Life renaissance architect, diplomat, the lives of artists, defines the canon. The visionary, forming the entire history of the field of arts. Give us a sense. The rise and fall of adam and eve. How long would a book like that be with you . About six years ago. Along the way, how hard it is to write an accessible, deeply informed research. Pretty lengthy. What would you say the average is . I dont know. I dont know. We would be doing well for a couple years. Lets stop there. The new president of the ww norton publishing company, those are a few books coming up this fall. Booktv tapes hundreds of other programs throughout the country are your long. Is a look at some of the events we are covering this week. Politics and prose bookstore in washington dc to hear journalist joe tone report on the rise and fall of the zeta drug cartel. The following day back in the Nations Capital where historian john kukla will real life talk about the life of patrick henry. Thursday at busboys and poets in washington where former radio personality paul porters reflections on his 40 years in the music industry. Saturday in baltimore, photographer devon allen shares images from the 2015 baltimore uprising following the death of freddie gray. That is a look at some of the events booktv will be covering this weeks. Many are open to the public. Look for them to wear in the future on booktv on cspan2. Booktv visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. I love history and just finished a book called 6 months in 1945 which told about the great Historic Events the took place in the first few months and conferences between the big three, the death of president roosevelt, dropping the atomic bomb, the defeat of winston churchill, a lot of things happened in the first we 6 months. I read a humorous book called a downhill lie, humor writer who talked about giving up golf when he was 23, picking up 30 years later. Also reading a scottish mystery, i read several of her murder mysteries and i have read about half of David Stockmans book, i have several things i am reading or finished reading. Booktv wants to know what you are reading. Send us your Summer Reading list via twitter booktv or instagram booktv or posted to our facebook page, facebook. Com booktv. Booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] and now, live from the 2017 mississippi book festival in jackson, bestselling author mark boutin talks about the bloodiest battle of the vietnam war. [inaudible conversations] book festival. I am Chris Goodwin with mississippi to permit of archives and history and you are at the way 1968 turning point of the american war in vietnam panel. You are welcome to take photographs, post to social media. They ask if you do that the hashtag is literarylawnparty. In a state that has produced some of the nations most revered arteries, howard bar stand among its finest writers of historical fiction. The civil war trilogy the black power, the judas field chronicles the conflict with deep understanding for all those affected by it. Bar is former longtime curator of rover, the home of William Faulkner and vietnam veteran. These two fine gentlemen who you will be introduced to directly. I know that you will know his name he has long been a favorite author of mine especially i love the black hawk down. It is a wonderful film and i think there will be a film made of that. I hope i live long enough to see it. I hope i get to play with that. This book in 1968 will go down in history as one of the Great American war narratives reads like a knowledgeable. It is chilling, and it is engaging. Just a long string of adjectives. It has been will reviewed as you might expect. I did encounter one negative review a writer for the New York Times said that one of the flaws of the book was that the reader will be exhausted i thought the poor reader he ought to go up the perfume river. If mr. Larry wells is out there in the audience is anywhere. The lovely woman i was talking to her in the front yard one time i was complaining about the New York Times and something they said about that. She said dont you be worried about that. Ive a little puppy and he just loves to we we on the New York Times. Lets all carry that with us. Before we begin the actual interview and the imparting of wisdom and knowledge i would like to see Mister Boutin here. And he would like to say a few words. Thank you all for coming. To my left is abie ransom. If you have the book those that you have a volume in front of you. Buy by life magazine photographer. If you got a chance to get that picture. With a gunshot to his chest. He is the marine ceded to the rear on the tank as they were on their way out of the battle [applause]. It is a reminder is not a novel it is a true story. For these gentlemen it is not story it is their lives. They wt on communism and out they went. We dumbed ourselves down as a country before we went to that is the United States navy we carry them anywhere they want to go. And even some places they dont. As i told the gentlemen. I have looked at the photograph a thousand times. And to think that one day i would be sitting in the same room with those two lads is beyond comprehension. Let me begin with something rather general here. In college we talked at the history. Is trained dash mike trained to be objective. In the contemporary world in which they live in today. The social media has eroded with objectivity in a lot of places. Everybody seems to have an opinion. The historian and the honest historians objective. He shows, he tells he narrates, he analyzes by his does not judge. The marines in the soldiers and let me just say never call a marine a soldier. They are not soldiers they are marines. Mister boutin like any good honest historian is extremely objective. I one of feet hint of scorn whenever he talked about general westmoreland. I thought that was pretty funny. Theyre in it for the rest of the book. Then he calls him wesley. Can you talk a little bit about that in the historical narrative. In how far is the good historian how much room does he have. Matter how subtle of his own opinion i dont think you can resist in some cases. I am in journalists. I was fortunate to be young and at work with the Philadelphia Inquirer my editor is the person to whom i dedicated this book. In the standards that we learned were to be accurate and to be fair and set aside our own our own notions about the story before we begin to work on it. I think that is a great tradition to come at bin. I try to practice it myself. Ive been asked how in the world can anyone be completely objective and the answer is no one can but its really important it seems to me to try. When you had worked as a reporter for as long as i have. It is relatively easy to be objective. You are ignorant of most things. Very few of us are experts on anything except for maybe our personal lives for the profession that we are in. If you are a reporter or a journalist youre you are constantly being thrown into situations where you have no experience and no background in one of the first lessons that you learn is how little you actually know. As soon as you begin talking to people who actually know what theyre talking about you learn and then you go and talk to another person and everything you thought you just learned is turned upside down. Its a process of discovery. When you work on a project like this book and i worked on this for six years. Probably Digging Deeper into this one incident than anyone ever has either gets appropriate and understandable that you do arrive at your own understanding of what happened. And thats all that it is. It is your own understanding. And anyone who reads my book is perfectly free to quibble with my understanding of things. But i have arrived at it honestly. I did not know much about that before i started working through this book. It struck me that he was not the kind of a general that i would want to be serving. If we can move a little bit closer to this in the war itself. The disconnect between the rifleman on the line in the officers that something that we see throughout history. He is always a good example. The fog a battle is understandable. You will all agree that command is who is conformed of the conditions at the ground. And yet they persist in denying. It mustve been infinitely so to the men who had to carry out these orders. Could you talk about that a little bit. What are some of the factors that you saw as you looked through this work, physical and psychological factors that contribute to the gap in perception. Vietnam was really the first war work because it was telecommunications. To essentially run battles. Without actually being there themselves. It will take shape with a commander in a helicopter up over at the battlefield giving orders. I found it just researching this book. The best army refused to do that. They want to be on the ground with the men. They want to be able to look their men in the eye when the given order. The problem was exasperated because there was a general in general westmoreland who was so stuck to his theory of the battlefield. He believed going into it. That the north Vietnamese Army were not capable of launching any significant offenses in any of the urban areas in South Vietnam. The enemy strength was in the mountains and the rice patties. And as why he failed to anticipate the attacks that took place hundred different cities and even further north during the offenses. I think frankly that is somewhat forgivable. Nobody in command can be expected to know and everything. The enemy is smart also and sometimes they do things that you dont anticipate and i could happen to anyone. But the real feeling came when the offensive occurred when the city was taken general westmoreland and a lot of those on the staff when the ignored the reports from the marines doing the fighting in the city and have actually a wonderful and very active cia report that was done on the day that he was taken. They refused to believe that the enemy was there in significant numbers. The number of those who descended on that dissented on that was about 10,000. On january 3021, 1968. He reported to the white house into the joy joint chiefs that there is about 500 in the city. As a consequence of that. The small units of marines with hundred 50 to 200 men were ordered to attack positions that were held by thousands of enemy soldiers. And in the northern part is a fortress with a 30foot high walls and 20foot thick. This was meant by an overwhelming number of enemy forces and in the very beginning of the battle in this repeated itself over days captain chuck meadows in his company of second marines were ordered to attack the saddle. In captain meadows lost half of his company. And then made the decision on its own to not proceed because he knew it was suicidal and ordered his men to retreat. In fact later that same day the remainder of his company was ordered to go back out and fight their way across the city to the prison and these orders were being given they were not listening to the reports that were coming from the field. It happened repeatedly over the weeks that these Young Americans you are an old man at 21. These marines say they are as brave as brave can be. Didnt have any say in how they are being used. That was my sense of how they lost their lives because of that refusal. With that refusal on those two facts. Can you give any explanation as why they gave that. There was a lot of arrogance involved and there was a lot of racism involved. The theory that they have about the north Vietnamese Army was that they didnt have the same level of equipment as the American Army had. Didnt have the same helicopters and endless supplies of ammo. How would they get that successfully and fight against the United States military. The American Military was and had tremendous advantages. What they failed to realize was that they were very smart a lot of the infantry that they were fighting against was they had been fighting against the early 1950s. There were commanders who have a far more experience fighting in any of the Young Americans who were being sent out against them. I think they underestimated which of course is a classic mistake that the military commanders have been making. They failed to see how formidable the enemy was. They have the same with korea. With the early days in the korean war when mcarthur underestimated the north koreans and later the chinese. What about television and what difference it make in the vietnam war. What did they bring to the vietnam war that have not been brought to news reporting certainly television brought the horror of combat to american homes. And i think anyone who paid attention during world war i or world war ii or korea is aware that fighting was horrible and that war was hell. But when those images of fighting and dying when they were arrested and shot the famous image which was actually a little tv image of the south Vietnamese Army when they were handcuffed and tied. These were horrible frightening images and i think they left an indelible impression on the country and i also think that a lot of the reporters in the field were aryan stories because they were going out in the field and talking to the men who are actually doing the fighting the stories that they reported were very frequently at odds with the official version of events. I think television pet played a played a big role in undermining americas trust in the countrys leadership in the military leadership in particular. You point out that Walter Cronkite was important to that. Some of you might have remembered his wonderful voice reporting the disasters of the day. There were only three Television Networks as opposed to the other channels. And he was a very traditional and conservative man. He had been benefit essentially been reading reports on the air for several years that pretty much conveyed the official position about how the work was going and how rapidly the United States was achieving its objectives in vietnam. And he began with the official version of events. When some of his young correspondents were sending back reports that contradicted the official line. When it have happened they just come back to the United States in november of 1967 and given a speech at the National Press club. They were on the verge of defeat. Soon the american soldiers would start coming home from vietnam with stripes in every Major Urban Center in South Vietnam. So he felt angry and betrayed. He felt like he had been used to pedal a false information from his anchor desk. He went to vietnam much to his credit. He told him things were just fine and away. The fighting was all but over. He found the worst battle in the city that he have seen since world war ii. And very definitely not over. Americans were still dying and still been wounded. And when he came back to the nine states he aired a documentary and he departed from his usual practice of not giving his opinion about things and very famously said this war is not going well. It is at best a stalemate. And gave his opinion that he felt it was negative be a military victory on the horizon. Now given that they had been labeling critics of the war as hippies and radicals that didnt jive. Uncle walter was probably the most traditional figure that most americans knew. He was certainly not a hippie and he was certainly not a radical. I think his report have a tremendous impact and is one of the things that began to shift with the American Public opinion against the war. You mentioned a moment ago another iconic autograph of the war from vietnam and another one i have looked at and pondered a thousand times and its the one where the police chief you all have seen this photograph. He has a little humorless weston 38. And the photograph was the shutter that was clicked. You see them react to the impact of the round. What is interesting to me about that is that for many years it has been eased to show that he did not come out good after that. He was criticized highly for having done that. And there was a lot of controversy over that. They revealed to me and probably wont be news to all of you something very interesting about that question and that has been shot. Would you like to talk about that for a moment. An interesting elevation about that. Not to excuse the summary execution but the gentleman he shot has been executing people all morning. They took it upon himself to kill him on the spot. Theyre just so happened that there was a camera there. The image conveyed that there was this unfeeling cruel regime in South Vietnam that the United States was supporting and they did things like thai people up and shoot them. It came completely free of contacts. I dont think it completely excuses that. But when you add something that is not approved to understand. History is a realm where there is as complicated. I want to move a little closer to the soldiers and marines in vietnam our students bless their hearts. Most of them have never heard of vietnam. Kind of like us i never heard of vietnam when i enlisted. The young are innocent theres so much that happens that people dont remember how many have heard of the ancient city how many have heard of that. Or Hamburger Hill in 1969. Or the terrible siege of the marine base. These are great events and powerful and tragic events especially to the men over there they were largely forgotten today. Sometimes i have to ask myself why do i say that. Why is important that we remember these things. Can you talk a little bit about that. Either you believe its important to study and learn from the past or you dont. In my case. I was a teenager in high school when this battle happened i remember i was against the war my dad was in favor of the war. Neither of us knew enough to have a strong opinion