addition to our over 25 valued sponsors who support our book festival year after year. We are also a proud affiliate of the Jewish Federation of greater atlanta. Please check your playbill for the lineup of our calendar events for the rest of the book festival. Tickets for all book festival events are available in three different ways. You can purchase them online, by telephone or in person at our box office or any other Customer Service desks. The format for todays presentation is each of the week in conversation individually with the respected interviewers. Been it will be followed by solo q a. After the final q a dan ephron will be signing his book killing a king. And mike kelly will be signing his book, the bus on jaffa road on main street outside the theater both books are available from official bookseller of but a cappella books. At this time we would like to welcome up to the podium rabbi Michael Bernstein who offer a prayer for paris. The stories we gather here today are by using violence and cruelty to end what is best in humanity. As of friday night, another 127 lives were ripped away by this violence of terrorism. To join those of the victims i continue to happen in israel and beirut and throughout the world. In the song of songs it says so me as a seal upon your heart first love stronger than death. These are stories not of death but of life, the light refuses to be snuffed out even at the hands of care. Paris is a city of london life. May we learn how to have loved, triumphed over death, to of life triumph over terror. Me the people of paris and the people throughout the world be safe. Made those who lost their lives be remembered by their loved ones at all the touched and the entire world. And may we see the day when peace and love truly conquer terror and death. Thank you, rabbi. And that it gives us great pleasure to welcome our guests for this afternoon program. Our first interview this afternoon is nancy updike, what of the founding producers of this American Life. She has reported from egypt, israel, gaza and the west bank and the United States. Her iraq reporting one a Scripps Howard award, National Journalism award. She was executive producer of this American LifeSecond Television season which won an emmy for outstanding nonfiction series. Dan ephron, author, was a newsweek reporter for nearly 15 years serving as National Security correspondent, Deputy Washington Bureau chief, in jerusalem your chief. He has followed the middle east through much of his career and has covered many of the regions major defense since the mid 90s. Before joining newsweek he reported for the boston globe and reuters. His stories have appeared in esquire, the new republic, the village voice, and the washington monthly. He lives in new york with his wife, nancy updike. Please welcome them to our stage. [applause] so thanks everyone for coming. We are married. I think that was buried somewhere in the introduction. Sometimes we forget to say that and we have to say it halfway through. And so this is not so much the entity format. Its more like a chaotic Dinner Party Conversation with a lot of gesticulating. We are going to talk about the book, about killing a king and go how i came to write the book. How and why. And also the hourlong radio story that nancy updike collaborator on for this American Life, for the show that nancy has worked for since its founding 20 years ago. The radio story was based on some of the reporting that danny did for the book, and it was an hourlong documentary about the rabin assassination. How many people heard it . Okay. And so yeah, were going to talk a little bit about both things and how they came into existen existence. The book proceeded the radio show. The book really started for me in 2012. I was a Newsweek Bureau chief and israel. We lived in tel aviv together. Newsweek had asked me to move back to israel to be the bureau chief. I have been there in the past for chunks of time, and nancy had to get permission from ira glass. This American Life doesnt usually have foreign correspondents. He said yes. She came with me and we moved to tel aviv. Around 2012 about two years into the post thing, i was on deadline on a particular day. I was working on a magazine story for newsweek. It was a moment where youre on deadline and you have to be really effective and just get down to business and work. I did the thing i often do when i need to be that way which is i typed in youtube into the Search Engine in my computer and then spent the afternoon looking at animals and other exotic things. And eventually got to this clip of yitzhak rabin, it is a clip really of the aftermath of the shooting your rabin is shot on november 420 years ago at this november 4, 20 euros at this piece out to the shooter is this jewish israeli, a jewish extremist, 25 years old. Aunties pounced on right at the scene in the parking lot and taken to a Police Station in tel aviv a few blocks away. The video shows the interrogation. Its a very short clip i watched it and we will show it to you in a second. Its really, the quality is terrible. Its dark. He is kind of in the shadow. He is sitting opposite three or four policemen. Later when of the interrogators told us that they brought into the wrong room. They have a room with a camera is better and they wouldve seen him kind of in better quality but they were so rushed they just had lets put them in here. The video i found mesmerizing. I found a mesmerizing in part because i had reported in israel in the mid 90s, and had been sent to the rally, to that peace rally to write a story. I reported for reuters at the time. This story was supposed to be a very short three or four paragraphs but it was supposed to tell readers whether rabins Peace Process had the support of israelis or didnt. This was the oslo Peace Process that had begun two years earlier in 1993 and the support for rabin and for the oslo deal was asked and waned. It generated a lot of hope and in those moments of hope, many israeli supporters, most, but it also set off violence. This was the period where the suicide bombings of hamas began. When theres a lot of violence, rabins popularity and about 30 of the Peace Process goes down. The whole idea was go to this peace rally, see how many people show up and then write a story that says a lot of people came and that means one thing for the Peace Process, or not very many people showed up. And, of course, a lot of of course a lot of people were there. There were 100,000 people at the square, the square in tel aviv is about the size of i dont know, a few football fields. And amir waits and shoots rabin in the parking lot after the rally and it is taken to the Police Station. So lets see this first video, and ill show you what i mean. Its a bad quality but [inaudible] spirit so this is yigal amir on the left leaning forward. Can we turn up the volume a little bit . [inaudible] by the way, how many people understand some hebrew . On how many people have been to israel . So when i talk about the kings of israel square, the place where he was associate, most of you probably know what that is. Today it is called rabin square. What amir this thing is everything i did, i get out of a sense of religious obligation. Of course, you talk about having shot rabin. Rabin is not dead yet. This is a 15 or 20 minutes after the shooting but it takes about an hour and a half until doctors, surgeons are working on rabin and eventually pronounce him dead. I think t think the thing that t striking for me is just how calm amir is. Is kind of leaning forward every now and then. He says at some point are you taking us down, are you writing everything down . The interrogator on the right side, the guy in the white shirt, sort in the middle, i think there are for people around the table on the right side. The interrogator is writing of edward buyin. This is the way interrogations were conducted at the time. The interrogator asked some questions and then he tells the suspect slow down, let me, you can repeat the. At some point yigal amir so did you take that down . Did you what i said . That was striking because what i remember from that night was at the moment of the shooting israel was plunged into a state of trauma. Theres no tradition of assassinations in israel. Certainly the idea that in israeli leader wouldv would hae killed i think israelis about it would be a palestinian or arab who would espouse that an arab leader. Pretty quickly after the shooting it becomes clear on the media that the guy who shot rabin is a fellow israeli and a fellow jew. In some ways people talk about the assassination as the israeli kennedy assassination. In most ways its not like the kennedy assassination but in this one way it is. This idea that the country has plunged into drama and a real state of fear about what this means for the future. Hes very calm because he has defied the odds. He feels like what hes done has been inspired by god or god help him do it. We will explain later why he comes to the decision. We decided to do a radio story based on other reporting in the book. Partly because of this video and others like it because this is such a well documented event. Theres not only this one. Theres hours and hours of other interrogations of yigal amir where he is saying every beat of this is what happened, this is why i did it, this is when i started thinking about it, and also besides the fact that these videos exist, theres a video of the assassination itself which we will show later but this only happened 20 years ago and a lot of the people who were directly involved in responding to it, who were there that night are still alive including this guy in the white shirt, this Police Interrogator. When danny started watching the biggest we did know his name. You cant see it in the shop and in other parts of the video you can see hes smoking a pipe which we just hadnt really seen any other israelis smoking a pipe. Never met a single one. We started inquiring with people who worked in security at the time. Theres a guy interrogating yigal amir the night of the assassination smoking up by. Everyone says that is moti spirit let me just say, i mean, the pipe smoke is not evident on this video. But what happens when i watch the video it will occur to me if this 20 seconds of there must be hours because police are turning on the tape recorder or the video camera in the interrogation. They probably left it on for hours for the duration of interrogation. My thought was if i give you all a bit old but someone not of it it would tell me something about the psyche of yigal amir, this guy who killed the israeli leader. Eventually i got my hands on about 10 or 12 hours and but it all over a long weekend. It does say a lot. It did tell me quite a lot. Ill talk about that but one of the other things is this pipe Smoking Police interrogator moti. We found in every way to interview. We wanted to know what it was like to interrogate yigal amir and with the question is the country is falling apart all around you. Theres a state of trauma. How are you managing to compose yourself and what of the questions youre asking . When we talk to him about that he said its funny because the first time he saw himself in this video interrogating yigal amir is when he was preparing for the trial of yigal amir, the murder trial of which danny also covered. When you saw the video of himself he almost started getting mad at himself, how could you be so calm . How could you just sit there . Your city across the message is shot the Prime Minister. This is before either one of them knows rabin is dead. They just know he has been shot. So moti was telling us, and this is in the radio story for those of you who heard it, was telling us about how he was an experienced Police Interrogator by this point. He had done murder cases and seem really terrible things and he was used to talking to people who have killed someone. But even so he like the rest of the country was in turmoil facing this person who i just shot the Prime Minister. He talked to us about how difficult it was for him, even an experienced Police Interrogator, to be as calm, to keep doing his job, to be polite with this young man who was not only calm during the interrogation but actually gleeful and triumphant in different parts of the conversation. We had to skip a slide. You can your moti. [inaudible] i told him bring another one, please. He brought in a cup of tea. And he said, dont you have cookies . And i told him, you are pushing your luck. I remember his reaction when i told him, ma which i accuse him and i tell him [inaudible] you shot the Prime Minister and you caused his death. What . Ddi . Wow, and he jumped by 13 make ago. This moment you want to come and punch them in the face but you sit down. Would you like a cup of tea . Lets make a toast. To make a toast to life. To life that he took. So thats motti naftali. One of the things about reporting in israel, its a very informal country and people dont say no usually to interview requests. This event, nancy mentioned it was 20 years ago. People are still alive. It was easy to get people who are the main actors in this event. I think this is a turning point. The idea i think a bunch of video of yigal amir and understand something about it and get access to some of the key characters. I started thinking maybe not just a magazine story but maybe the start of a book at the start of the book with the least one protagonist, the assassin. By the way track is also a windsurfer. When we first called him a piece had come right over. He calle called us back in some, the wind has changed and its good as im going to go out and then you come back later in the week . Which we did. So what happened that night . Im going to tell you from my perspective but also from yigal amirs perspective. I lived in tel aviv at the time, a few blocks away. I mentioned it was a reuters story was going to write. I left my apartment a few blocks from the square, got to the square and saw this very large crowd entirely packing the square and people streaming in. I spent of the course of the rally into giving people on stage and than anything people in the square. And then it was over. Rallies in israel ar often political speeches and songs. They bring pop bands to play. Its a somber speeches and been very upbeat songs, and then they sang the National Anthem and then people started leaving. I left as well and i was a few blocks away from the square when i got a deeper message that said shots fired near rabin, had back now. Iran back to the state and people pointed to the parking lot. And then at the parking lot i spoke to witnesses who said it looks like rabin has been hit and has been taken to hospital. Now, amir had been stalking rabin for five years. He had opposed his peace deals, opposed the oslo Peace Process because he felt for one thing it posed a Security Threat to israel but more over for him he felt this was a betrayal of israel ended a trail of judaism. The peace deals involve you back a lease parts of of the west bank and gaza to the palestinians and for amir was a religious of judah, the idea of giving back land promised to the jews back in the bible, the jewish birthright, this was a betrayal. Stalking rabin meant look in the paper for Public Events were rabin might appear and then come into those events with his gun. He had a nine mm beretta they carry it everywhere he went. And waiting to see if, gets the entity can get close enough. On this particular day he makes a decision saturday morning is going to go to the rally saturday night. He comes to the rally. He takes off his skull cap and puts it in his pocket. The rally as a leftcenter relative israelis on the left tend to be secular, and amir worried if he wore his computer identified as someone from the right and it would be suspicious. He takes off, put it in his pocket, walks by the parking lot and sees rabins armored cadillac. Rabin had been driven around for the first couple of years of his premiership in a chevy caprice and he loved the chevy. It was fast and did everything it needed to do. But his bodyguards, the secret service in israel grew more and more concerned about these intelligence assessments that there were threats to rabin, threats against his life from the far right, people who oppose the Peace Process. They persuaded him to allow them to import thi this armored cadic prototype that was the kind of car that president clinton drove around it at the time spent they were not able to persuade him to wear body armor by the way. Because rabin feels like this is my country. This is the country i was born and. He was the head of the military for a period of time and the idea that h they would face threats efforts from fellow jews just dont unacceptable. Unfathomable to him. So he refused to wear body armor. Amir sees the cadillac and he says if the car is hit, this is where rabin will end up at the end of the rally. He manages to get into the parking lot but its an open air parking lot, and its supposed to be secured. Police and secret service are there, they are supposed to make sure that no one gets in who is not authorized by contacting manages to get income and so do others. He waits there for 40 minutes and no one approaches in the he