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Hitchens for the hour, next.

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Christopher Hitchens is an English-born,

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Oxford- educated writer and journalist who has lived and

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worked in Washington for many years.

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He is well known for his wit, his sharp arguments and strong

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opinions on religion, politics and especially the war in Iraq.

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David Brooks of "The New York Times" says "There are few

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people in this country who bring such a literary

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perspective to political and policy controversies." And here

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is what his friend Martin Amis said on this program this week.

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When we met, it was a sort of -- like the

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lightning stroke.

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Really?

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Yes.

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It was I mean, I thought here is someone who knows exactly what

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I think and feel about everything, and I think he

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thinks that about me, too, as if our sensibilities and our

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minds were somehow interchangeable.

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But very -- a romantic friendship from the start.

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Also, here are some excerpts from his

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appearances on our program.

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It's not for everybody.

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Not everyone wants to always be an (INAUDIBLE) cast or out of

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step or against the stream.

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But if you do feel that the consensus doesn't speak for you,

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if there's something about you that makes you feel that it

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would be worth being unpopular or marginal for the chance to

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lead your own life and have a life instead of a career or a

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job, then I can promise you it is worthwhile, yes.

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Half the time when I was arguing with the so-called

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anti-war movement, they would say their reason for opposing

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the war, was -- if it began, Saddam Hussein would obliterate

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huge numbers of Americans and Israelis in neighboring

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countries by his weapons of mass destruction.

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That's what -- that was their case for peace.

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In other words -- in

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other worlds, people

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can be -- people have to take part in their own deception.

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The worship of non-existing entities, the attempt to derive

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morality from the supernatural, all of that is more, I think,

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than mistaken or irritating.

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It's becoming actually very menacing now.

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The people who think they have permission of that sort from the

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heavens are trying to kill us.

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Or sometimes more morally insisting that that our children

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be taught nonsense in schools, or telling us that AIDS may be

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bad in Africa but condoms are much worse, or stem cell

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research shouldn't be done.

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Or -- wherever you turn, if you find this barbaric foe, you will

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find that this person is giving himself religious permission,

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you know.

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In June, Christopher Hitchens published

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his eleventh book, a memoir called "Hitch 22." It traces his

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life and coming of age as a young man and an intellectual.

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In the midst of a promotional tour for his memoir, doctors

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discovered that he has cancer of the esophagus.

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He canceled all engagements and is undergoing chemotherapy and

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other treatments.

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In a brilliant column in "Vanity Fair's" September issue,

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Hitchens describes the experience as, quote, "taking me

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from the country of the well across the stark frontier that

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marks off the land of malady."

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I spoke with Chris Hitchens in Washington at his apartment

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earlier this week.

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Here is that conversation about his journey.

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You have lived a certain kind of life --

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Yes.

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-- engaged by alcohol, cigarettes, sex,

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politics, ideas, books.

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Yes, I think I've been very lucky in

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that way.

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And I think it's -- I'm sure it's -- it says you have to in

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fact choose between the life and the work.

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You can be happy in one or the other.

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There is a way of finessing that, I like to think, which is

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if your -- if your work really is your life, and things like

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friendship and language and travel and bohemia are also the

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work, then you really are lucky, because there is no real

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separation between the two.

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When did you know this is what you wanted to do?

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Oh, whe I was very small, I realized

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that I wanted to write.

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And I didn't know that I'd be so lucky with it, but I knew there

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was nothing else I could do.

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But this was before Oxford.

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Oh, yes.

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It was the earliest decision I made.

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I mean, I don't know what it's like to say, have a vocation or

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something of this sort.

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I'm sure people do.

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They know they want to be a doctor, for example.

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And I sure knew I couldn't do that, or any of the things my

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mother wanted me to do, like be a lawyer.

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And I wasn't fit for any other kind of work, so that helped

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make up my mind.

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I just I knew I wanted to write.

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And incidentally, around the same time, I also had a very

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strong feeling I wanted to move to the United States.

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I couldn't have explained either of these two things very

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well, but I now realize and the book taught me that the two

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impulses were the same.

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That to reach a maturity as a writer I had to leave England

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and come here.

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Surely you're not suggesting you can't reach

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maturity as a writer without coming here.

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It only applied to you.

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Only

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to me, yes. Sometimes.

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What was that all about?

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I can't be sure.

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I still don't really know.

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But it was something to do with the scope of America, certainly,

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and the relative -- the relatively limited character of

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English society comparatively.

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In clas structure and everything else?

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Things like that.

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And also I think --

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More of a meritocracy.

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If you show any promise as a writer in

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Britain, in London, that's fine and people will give you work

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and so forth, but you keep feeling all the time you're

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having to pass through a series of tests and prove he's quite

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promising and so forth.

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You can die of that kind of encouragement.

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Whereas in America, if you're willing to take a chance and

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say, here I am, try this, people can -- then you don't feel

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you're having to go through these stages of evolution,

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maturing in the cask like a fine old vintage that in the end

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goes sour before it's right.

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Tell me about your father's influence, called

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the commander.

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Well, the commander is the conservative

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and Puritanical influence on my life.

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He was a very gloomy, pessimistic man, who spent his

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life in the Royal Navy.

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He once told me that the only time in his life he ever felt

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he knew what he was doing was the years 1939 to 1945 when he

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had to fight very hard in bitter war.

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Because there was purpose?

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Yes.

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He understood what his job was and what the motive for it was.

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And that was a very hard war at sea, largely in the North

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Atlantic, against Hitler.

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Though, to his disgust, one of the -- and proving to him that

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life is unfair, the job that Churchill actually gave him was

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running guns to Stalin, supplying convoys to the Red

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Army over the hump (ph) of Mansk (ph), a very arduous job

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fighting in the Arctic, to help out the communists who he

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always hated all his life.

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So the irony entered into his soul at that point even further

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that it had before.

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He died when?

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He died in 1988.

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So he knew what you had become and he knew some

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of your early revolutionary fervor.

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Sure.

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And he would have still wanted to know when I was going to get

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a serious job.

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And when are you going to put down some roots?

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Exactly right

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Exactly.

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Well -- the old man would have liked me -- I must have been a

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terrible disappointment to him -- he would have liked me to be

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good at games.

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I couldn't care damn about sports.

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And I'm not good at them.

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Neither observing or playing.

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No.

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Not interested.

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Not good at the things he wa good at.

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He was good at physics and chemistry and math.

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I'm not good at any of these things.

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Would rather go off to the library and read a book, that

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sort of thing.

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Wasn't a conservative.

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Yes.

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To say the least of it.

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Your extraordinary wife sitting here

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in this room, once said about you that he's a warrior -- I'm

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paraphrasing badly -- and that he probably hungered for

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battle, almost in a Hemingwayesque manner.

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True.

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Well, Dr. Johnson says that every man thinks of himself

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meanly if he's never been a soldier or never been to sea.

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And I don't know if that's absolutely true of all males,

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but something like it is true.

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It's certainly true if you're English born just after the

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Second World War, all the movies, all the television

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programs, all the reminiscences are about the finest hour which

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you've missed.

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Yes.

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And in which your father happened to

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have taken quite a fine part in --

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Of his own, indeed.

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You're always going to wonder how you

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would have shaped up and you're never really going to find out.

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So I remember once when I had been in Lebanon during a period

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of warfare there and writing about it for "The New

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Statesman", in fact.

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I got a phone call from my father, practically

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unprecedented, saying A, that he, quite liked the article,

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which is amazing.

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He was a man of very of few words, and none of

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them praise, usually.

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And second, before he hung up, he said rather gruffly, by the

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way, I thought that was rather brave of you to go to Beirut.

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And I was amazed.

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I'd never expected--

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Praise.

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-- praise for courage from the old man.

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I wondered if that is what I had been secretly, covertly

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wanting all along.

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I certainly think -- this is what first interested me in the

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writing of George Orwell, that there is an amazing and

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interesting symbiosis between people who maybe don't like the

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empire or the armed services, but were brought up in that

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milieu, as Orwell was, and they -- at least they admire the

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flinty values, the self-sacrifice, the martial

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virtues, the thrift, the duty -- sense of duty and courage and

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so on that comes with it.

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And you?

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These are virtues that can be useful in

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all circumstances.

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But you're saying that's you.

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Absolutely.

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Like Orwell, you admired --

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I won't say I exemplified them -- that

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would be a lie -- but that I have a respect for them.

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And an interesting thing I noticed --

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Including discipline.

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Yes. Certainly.

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And the willingness to stick by a conviction as well.

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Churchill in fact said that if you've never been

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shot at and missed then you've never lived.

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Yes.

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Well, actually he says there's no sense of exhilaration, like

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the sensation of being shot at without result.

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Yes. That's--

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And I think I mentioned it in my book.

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Because I was once with the great John Burns, who I think is

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the greatest --

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War correspondent.

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-- war correspondent in our time.

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Bureau chief of "The New York Times" is one of

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our --

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He was showing me around Sarajevo.

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I was very glad to have such a tough and brave guide, and

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someone did take a shot at us.

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And I actually felt that -- that thing.

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You read about it, like a hornet going past

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your ear, that close.

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You think why, I wouldn't have wanted it to be any nearer.

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And you think I'm very glad I have a return

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ticket out of here.

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And -- but you then feel, briefly, an

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amazing sense of exhilaration.

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It's best not to get hooked on it.

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Dexter Filkins can talk about the same thing, a

259
00:11:03.601 --> 00:11:05.834
kind of, you know, a colleague of John Burns.

260
00:11:05.834 --> 00:11:08.033
Yes.

261
00:11:08.033 --> 00:11:09.968
I've been to a lot of places where that can happen.

262
00:11:09.968 --> 00:11:12.067
And I write in the book about the number of times in

263
00:11:12.067 --> 00:11:14.434
Afghanistan and in Beirut and elsewhere I

264
00:11:14.434 --> 00:11:16.501
could have been killed.

265
00:11:16.501 --> 00:11:18.601
But what I found out about this was I could no more be a Dexter

266
00:11:18.601 --> 00:11:21.400
Filkins or John Burns than I could be a

267
00:11:21.400 --> 00:11:23.901
full-time soldier or sailor.

268
00:11:23.901 --> 00:11:26.033
I can do it for a few days, but I don't have the -- I don't have

269
00:11:26.033 --> 00:11:28.133
the sand that is required to do it regularly and expose oneself

270
00:11:28.133 --> 00:11:30.200
to danger professionally.

271
00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:32.501
No, I don't have that.

272
00:11:32.501 --> 00:11:35.133
But I hugely admire people who do.

273
00:11:35.133 --> 00:11:37.400
What's your evaluation of Hemingway?

274
00:11:37.400 --> 00:11:40.133
People used to say about Hemingway was

275
00:11:40.133 --> 00:11:42.901
that he was -- never got over the fact that he could never be

276
00:11:42.901 --> 00:11:45.200
as butch as Gertrude Stein.

277
00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:47.434
And you always -- you always get the impression with Hemingway

278
00:11:47.434 --> 00:11:49.367
that he's trying just very slightly too hard?

279
00:11:49.367 --> 00:11:51.300
Yes.

280
00:11:51.300 --> 00:11:53.267
Both in the

281
00:11:53.267 --> 00:11:55.234
fiction and in the nonfiction.

282
00:11:55.234 --> 00:11:57.067
But did you take the --

283
00:11:57.067 --> 00:11:59.467
But I will say that "For Whom The Bell

284
00:11:59.467 --> 00:12:01.901
Tolls" had a titanic effect on me when I was about 14.

285
00:12:01.901 --> 00:12:03.968
Titanic?

286
00:12:03.968 --> 00:12:06.033
Yes, because -- first, I never

287
00:12:06.033 --> 00:12:08.534
thought about poetry of John Donne in quite that way.

288
00:12:08.534 --> 00:12:10.934
Yes.

289
00:12:10.934 --> 00:12:12.968
You know, Joan Didion says -- in America

290
00:12:12.968 --> 00:12:14.734
when people think -- say "No man is an island," they think

291
00:12:14.734 --> 00:12:16.567
they're quoting Ernest Hemingway.

292
00:12:16.567 --> 00:12:20.334
I'm -- Hemingway is --

293
00:12:20.334 --> 00:12:22.267
John Donne, right.

294
00:12:22.267 --> 00:12:23.901
It fascinates me, in the Spanish

295
00:12:23.901 --> 00:12:25.501
civil war about -- at one time I was quite an expert, and I

296
00:12:25.501 --> 00:12:27.033
still know quite a lot about it --

297
00:12:27.033 --> 00:12:29.067
Yes.

298
00:12:29.067 --> 00:12:30.767
I still think it is -- it was the

299
00:12:30.767 --> 00:12:32.534
default position for people on the left.

300
00:12:32.534 --> 00:12:34.367
You know, there is such a thing as a just war,

301
00:12:34.367 --> 00:12:36.234
not all war is bad.

302
00:12:36.234 --> 00:12:38.367
You don't have to be a pacifist.

303
00:12:38.367 --> 00:12:40.834
There is -- there are great causes worth fighting and

304
00:12:40.834 --> 00:12:42.934
risking your life for, dying for.

305
00:12:42.934 --> 00:12:44.767
Hemingway was a tremendous introduction to that, along with

306
00:12:44.767 --> 00:12:46.734
Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" and Robert

307
00:12:46.734 --> 00:12:48.467
Herrick's book "Hermanos!"

308
00:12:48.467 --> 00:12:50.267
Yeah.

309
00:12:50.267 --> 00:12:51.868
I mean, what's interesting about these memoirs is that that's

310
00:12:51.868 --> 00:12:53.567
part of what you say here.

311
00:12:53.567 --> 00:12:55.334
You tell us who has influenced you.

312
00:12:55.334 --> 00:12:56.934
Yes.

313
00:12:56.934 --> 00:12:59.133
You talk about friendship and influence and I

314
00:12:59.133 --> 00:13:01.767
don't want just -- not leave without talking about your

315
00:13:01.767 --> 00:13:05.567
mother for a second.

316
00:13:05.567 --> 00:13:09.434
Was she a more significant influence than your father?

317
00:13:09.434 --> 00:13:13.534
Oh, much more so, because for the very

318
00:13:13.534 --> 00:13:16.968
cramped background that our family occupied, my father's

319
00:13:16.968 --> 00:13:20.334
father was a very strict Baptist school teacher in a slum

320
00:13:20.334 --> 00:13:23.601
district in Portsmouth -- no radio, no music,

321
00:13:23.601 --> 00:13:26.467
nothing like that.

322
00:13:26.467 --> 00:13:29.100
We never had any money, didn't travel much.

323
00:13:29.100 --> 00:13:32.200
Everything was rather austere, thrifty.

324
00:13:32.200 --> 00:13:35.567
That was the way I knew it.

325
00:13:35.567 --> 00:13:39.234
But my mother was the great exception.

326
00:13:39.234 --> 00:13:42.534
She was a great splash of color in this rather drab world.

327
00:13:42.534 --> 00:13:45.501
Had aspirations, was interested in fashion and beauty, was very

328
00:13:45.501 --> 00:13:48.667
beautiful, tried to run a dress shop for ladies without much

329
00:13:48.667 --> 00:13:51.300
success but always full of optimism.

330
00:13:51.300 --> 00:13:54.200
Would have liked to go up to London and go to the theater

331
00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:56.934
instead of being a Navy wife, you know, on some

332
00:13:56.934 --> 00:13:59.801
rather grim base.

333
00:13:59.801 --> 00:14:02.400
And so she was -- she gave me the glimpse of another world,

334
00:14:02.400 --> 00:14:06.000
and she also -- I didn't know this -- but she was all the time

335
00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:09.067
providing me with a second identity.

336
00:14:09.067 --> 00:14:11.868
There was a family secret.

337
00:14:11.868 --> 00:14:14.534
I wasn't just good old Anglo- Saxon, son of the loom of Sussex

338
00:14:14.534 --> 00:14:16.767
and Hampshire.

339
00:14:16.767 --> 00:14:18.968
My mother's family was from Eastern Europe.

340
00:14:18.968 --> 00:14:21.100
My maternal ancestry was Jewish.

341
00:14:21.100 --> 00:14:23.200
And she?

342
00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:25.033
So that was this exotic --

343
00:14:25.033 --> 00:14:26.534
Did she tell you that at the time?

344
00:14:26.534 --> 00:14:28.000
No, she never wanted me to

345
00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:29.501
know, I don't think.

346
00:14:29.501 --> 00:14:31.000
Well, she didn't want me to know -- she might

347
00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:32.467
have told me if she

348
00:14:32.467 --> 00:14:34.133
had lived.

349
00:14:34.133 --> 00:14:35.501
I was 23 when she committed suicide.

350
00:14:35.501 --> 00:14:36.901
She committed suicide with her lover in a

351
00:14:36.901 --> 00:14:38.267
hotel in Greece.

352
00:14:38.267 --> 00:14:39.634
Committed suicide --

353
00:14:39.634 --> 00:14:41.033
yes, in Athens, with

354
00:14:41.033 --> 00:14:43.167
a rather unsuitable lover she had taken when her marriage to

355
00:14:43.167 --> 00:14:45.534
my father broke down.

356
00:14:45.534 --> 00:14:48.200
I would think how hard it would be to know that

357
00:14:48.200 --> 00:14:50.434
she tried to reach you before she committed suicide.

358
00:14:50.434 --> 00:14:52.701
Yes, yes, it was in the days of

359
00:14:52.701 --> 00:14:54.667
switchboards, and before, really, the days

360
00:14:54.667 --> 00:14:56.701
of answering machines.

361
00:14:56.701 --> 00:14:58.868
So I didn't have the answer phone in London.

362
00:14:58.868 --> 00:15:01.267
I had just moved there.

363
00:15:01.267 --> 00:15:03.567
And you wouldn't have been in anyway.

364
00:15:03.567 --> 00:15:05.934
I wasn't in anyway, that's right.

365
00:15:05.934 --> 00:15:08.467
And I felt that rather keenly when I looked at the hotel

366
00:15:08.467 --> 00:15:11.167
switchboard records and I saw that she's been trying.

367
00:15:11.167 --> 00:15:14.234
And I -- I could never -- still have not lost the feeling that

368
00:15:14.234 --> 00:15:17.234
if I had picked up and just heard her voice or she'd heard

369
00:15:17.234 --> 00:15:20.234
mine, she might have had a second thought or two.

370
00:15:20.234 --> 00:15:23.067
But she didn't want me to be exposed to anything unpleasant,

371
00:15:23.067 --> 00:15:25.667
and she -- in the '30s, her mother and she had a little

372
00:15:25.667 --> 00:15:28.367
low-level prejudice, I think for being Jewish.

373
00:15:28.367 --> 00:15:30.868
And she didn't want my brother or myself to have any of that.

374
00:15:30.868 --> 00:15:33.000
She wanted us to be English gentlemen.

375
00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:35.334
I'm sure she would have told me if she had lived.

376
00:15:35.334 --> 00:15:37.334
English gentlemen.

377
00:15:37.334 --> 00:15:39.334
Yes.

378
00:15:39.334 --> 00:15:41.534
Well, you be the judge of how well that worked out.

379
00:15:41.534 --> 00:15:43.467
Yes.

380
00:15:43.467 --> 00:15:45.567
That's my guess.

381
00:15:45.567 --> 00:15:47.701
My surmise is it had to do with her class attitude as much as

382
00:15:47.701 --> 00:15:49.801
her ethnic one.

383
00:15:49.801 --> 00:15:51.868
She wanted me to pass fo English, to go to a proper

384
00:15:51.868 --> 00:15:53.667
boarding school, to go to Oxford, not be bothered by

385
00:15:53.667 --> 00:15:55.267
anything that could get in my way.

386
00:15:55.267 --> 00:15:57.000
You talk about Oscar Wilde -- you talk about a

387
00:15:57.000 --> 00:15:58.767
whole lot of people --

388
00:15:58.767 --> 00:16:00.601
Yes.

389
00:16:00.601 --> 00:16:02.234
-- that you admire.

390
00:16:02.234 --> 00:16:03.701
Is there a composite or is there one person?

391
00:16:03.701 --> 00:16:05.033
No, I think it's very wrong to have

392
00:16:05.033 --> 00:16:06.300
role models.

393
00:16:06.300 --> 00:16:07.767
You do?

394
00:16:07.767 --> 00:16:09.100
Yes.

395
00:16:09.100 --> 00:16:10.334
Look what happens.

396
00:16:10.334 --> 00:16:11.801
There's no indication from role models of

397
00:16:11.801 --> 00:16:15.067
what might be possible?

398
00:16:15.067 --> 00:16:16.567
Imagine what you think would happen to

399
00:16:16.567 --> 00:16:18.200
somebody who thought I want to model myself on Oscar Wilde?

400
00:16:18.200 --> 00:16:21.300
Well, yes, we already --

401
00:16:21.300 --> 00:16:23.000
-- know how that would work out.

402
00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:24.534
Yes.

403
00:16:24.534 --> 00:16:26.167
Imagine how ludicrous it would be if I

404
00:16:26.167 --> 00:16:27.901
said, you know, I always thought of myself as the George

405
00:16:27.901 --> 00:16:29.434
Orwell of my generation.

406
00:16:29.434 --> 00:16:30.868
Yeah, of course --

407
00:16:30.868 --> 00:16:32.434
I'm already making a

408
00:16:32.434 --> 00:16:33.834
spectacle of myself.

409
00:16:33.834 --> 00:16:35.400
Right.

410
00:16:35.400 --> 00:16:37.067
I agree, you can't say that, but you can -- you can

411
00:16:37.067 --> 00:16:38.601
think about it.

412
00:16:38.601 --> 00:16:40.200
I mean, you don't have to say it.

413
00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:41.934
You have to think about it.

414
00:16:41.934 --> 00:16:43.734
That's my point.

415
00:16:43.734 --> 00:16:45.567
Well, I wrote a whole book on George

416
00:16:45.567 --> 00:16:47.467
Orwell because I had to get it out of my system.

417
00:16:47.467 --> 00:16:49.367
You had to get it out of your system.

418
00:16:49.367 --> 00:16:51.300
Yes, because I'd been so much

419
00:16:51.300 --> 00:16:53.267
influenced from the very early years of my life by not just the

420
00:16:53.267 --> 00:16:55.234
stance he took politically and the moral courage and

421
00:16:55.234 --> 00:16:57.200
intellectual courage that he exhibited, but also by the way

422
00:16:57.200 --> 00:16:59.167
that the prose, the vividness and spareness of the prose was a

423
00:16:59.167 --> 00:17:00.901
reflection of that integrity, that I had to sort of

424
00:17:00.901 --> 00:17:02.701
consciously try not to emulate it, if you like.

425
00:17:02.701 --> 00:17:04.467
I was so full of admiration I had to aim often away from it,

426
00:17:04.467 --> 00:17:06.133
which is easy for me to do.

427
00:17:06.133 --> 00:17:07.868
After all, Orwell never had a steady job.

428
00:17:07.868 --> 00:17:09.968
He never had any money.

429
00:17:09.968 --> 00:17:12.000
His health was always bad.

430
00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:14.400
He only lived until he was 46.

431
00:17:14.400 --> 00:17:16.667
He was always being censored, whereas I've been quite lucky.

432
00:17:16.667 --> 00:17:19.334
I've traveled a lot.

433
00:17:19.334 --> 00:17:21.868
I've made quite a lot of money on journalism.

434
00:17:21.868 --> 00:17:25.067
I haven't been persecuted for my beliefs.

435
00:17:25.067 --> 00:17:27.701
I've never had to risk being shot at as he was in Spain from

436
00:17:27.701 --> 00:17:30.467
both sides, or censored.

437
00:17:30.467 --> 00:17:33.467
So it was all an education in learning how

438
00:17:33.467 --> 00:17:36.234
unlike my hero I was.

439
00:17:36.234 --> 00:17:39.634
In fact, from at least the observation from my

440
00:17:39.634 --> 00:17:42.567
perspective, between your mother's suicide and walking

441
00:17:42.567 --> 00:17:45.868
into a doctor's office and hearing the results that you

442
00:17:45.868 --> 00:17:48.834
have cancer of the esophagus, it's been a pretty good ride.

443
00:17:48.834 --> 00:17:51.601
Yes.

444
00:17:51.601 --> 00:17:54.534
And if I had known I was going to live this long, I would have

445
00:17:54.534 --> 00:17:57.000
taken much better care of myself.

446
00:17:57.000 --> 00:17:59.701
If you had known that there was a possibility of

447
00:17:59.701 --> 00:18:02.234
getting cancer, you would never have smoked -- you would never

448
00:18:02.234 --> 00:18:05.133
have smoked a cigarette.

449
00:18:05.133 --> 00:18:07.667
You would have never drank or consumed the amount of liquor

450
00:18:07.667 --> 00:18:10.634
you consumed.

451
00:18:10.634 --> 00:18:13.934
No, I think all the time I felt that

452
00:18:13.934 --> 00:18:17.100
it's -- life is a wager.

453
00:18:17.100 --> 00:18:20.868
And that I probably was getting more out of leading a bohemian

454
00:18:20.868 --> 00:18:24.834
existence as a writer than I would have if I didn't.

455
00:18:24.834 --> 00:18:28.467
So and -- writing is what's important to me.

456
00:18:28.467 --> 00:18:31.901
And anything that helps me do that, or enhances and prolongs

457
00:18:31.901 --> 00:18:34.934
and deepens and sometimes intensifies arguments and

458
00:18:34.934 --> 00:18:37.734
conversations is worth it to me, sure.

459
00:18:37.734 --> 00:18:40.334
So I was knowingly taking a risk.

460
00:18:40.334 --> 00:18:42.767
I wouldn't recommend it to others.

461
00:18:42.767 --> 00:18:45.100
But you would do again.

462
00:18:45.100 --> 00:18:47.501
Yes, I think I would.

463
00:18:47.501 --> 00:18:50.167
That's the question.

464
00:18:50.167 --> 00:18:53.200
Well, it's -- I've had to reflect on

465
00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:56.133
this, of course, a lot recently, and trying to imagine

466
00:18:56.133 --> 00:18:58.834
doing my life differently and not ending up mortally sick.

467
00:18:58.834 --> 00:19:01.100
But it's impossible for me to imagine having my life without

468
00:19:01.100 --> 00:19:03.334
going to those parties, without having those late nights --

469
00:19:03.334 --> 00:19:08.400
You just can't even --

470
00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:11.300
-- without -- no, without that

471
00:19:11.300 --> 00:19:14.000
second bottle and the argument with Edward Said could go on, or

472
00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:16.334
not that he would be drinking that much, and he liked

473
00:19:16.334 --> 00:19:19.434
(INAUDIBLE), musing, exchanging limericks, would not any of us

474
00:19:19.434 --> 00:19:22.501
-- could go on for another hour, that kind of thing.

475
00:19:22.501 --> 00:19:25.033
I wouldn't cut any of that out.

476
00:19:25.033 --> 00:19:27.434
If it was in part a product of smoking and

477
00:19:27.434 --> 00:19:29.501
drinking and you -- you would do it?

478
00:19:29.501 --> 00:19:31.300
Yes.

479
00:19:31.300 --> 00:19:33.133
No one to gamble --

480
00:19:33.133 --> 00:19:36.067
Yes.

481
00:19:36.067 --> 00:19:38.534
It is a wager.

482
00:19:38.534 --> 00:19:40.868
I would assume the only thing that would make

483
00:19:40.868 --> 00:19:42.901
that a harder choice on reflection is family and

484
00:19:42.901 --> 00:19:44.901
especially children.

485
00:19:44.901 --> 00:19:47.434
Indeed.

486
00:19:47.434 --> 00:19:49.934
That's true.

487
00:19:49.934 --> 00:19:52.067
Do they comprehend --

488
00:19:52.067 --> 00:19:54.167
I used to think I would never do it, you

489
00:19:54.167 --> 00:19:56.200
see, because my father was a bit of a boozer,

490
00:19:56.200 --> 00:19:58.267
not a happy one.

491
00:19:58.267 --> 00:20:00.400
He didn't do it to cheer himself up or to -- it's a

492
00:20:00.400 --> 00:20:02.634
terrible way of cheering yourself up.

493
00:20:02.634 --> 00:20:04.968
He did it when he was depressed and he would get more sour, he

494
00:20:04.968 --> 00:20:06.968
would get gloomy, and I could tell my mother hated it.

495
00:20:06.968 --> 00:20:09.367
I used to hate even the smell of alcohol when he was drunk.

496
00:20:09.367 --> 00:20:12.133
It goes to show there must be something

497
00:20:12.133 --> 00:20:14.701
heritable factor to it.

498
00:20:14.701 --> 00:20:16.901
And my mother used to smoke like a fiend, and I used to try to

499
00:20:16.901 --> 00:20:19.033
beg her to stop and I thought I would never start.

500
00:20:19.033 --> 00:20:20.901
And my children do this to me --

501
00:20:20.901 --> 00:20:22.534
Beg you.

502
00:20:22.534 --> 00:20:24.400
If -- they really said they wished

503
00:20:24.400 --> 00:20:28.200
that I wouldn't do it. Yes.

504
00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:29.868
Have you had a conversation with them about

505
00:20:29.868 --> 00:20:31.367
where you are in your life today?

506
00:20:31.367 --> 00:20:34.701
Sure. Yes.

507
00:20:34.701 --> 00:20:37.901
I mean they know --

508
00:20:37.901 --> 00:20:40.567
That's the hardest one, isn't it?

509
00:20:40.567 --> 00:20:42.801
Very, yes.

510
00:20:42.801 --> 00:20:45.000
It's also the only reflection that makes me

511
00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:47.801
not bitter but wretched.

512
00:20:47.801 --> 00:20:50.868
I can take it for myself.

513
00:20:50.868 --> 00:20:53.901
I don't find myself breaking down.

514
00:20:53.901 --> 00:20:56.667
But I sometimes become a bit lachrymose when I think about

515
00:20:56.667 --> 00:20:59.033
not seeing them grow up, or fear that I would -- I mean I'm not

516
00:20:59.033 --> 00:21:01.267
-- look, I'm not resigned to going yet.

517
00:21:01.267 --> 00:21:03.267
I haven't checked out yet, either.

518
00:21:03.267 --> 00:21:05.200
No.

519
00:21:05.200 --> 00:21:06.968
I'm in the middle of the

520
00:21:06.968 --> 00:21:08.567
argument about that.

521
00:21:08.567 --> 00:21:10.234
You're in the middle --

522
00:21:10.234 --> 00:21:12.000
would you say struggle?

523
00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:13.601
Or argument?

524
00:21:13.601 --> 00:21:15.267
Well, it feels like a losing struggle.

525
00:21:15.267 --> 00:21:17.033
You keep being told it's a battle.

526
00:21:17.033 --> 00:21:18.601
Yes.

527
00:21:18.601 --> 00:21:20.033
You wonder what you can bring to it.

528
00:21:20.033 --> 00:21:21.601
I mean, all you have to do is wait for the news

529
00:21:21.601 --> 00:21:23.033
and respond to treatments.

530
00:21:23.033 --> 00:21:24.934
It's appallingly passive.

531
00:21:24.934 --> 00:21:27.167
But struggle is a favorite word.

532
00:21:27.167 --> 00:21:29.100
I know.

533
00:21:29.100 --> 00:21:31.033
So, I don't mind it.

534
00:21:31.033 --> 00:21:32.968
I don't have a very long life to live, I can be fairly surely

535
00:21:32.968 --> 00:21:34.934
of that.

536
00:21:34.934 --> 00:21:36.934
I'd be very lucky if I've go five to ten years.

537
00:21:36.934 --> 00:21:38.634
I could see a lot happen to my children in that time.

538
00:21:38.634 --> 00:21:40.300
Do you think you've got five to ten years?

539
00:21:40.300 --> 00:21:42.033
I wouldn't -- I'm

540
00:21:42.033 --> 00:21:43.868
not going to speculate.

541
00:21:43.868 --> 00:21:45.701
I know.

542
00:21:45.701 --> 00:21:47.601
I bet I -- the lucky ones can hope for

543
00:21:47.601 --> 00:21:49.267
that, and I do have a strong constitution.

544
00:21:49.267 --> 00:21:50.767
And there's always the idea that things -- I

545
00:21:50.767 --> 00:21:52.400
mean, the interesting thing about medicine is that every day

546
00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:54.300
something is happening.

547
00:21:54.300 --> 00:21:56.067
Yes.

548
00:21:56.067 --> 00:21:57.834
And I've been very lucky with some wonderful physicians who

549
00:21:57.834 --> 00:21:59.567
have taken an interest in my case, and I know that there are

550
00:21:59.567 --> 00:22:01.334
all kinds of expedients that one can try, but

551
00:22:01.334 --> 00:22:03.100
still and all, it's

552
00:22:03.100 --> 00:22:05.067
a very bad starting point to get cancer where I've got it.

553
00:22:05.067 --> 00:22:07.067
The numbers are the numbers.

554
00:22:07.067 --> 00:22:09.033
Yes.

555
00:22:09.033 --> 00:22:11.033
The math is the math.

556
00:22:11.033 --> 00:22:12.767
That's right.

557
00:22:12.767 --> 00:22:14.601
And I already knew I was born into a losing struggle, but now

558
00:22:14.601 --> 00:22:16.200
I say that in the opening of my book.

559
00:22:16.200 --> 00:22:18.300
Yes.

560
00:22:18.300 --> 00:22:20.667
Now a thing like that has to be said

561
00:22:20.667 --> 00:22:22.701
completely unironically.

562
00:22:22.701 --> 00:22:24.701
There is an outpouring of affection for you,

563
00:22:24.701 --> 00:22:26.701
genuine affection.

564
00:22:26.701 --> 00:22:28.467
You see it everywhere.

565
00:22:28.467 --> 00:22:30.000
It's been -- I won't say it has been

566
00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:31.534
embarrassing, because that would be churlish --

567
00:22:31.534 --> 00:22:33.067
Exactly.

568
00:22:33.067 --> 00:22:34.567
-- people have been so

569
00:22:34.567 --> 00:22:36.033
nice, but it's been

570
00:22:36.033 --> 00:22:37.501
very affecting, it's -- columns in the newspaper --

571
00:22:37.501 --> 00:22:38.934
Yes.

572
00:22:38.934 --> 00:22:40.400
-- pieces on the

573
00:22:40.400 --> 00:22:41.834
television, extraordinary

574
00:22:41.834 --> 00:22:43.667
stuff, and on the Internet, too.

575
00:22:43.667 --> 00:22:45.267
It's as near as I'll get to reading my obituaries.

576
00:22:45.267 --> 00:22:46.968
Exactly.

577
00:22:46.968 --> 00:22:48.767
The favorable ones.

578
00:22:48.767 --> 00:22:50.367
Yes.

579
00:22:50.367 --> 00:22:51.801
Which are really granted to few.

580
00:22:51.801 --> 00:22:53.133
I mean I had already read an accidental

581
00:22:53.133 --> 00:22:54.367
reference to my death.

582
00:22:54.367 --> 00:22:57.367
Exactly.

583
00:22:57.367 --> 00:22:59.067
That's right.

584
00:22:59.067 --> 00:23:00.567
This is as nice as that could get, and

585
00:23:00.567 --> 00:23:02.200
then I think, well now, hang on.

586
00:23:02.200 --> 00:23:03.667
If I stick around, that's going to stop.

587
00:23:03.667 --> 00:23:05.267
Yes.

588
00:23:05.267 --> 00:23:06.968
I mean people will, you know, move on

589
00:23:06.968 --> 00:23:08.767
to something else.

590
00:23:08.767 --> 00:23:10.334
No, I went through a bit of this when they

591
00:23:10.334 --> 00:23:12.033
thought I was dying in France, you know.

592
00:23:12.033 --> 00:23:13.567
Everybody said he is dying and they'd have dinner parties, and

593
00:23:13.567 --> 00:23:14.934
people would talk about it.

594
00:23:14.934 --> 00:23:16.467
I remember very well, being with

595
00:23:16.467 --> 00:23:17.901
Bernard Henry- Levi --

596
00:23:17.901 --> 00:23:19.601
Yes.

597
00:23:19.601 --> 00:23:21.834
-- in Paris and discussing how

598
00:23:21.834 --> 00:23:24.000
powerless your condition was.

599
00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:26.167
When you look at writing this book, living with

600
00:23:26.167 --> 00:23:28.834
this disease, had you come with insights that are fascinating

601
00:23:28.834 --> 00:23:31.968
about the living of a life?

602
00:23:31.968 --> 00:23:34.834
Well, if other people said I meant

603
00:23:34.834 --> 00:23:37.234
something to them, which is what these very nice letters and

604
00:23:37.234 --> 00:23:39.300
articles appear to be saying, then you -- you don't sit there

605
00:23:39.300 --> 00:23:41.100
staring at the wallpaper thinking, you know, was it all

606
00:23:41.100 --> 00:23:42.701
for nothing?

607
00:23:42.701 --> 00:23:44.667
Where did it all go?

608
00:23:44.667 --> 00:23:46.634
You know.

609
00:23:46.634 --> 00:23:48.801
Yes.

610
00:23:48.801 --> 00:23:50.934
You're partially ensured against the feeling of waste.

611
00:23:50.934 --> 00:23:53.033
And of course, you're overwhelmed by the feeling of

612
00:23:53.033 --> 00:23:54.868
waste if you think you're going to die young, because what's

613
00:23:54.868 --> 00:23:56.734
going to happen to that decade that you planned, the next one,

614
00:23:56.734 --> 00:23:58.367
that was going to be even better.

615
00:23:58.367 --> 00:24:00.167
Yeah.

616
00:24:00.167 --> 00:24:02.000
When you were in favor of the Iraq invasion.

617
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:03.634
Yes.

618
00:24:03.634 --> 00:24:05.767
People have looked at that as some kind of

619
00:24:05.767 --> 00:24:07.601
crossing the bridge for you.

620
00:24:07.601 --> 00:24:09.200
Did you see it that way?

621
00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:11.667
That you had come to some new revelation about the way the

622
00:24:11.667 --> 00:24:14.534
world works?

623
00:24:14.534 --> 00:24:17.734
No.

624
00:24:17.734 --> 00:24:20.934
I thought I was -- I would have hoped a piece of very simple

625
00:24:20.934 --> 00:24:24.200
continuity with one's principles -- opposition to fascism and

626
00:24:24.200 --> 00:24:27.267
totalitarianism, opposition to genocide, opposition to the one-

627
00:24:27.267 --> 00:24:29.801
party state, the one-leader fantasy.

628
00:24:29.801 --> 00:24:32.234
I thought anyone who knew me even slightly would have asked,

629
00:24:32.234 --> 00:24:34.534
what would Christopher think about keeping

630
00:24:34.534 --> 00:24:36.534
Saddam Hussein in power?

631
00:24:36.534 --> 00:24:38.501
Yeah, but I know --

632
00:24:38.501 --> 00:24:40.267
But of course if they wouldn't think --

633
00:24:40.267 --> 00:24:42.067
of course he wouldn't.

634
00:24:42.067 --> 00:24:43.667
I bet you found most of your friends were on the

635
00:24:43.667 --> 00:24:45.367
other side of that argument?

636
00:24:45.367 --> 00:24:47.634
No, I didn't.

637
00:24:47.634 --> 00:24:50.167
Is that right?

638
00:24:50.167 --> 00:24:52.767
But I found a good number of them

639
00:24:52.767 --> 00:24:55.200
were, and were, indeed, I mean prepared to go to great lengths

640
00:24:55.200 --> 00:24:57.868
to make claims about Saddam Hussein that weren't true, such

641
00:24:57.868 --> 00:25:00.801
as that he was a secularist, and so forth.

642
00:25:00.801 --> 00:25:03.667
Do you think he was Islamist?

643
00:25:03.667 --> 00:25:06.701
He certainly in the years after the

644
00:25:06.701 --> 00:25:09.701
terrible war with Iran, the last decade or so of his regime,

645
00:25:09.701 --> 00:25:12.868
Baath party completely transformed itself into a

646
00:25:12.868 --> 00:25:16.267
Jihadist organization through propaganda and action too, yes,

647
00:25:16.267 --> 00:25:19.033
shifted from supporting the PLO to supporting Hamas and Islamic

648
00:25:19.033 --> 00:25:21.934
Jihad to take the most conspicuous example, had al

649
00:25:21.934 --> 00:25:25.000
Qaeda people on its territory long before the United States

650
00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:28.133
got there.

651
00:25:28.133 --> 00:25:31.267
But it was -- as well as all this, I'd been going to Iraq

652
00:25:31.267 --> 00:25:34.334
since the '70s, and I knew quite a lot of the Iraqi, Arab, and

653
00:25:34.334 --> 00:25:37.267
Kurdish opposition tending to be then, as now, leftist.

654
00:25:37.267 --> 00:25:40.801
And I thought I had a duty of what we would have called

655
00:25:40.801 --> 00:25:43.934
fraternal solidarity to them.

656
00:25:43.934 --> 00:25:46.534
You can't abandon your comrades, and they were struggling

657
00:25:46.534 --> 00:25:49.000
against this most unbelievably vicious and pornographic (ph)

658
00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:51.133
regime, I thought they deserved our support --

659
00:25:51.133 --> 00:25:53.300
And so.

660
00:25:53.300 --> 00:25:55.434
-- I'm still very glad they got it.

661
00:25:55.434 --> 00:25:57.601
And do you think history

662
00:25:57.601 --> 00:25:59.734
will judge the overthrow

663
00:25:59.734 --> 00:26:03.467
of Saddam Hussein and the consequences of

664
00:26:03.467 --> 00:26:06.901
that in what way?

665
00:26:06.901 --> 00:26:10.400
Well, Iraq now has a chance at any

666
00:26:10.400 --> 00:26:14.400
rate, to have a federal constitution, where the disputes

667
00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:18.400
between its federal constituents, roughly speaking,

668
00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:22.334
the Sunni, the Shia and the Kurdish are solved at electoral

669
00:26:22.334 --> 00:26:26.234
and parliamentary level, to recover control of its oil

670
00:26:26.234 --> 00:26:29.801
resources, to have a free press.

671
00:26:29.801 --> 00:26:32.968
To have autonomy for the Kurdish minority, the largest minority

672
00:26:32.968 --> 00:26:35.901
in the Arab world, which was subject to a genocidal campaign

673
00:26:35.901 --> 00:26:38.400
that very nearly succeeded as little as 15, 20 years ago.

674
00:26:38.400 --> 00:26:40.734
But could that have happened without the

675
00:26:40.734 --> 00:26:43.167
overthrow of Saddam, and might it have happened as a natural

676
00:26:43.167 --> 00:26:45.367
flow of events?

677
00:26:45.367 --> 00:26:47.634
No, it didn't --

678
00:26:47.634 --> 00:26:50.000
And did it come at a cost that was perhaps, on

679
00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:52.367
balance, larger than --

680
00:26:52.367 --> 00:26:54.634
The cost is -- the cost is horrifyingly

681
00:26:54.634 --> 00:26:56.567
high, and I've described some of this -- there's a whole

682
00:26:56.567 --> 00:26:58.901
chapter on it in the book.

683
00:26:58.901 --> 00:27:00.868
But I think the cost of it comes from having

684
00:27:00.868 --> 00:27:03.100
put off the confrontation.

685
00:27:03.100 --> 00:27:05.601
I think Saddam Hussein was tolerated in part

686
00:27:05.601 --> 00:27:07.701
for far too long.

687
00:27:07.701 --> 00:27:09.767
The last year he shouldn't have been even considered as possible

688
00:27:09.767 --> 00:27:11.467
to be leaving power, to be the year in which he was thrown out

689
00:27:11.467 --> 00:27:13.133
of Kuwait.

690
00:27:13.133 --> 00:27:14.801
I think the Iraq war --

691
00:27:14.801 --> 00:27:16.501
It should have been taken

692
00:27:16.501 --> 00:27:18.167
care of a lot --

693
00:27:18.167 --> 00:27:20.133
we would have saved the Iraqi people more than a decade of

694
00:27:20.133 --> 00:27:22.100
sanctions, misery, dictatorship.

695
00:27:22.100 --> 00:27:24.067
Do you think it would have happened if the

696
00:27:24.067 --> 00:27:26.033
Soviet Union had still been strong?

697
00:27:26.033 --> 00:27:28.033
That's a very good question.

698
00:27:28.033 --> 00:27:30.033
I don't think Saddam Hussein would have invaded Kuwait if the

699
00:27:30.033 --> 00:27:31.767
Soviet Union were still in power.

700
00:27:31.767 --> 00:27:33.601
I think they would have stopped him.

701
00:27:33.601 --> 00:27:35.467
That was Gulf war one, that was

702
00:27:35.467 --> 00:27:37.300
the first Gulf war.

703
00:27:37.300 --> 00:27:39.133
Yeah, but like by analogy,

704
00:27:39.133 --> 00:27:41.000
incidentally, I

705
00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:43.834
have a feeling the Soviet Union might even have restrained

706
00:27:43.834 --> 00:27:46.534
Milosevic in Bosnia as well.

707
00:27:46.534 --> 00:27:48.968
One of the consequences of the end of the Cold war was that a

708
00:27:48.968 --> 00:27:51.467
lot of small vicious local totalitarianisms became suddenly

709
00:27:51.467 --> 00:27:54.200
rather more powerful than we did realize they would be.

710
00:27:54.200 --> 00:27:56.767
North Korea is another example.

711
00:27:56.767 --> 00:27:58.901
So, the Soviet Union was exercising some kind

712
00:27:58.901 --> 00:28:00.801
of positive influence over these sort of client states.

713
00:28:00.801 --> 00:28:02.434
I'd say -- I still say negative, but it

714
00:28:02.434 --> 00:28:04.200
was a restraining influence.

715
00:28:04.200 --> 00:28:07.834
A restraining? OK.

716
00:28:07.834 --> 00:28:10.000
It was their armor, it was their pay

717
00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:12.033
master, it was trainer of their secret police.

718
00:28:12.033 --> 00:28:14.033
None of these things were positive, but in return it

719
00:28:14.033 --> 00:28:16.067
didn't expect that you'd launch mad adventures that upset

720
00:28:16.067 --> 00:28:18.067
international order.

721
00:28:18.067 --> 00:28:19.834
Are you convinced just for a small moment of

722
00:28:19.834 --> 00:28:21.400
history that Saddam, if he'd been not challenged in Kuwait,

723
00:28:21.400 --> 00:28:23.100
would have gone all the way into Riyadh?

724
00:28:23.100 --> 00:28:24.868
No.

725
00:28:24.868 --> 00:28:26.834
You are not?

726
00:28:26.834 --> 00:28:28.901
No, I don't --

727
00:28:28.901 --> 00:28:30.734
It was just territorial, then?

728
00:28:30.734 --> 00:28:32.334
I think he wanted to complete what he

729
00:28:32.334 --> 00:28:34.033
thought was the national outline of --

730
00:28:34.033 --> 00:28:35.767
Yes.

731
00:28:35.767 --> 00:28:38.000
-- Iraq.

732
00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:40.801
He always thought Kuwait was a missing province, that was along

733
00:28:40.801 --> 00:28:43.400
nationalists' demand.

734
00:28:43.400 --> 00:28:45.834
It also gave him control of an enormous amount more of the

735
00:28:45.834 --> 00:28:48.067
earth's oil resources, and he was by then within measurable

736
00:28:48.067 --> 00:28:50.434
distance of having a nuclear weapon.

737
00:28:50.434 --> 00:28:52.767
With those resources, he would have turned not on the Saudis,

738
00:28:52.767 --> 00:28:55.300
but on the Iranians.

739
00:28:55.300 --> 00:28:57.567
That's what these weapons were going to be used for.

740
00:28:57.567 --> 00:28:59.934
Those are the people who -- apart from the Kurds who lived

741
00:28:59.934 --> 00:29:01.934
in Iraq, those are the people who Saddam really used his

742
00:29:01.934 --> 00:29:04.367
weapons of mass destruction on.

743
00:29:04.367 --> 00:29:06.868
The Persian enemy is the historic

744
00:29:06.868 --> 00:29:09.834
one for Iraqi nationalists.

745
00:29:09.834 --> 00:29:12.968
Is the guiding principle here for you that's

746
00:29:12.968 --> 00:29:16.000
come out of the life that you have lived, freedom?

747
00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:18.667
Tha would be a rather grandiose

748
00:29:18.667 --> 00:29:20.968
thing for me to say for myself, but I'd rather say -- and I do

749
00:29:20.968 --> 00:29:23.200
say, lay claim to it in the book, to be

750
00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:25.868
consistently anti-totalitarian.

751
00:29:25.868 --> 00:29:29.000
In fact --

752
00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:32.334
What's the difference?

753
00:29:32.334 --> 00:29:35.100
Well, narrow but deep.

754
00:29:35.100 --> 00:29:38.267
It's to say that in fact the utopian idea that humans can be

755
00:29:38.267 --> 00:29:41.834
hammered into another compulsory shape isn't a utopian idea.

756
00:29:41.834 --> 00:29:45.267
It's a fantasy.

757
00:29:45.267 --> 00:29:48.067
It can't actually be brought about, but a terrible amount of

758
00:29:48.067 --> 00:29:51.234
damage and misery can be the result of the attempt, and the

759
00:29:51.234 --> 00:29:54.300
temptation has to be resisted in small ways as well

760
00:29:54.300 --> 00:29:56.968
as in large ones.

761
00:29:56.968 --> 00:30:00.033
And that the possibility of coexistence between open

762
00:30:00.033 --> 00:30:02.868
societies and totalitarian ones doesn't really exist.

763
00:30:02.868 --> 00:30:05.501
There will be a fight.

764
00:30:05.501 --> 00:30:08.367
And I would rather it was picked on our terms than theirs.

765
00:30:08.367 --> 00:30:11.200
What do you think of President Obama?

766
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:13.868
Well, I think about him quite a lot.

767
00:30:13.868 --> 00:30:16.534
He makes one think, unlike some presidents, and one of the

768
00:30:16.534 --> 00:30:19.501
things he makes me think is I wonder how he thinks?

769
00:30:19.501 --> 00:30:22.334
I'd give a lot to know.

770
00:30:22.334 --> 00:30:25.200
He appears to be quite cerebral, and he appears to have

771
00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:27.667
set quite a lot of store by that feeling, that he's not really

772
00:30:27.667 --> 00:30:30.000
fueled by the emotions, that he solves his problems with his

773
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:32.400
mind, that he's an intellectual.

774
00:30:32.400 --> 00:30:35.100
And I like that, and I like --

775
00:30:35.100 --> 00:30:38.000
You like that in a leader?

776
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:40.567
Yes, but it can be a big disadvantage in

777
00:30:40.567 --> 00:30:42.801
that he somehow gives me the impression that he thinks that a

778
00:30:42.801 --> 00:30:45.067
lot of important disagreements arise out of misunderstanding,

779
00:30:45.067 --> 00:30:47.567
cultural misunderstanding, say.

780
00:30:47.567 --> 00:30:50.767
Yes.

781
00:30:50.767 --> 00:30:54.367
In fact, since we're talking about it --

782
00:30:54.367 --> 00:30:58.467
Iran is one of the occasions where I worry about that.

783
00:30:58.467 --> 00:31:02.901
It's as if he feels that in our rather ragged and jagged history

784
00:31:02.901 --> 00:31:07.067
since the American interventions in Iran in the '50s and so

785
00:31:07.067 --> 00:31:10.901
forth, the fact that we have different religions, that we

786
00:31:10.901 --> 00:31:14.067
have different culture, these explain the difference between

787
00:31:14.067 --> 00:31:16.901
us on things like nuclear weapons or the export of arms.

788
00:31:16.901 --> 00:31:19.300
And what do you think explains the difference

789
00:31:19.300 --> 00:31:21.334
between us?

790
00:31:21.334 --> 00:31:23.200
The theocratic

791
00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:25.067
dictatorship in Iran --

792
00:31:25.067 --> 00:31:26.901
The core beliefs.

793
00:31:26.901 --> 00:31:28.767
That want to tyrannize

794
00:31:28.767 --> 00:31:30.634
and own the Iranian

795
00:31:30.634 --> 00:31:33.701
people, in fact that does claim in its ideology that it is the

796
00:31:33.701 --> 00:31:36.868
owner, it is the parent of all the Iranian people.

797
00:31:36.868 --> 00:31:39.868
In other words, a totalitarian system, which is fueled by this

798
00:31:39.868 --> 00:31:42.367
ambition, which is also in its constitution, to spread that

799
00:31:42.367 --> 00:31:45.167
idea and push outwards by the export of violence.

800
00:31:45.167 --> 00:31:47.834
In other words, a regime with which a

801
00:31:47.834 --> 00:31:50.434
confrontation is inevitable.

802
00:31:50.434 --> 00:31:52.868
It's not to do with the fact that we don't fully understand

803
00:31:52.868 --> 00:31:54.968
the emotions (ph) of Shia Islam.

804
00:31:54.968 --> 00:31:56.767
Have you ever had a conversation with him?

805
00:31:56.767 --> 00:31:58.634
With the president?

806
00:31:58.634 --> 00:32:00.400
Yes.

807
00:32:00.400 --> 00:32:02.567
No, no.

808
00:32:02.567 --> 00:32:04.434
I know some of his -- I've met some of his

809
00:32:04.434 --> 00:32:06.234
people, his associates.

810
00:32:06.234 --> 00:32:08.100
I think I know -- I think I know the sort of

811
00:32:08.100 --> 00:32:09.734
politics that he exemplifies.

812
00:32:09.734 --> 00:32:11.567
I've read a lot of his stuff.

813
00:32:11.567 --> 00:32:13.234
I admire him as a writer, I have to say.

814
00:32:13.234 --> 00:32:15.167
I like his humor.

815
00:32:15.167 --> 00:32:17.234
I like the way that he's rather self-deprecating.

816
00:32:17.234 --> 00:32:19.400
He understands he's been lucky.

817
00:32:19.400 --> 00:32:21.267
So, on balance, your assessment of him -- other

818
00:32:21.267 --> 00:32:22.901
than the fact that you like a thinking president, is what?

819
00:32:22.901 --> 00:32:24.400
That he is possibly a

820
00:32:24.400 --> 00:32:25.767
very week guy, indeed.

821
00:32:25.767 --> 00:32:27.300
Really?

822
00:32:27.300 --> 00:32:29.100
Yes.

823
00:32:29.100 --> 00:32:31.200
Week guy indeed?

824
00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:33.400
Yes because I think -- if you wanted

825
00:32:33.400 --> 00:32:36.133
to maximize the likelihood of a bad outcome, I would say to

826
00:32:36.133 --> 00:32:38.968
double the -- ostensibly to double the number of troops in

827
00:32:38.968 --> 00:32:41.868
Afghanistan while announcing the date by which they'll start

828
00:32:41.868 --> 00:32:44.300
to withdraw probably would be the quickest way of ensuring

829
00:32:44.300 --> 00:32:47.200
the Afghan population already begins to make other

830
00:32:47.200 --> 00:32:49.601
arrangements, for example, which don't include your continued

831
00:32:49.601 --> 00:32:52.234
presence in the country.

832
00:32:52.234 --> 00:32:54.734
Has time made you more or less

833
00:32:54.734 --> 00:32:56.901
admiring of Bill Clinton?

834
00:32:56.901 --> 00:32:58.767
Certainly not more.

835
00:32:58.767 --> 00:33:00.934
I didn't -- I'm not sure it could have been any less.

836
00:33:00.934 --> 00:33:03.300
Really?

837
00:33:03.300 --> 00:33:05.300
Yes.

838
00:33:05.300 --> 00:33:07.067
You had that much --

839
00:33:07.067 --> 00:33:08.634
It' visceral, if you like.

840
00:33:08.634 --> 00:33:10.734
I just --

841
00:33:10.734 --> 00:33:13.234
It is.

842
00:33:13.234 --> 00:33:15.434
What is the visceral --

843
00:33:15.434 --> 00:33:17.634
I'v interviewed some of the women

844
00:33:17.634 --> 00:33:19.567
whose stories never quite made it, you know, who claimed that

845
00:33:19.567 --> 00:33:21.734
he'd forced himself on them.

846
00:33:21.734 --> 00:33:23.667
I think they're telling the truth.

847
00:33:23.667 --> 00:33:25.601
I thought that his --

848
00:33:25.601 --> 00:33:27.734
That's unimaginable to you, isn't it?

849
00:33:27.734 --> 00:33:29.567
Yes.

850
00:33:29.567 --> 00:33:31.200
I know because--

851
00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:33.501
Yes -- although I have a

852
00:33:33.501 --> 00:33:35.934
friend who is --

853
00:33:35.934 --> 00:33:39.033
Yes, exactly.

854
00:33:39.033 --> 00:33:41.634
It's unimaginable because -- the idea that you have been so

855
00:33:41.634 --> 00:33:44.267
lucky and fortunate or successful.

856
00:33:44.267 --> 00:33:46.467
Well, now, I'm not

857
00:33:46.467 --> 00:33:48.634
sure I saw that coming.

858
00:33:48.634 --> 00:33:50.767
I've been looking for an

859
00:33:50.767 --> 00:33:52.868
opportunity to express it.

860
00:33:52.868 --> 00:33:54.934
I think --

861
00:33:54.934 --> 00:33:57.000
And I had a better way, but go ahead.

862
00:33:57.000 --> 00:33:58.801
I think most -- I think even the most

863
00:33:58.801 --> 00:34:00.367
modestly equipped of men should get used to the idea that if

864
00:34:00.367 --> 00:34:02.067
they're going to enjoy female company, it better be on their

865
00:34:02.067 --> 00:34:03.968
own merits.

866
00:34:03.968 --> 00:34:05.901
Yes, exactly.

867
00:34:05.901 --> 00:34:07.601
What is the visceral attitude about Clinton?

868
00:34:07.601 --> 00:34:09.367
I thought that George Stephanopoulos was

869
00:34:09.367 --> 00:34:11.300
essentially right when he realized that

870
00:34:11.300 --> 00:34:13.067
the man was sociopath.

871
00:34:13.067 --> 00:34:15.033
Other people don't have a real existence with him.

872
00:34:15.033 --> 00:34:16.801
I mean, he only cares about himself.

873
00:34:16.801 --> 00:34:19.234
Yes.

874
00:34:19.234 --> 00:34:22.300
I thought that was so

875
00:34:22.300 --> 00:34:24.901
obvious and so reptilian.

876
00:34:24.901 --> 00:34:27.667
And so damaging to the politics.

877
00:34:27.667 --> 00:34:30.133
That seems to be, in the end, history is what

878
00:34:30.133 --> 00:34:32.467
fascinates you the most.

879
00:34:32.467 --> 00:34:34.467
The making of history.

880
00:34:34.467 --> 00:34:36.367
Yes.

881
00:34:36.367 --> 00:34:38.234
And having a sense of what goes into making

882
00:34:38.234 --> 00:34:40.133
that, yeah, absolutely.

883
00:34:40.133 --> 00:34:42.000
And what you have said before is

884
00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:43.901
the idea that you

885
00:34:43.901 --> 00:34:46.934
influence history is the most intoxicating of things.

886
00:34:46.934 --> 00:34:50.100
Yes, it's the great temptation.

887
00:34:50.100 --> 00:34:53.100
People think about their legacies, people say this is a

888
00:34:53.100 --> 00:34:56.067
historic moment.

889
00:34:56.067 --> 00:34:58.567
They forget, you know, as Hagel says, it's only when the outer

890
00:34:58.567 --> 00:35:00.901
(INAUDIBLE) has taken wing that you can make any judgments.

891
00:35:00.901 --> 00:35:03.167
It's only when the epoch is over that you

892
00:35:03.167 --> 00:35:05.634
can make any judgments.

893
00:35:05.634 --> 00:35:08.067
If you say you are changing history, you are probably not.

894
00:35:08.067 --> 00:35:10.501
You may possibly be changing your own.

895
00:35:10.501 --> 00:35:12.968
So when you think about legacy

896
00:35:12.968 --> 00:35:15.400
yourself at moments

897
00:35:15.400 --> 00:35:18.234
of reflection here, illness, where does it lead you?

898
00:35:18.234 --> 00:35:20.634
You know, I refuse to do it.

899
00:35:20.634 --> 00:35:22.667
I've decided I'm going to forgo that.

900
00:35:22.667 --> 00:35:24.434
Forgo that in your own mind or

901
00:35:24.434 --> 00:35:26.033
forgo that in conversation?

902
00:35:26.033 --> 00:35:27.467
Yes.

903
00:35:27.467 --> 00:35:28.767
I'm -- I think it's --

904
00:35:28.767 --> 00:35:30.267
In both?

905
00:35:30.267 --> 00:35:31.901
Yes.

906
00:35:31.901 --> 00:35:33.133
In both.

907
00:35:33.133 --> 00:35:34.367
I'm not going to think about myself.

908
00:35:34.367 --> 00:35:35.601
I think it's too -- it's too Napoleonic, it's too grandiose.

909
00:35:35.601 --> 00:35:36.868
I mean there's -- that's another

910
00:35:36.868 --> 00:35:38.100
strain that runs

911
00:35:38.100 --> 00:35:41.267
to --

912
00:35:41.267 --> 00:35:42.901
You have said things here in conversation --

913
00:35:42.901 --> 00:35:44.367
throughout the conversation, there's a

914
00:35:44.367 --> 00:35:45.968
certain sense of modesty.

915
00:35:45.968 --> 00:35:47.400
Well, I've got a lot

916
00:35:47.400 --> 00:35:49.634
to be modest about.

917
00:35:49.634 --> 00:35:52.067
I say in my book I'm very proud of having done

918
00:35:52.067 --> 00:35:54.868
a couple of things.

919
00:35:54.868 --> 00:35:57.534
One of them is sticking by the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition to

920
00:35:57.534 --> 00:35:59.701
Saddam Hussein during some very bad years, when they were being

921
00:35:59.701 --> 00:36:02.133
massacred and they needed their friends, and they -- I hear

922
00:36:02.133 --> 00:36:04.167
from them now, and they consider me to be one still.

923
00:36:04.167 --> 00:36:06.400
I'm proud of that.

924
00:36:06.400 --> 00:36:09.000
I'm not going to be-- I'm not going to overdo the modesty,

925
00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:11.934
believe me.

926
00:36:11.934 --> 00:36:15.000
I am also very proud -- I have a chapter on this, too -- of

927
00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:18.167
having been a friend of Salman Rushdie's during the time of the

928
00:36:18.167 --> 00:36:21.567
fatwa, when he was on the run, when not only did a friend need

929
00:36:21.567 --> 00:36:24.901
his friends but when a very important principle, the whole

930
00:36:24.901 --> 00:36:27.667
principle of free expression, needed to be defended against

931
00:36:27.667 --> 00:36:30.801
the most direct, foulest possible challenge -- I mean a

932
00:36:30.801 --> 00:36:33.801
death threat backed by death squads from the theocratic

933
00:36:33.801 --> 00:36:36.567
leader of the foreign state.

934
00:36:36.567 --> 00:36:39.133
And when a lot of people didn't show too much stomach for that

935
00:36:39.133 --> 00:36:41.567
-- that was a very educational time in my life.

936
00:36:41.567 --> 00:36:44.133
They were weak of spine.

937
00:36:44.133 --> 00:36:46.300
Yes, or worse.

938
00:36:46.300 --> 00:36:48.200
They thought that it was Rushdie's fault for writing the

939
00:36:48.200 --> 00:36:50.133
novel, not the Ayatollah Khomeini's for

940
00:36:50.133 --> 00:36:52.067
issuing a death threat--

941
00:36:52.067 --> 00:36:54.167
Fatwa --

942
00:36:54.167 --> 00:36:56.501
-- by money and a death squad.

943
00:36:56.501 --> 00:36:58.901
In other words, complete cultural--

944
00:36:58.901 --> 00:37:00.968
But that's caused by -- there are central three

945
00:37:00.968 --> 00:37:03.133
themes here when that is about -- your admiration of standing

946
00:37:03.133 --> 00:37:05.334
up for principle, your admiration for courage, and your

947
00:37:05.334 --> 00:37:07.267
admiration for friendship.

948
00:37:07.267 --> 00:37:09.200
And see, when you say these things,

949
00:37:09.200 --> 00:37:11.167
Charlie, you force me to sit here as if I'm taking them as no

950
00:37:11.167 --> 00:37:13.133
more than my due.

951
00:37:13.133 --> 00:37:14.834
And you have to see that's embarrassing for me.

952
00:37:14.834 --> 00:37:16.400
I don't care if I embarrass you.

953
00:37:16.400 --> 00:37:18.033
Well, fair enough.

954
00:37:18.033 --> 00:37:19.801
I really don't.

955
00:37:19.801 --> 00:37:21.334
OK.

956
00:37:21.334 --> 00:37:22.767
I'm interested in who you are --

957
00:37:22.767 --> 00:37:24.067
Well, with that understanding, I don't

958
00:37:24.067 --> 00:37:25.334
mind being (INAUDIBLE).

959
00:37:25.334 --> 00:37:27.868
OK. Great.

960
00:37:27.868 --> 00:37:29.634
All right.

961
00:37:29.634 --> 00:37:32.067
Who do you admire politically?

962
00:37:32.067 --> 00:37:34.968
I really think the people who look for

963
00:37:34.968 --> 00:37:37.767
heroism among politicians are probably looking for love in all

964
00:37:37.767 --> 00:37:40.133
the wrong places, to begin with, it's a thing to avoid.

965
00:37:40.133 --> 00:37:43.267
But at the risk of embarrassment, I would say that

966
00:37:43.267 --> 00:37:45.901
very aware of a lot of his flaws, I'm quite a strong

967
00:37:45.901 --> 00:37:49.667
admirer of Tony Blair's.

968
00:37:49.667 --> 00:37:52.767
I think he was a man really prepared to take risks for

969
00:37:52.767 --> 00:37:56.133
points of principle.

970
00:37:56.133 --> 00:37:59.300
I think he did two or three very important things on that,

971
00:37:59.300 --> 00:38:02.434
on that basis.

972
00:38:02.434 --> 00:38:05.567
One was to save Sierra Leone from the Liberian invasion, and

973
00:38:05.567 --> 00:38:08.400
to handle (INAUDIBLE) and the blood diamond merchants who

974
00:38:08.400 --> 00:38:10.801
invaded Sierra Leone.

975
00:38:10.801 --> 00:38:12.834
Decided there was not going to be another Rwanda.

976
00:38:12.834 --> 00:38:14.868
Nobody was doing anything about it.

977
00:38:14.868 --> 00:38:16.634
The U.N.

978
00:38:16.634 --> 00:38:18.767
was doing nothing about it.

979
00:38:18.767 --> 00:38:20.634
The Sierra- Leoneans appealed to Britain; Blair said, all right,

980
00:38:20.634 --> 00:38:22.534
we'll send the boys.

981
00:38:22.534 --> 00:38:24.834
And we smashed the IUF, and drove them back and got rid of

982
00:38:24.834 --> 00:38:27.300
Charles Taylor.

983
00:38:27.300 --> 00:38:29.968
Very good.

984
00:38:29.968 --> 00:38:32.868
Pressed Clinton to hang tough over Kosovo.

985
00:38:32.868 --> 00:38:35.968
Made another speech saying the next confrontation would have to

986
00:38:35.968 --> 00:38:38.601
be with Saddam Hussein, that was in 1999.

987
00:38:38.601 --> 00:38:41.367
Repeatedly said, we can't co-exist with totalitarian

988
00:38:41.367 --> 00:38:44.067
ideologies or regimes, and lost his career and

989
00:38:44.067 --> 00:38:46.601
reputation on it largely.

990
00:38:46.601 --> 00:38:49.501
It was principle.

991
00:38:49.501 --> 00:38:52.634
He coul have retired after 10 years, the

992
00:38:52.634 --> 00:38:55.767
first time a Labor prime minister has served for a

993
00:38:55.767 --> 00:38:59.367
decade, as a really popular, successful politician, and

994
00:38:59.367 --> 00:39:02.300
retired obviously covered in spittle, and proceeded to this

995
00:39:02.300 --> 00:39:05.234
day with the most unbelievable defamation and (INAUDIBLE) and

996
00:39:05.234 --> 00:39:08.200
slander, that will haunt beyond the grave.

997
00:39:08.200 --> 00:39:11.133
Here is something I admire

998
00:39:11.133 --> 00:39:14.067
deeply about you, too,

999
00:39:14.067 --> 00:39:17.200
is the notion of friendship.

1000
00:39:17.200 --> 00:39:19.801
You formed bonds with Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan

1001
00:39:19.801 --> 00:39:22.267
and others.

1002
00:39:22.267 --> 00:39:24.601
I've been very

1003
00:39:24.601 --> 00:39:26.868
lucky with my contemporaries.

1004
00:39:26.868 --> 00:39:28.801
I think they taught me how to write.

1005
00:39:28.801 --> 00:39:30.734
They taught you how to write.

1006
00:39:30.734 --> 00:39:32.267
Well, more important

1007
00:39:32.267 --> 00:39:34.200
first, how not to write.

1008
00:39:34.200 --> 00:39:36.400
I was a rather didactic, rather polemical writer when I first

1009
00:39:36.400 --> 00:39:38.834
got to know them.

1010
00:39:38.834 --> 00:39:41.467
I was writing for the cause, rather.

1011
00:39:41.467 --> 00:39:44.901
I wasn't paying very much attention to style.

1012
00:39:44.901 --> 00:39:48.367
They pointed out to me-- and it can be enjoyable to read and

1013
00:39:48.367 --> 00:39:52.434
write things, as well as a, you know, a duty to do so--

1014
00:39:52.434 --> 00:39:56.434
introduce me to writers I hadn't appreciated enough, like

1015
00:39:56.434 --> 00:39:59.868
Nabokov, for example.

1016
00:39:59.868 --> 00:40:02.667
Broadened my outlook, deepened my feeling for language, as well

1017
00:40:02.667 --> 00:40:05.267
as providing me with a wonderful context of, yes,

1018
00:40:05.267 --> 00:40:07.734
amusing friendship.

1019
00:40:07.734 --> 00:40:09.834
Great.

1020
00:40:09.834 --> 00:40:12.267
I forget who says it--

1021
00:40:12.267 --> 00:40:15.200
Repartee and dinner and common experience.

1022
00:40:15.200 --> 00:40:18.033
Yes.

1023
00:40:18.033 --> 00:40:20.834
And common struggles, as in the one to defend Salman.

1024
00:40:20.834 --> 00:40:23.200
You know, observed (INAUDIBLE) quite a few years.

1025
00:40:23.200 --> 00:40:25.667
He was a case of not just a good friend needing his friends,

1026
00:40:25.667 --> 00:40:28.567
but a good, very important principle

1027
00:40:28.567 --> 00:40:31.601
needing to be defended.

1028
00:40:31.601 --> 00:40:34.667
And because my family background was rather small and

1029
00:40:34.667 --> 00:40:37.634
didn't last very long, it was rather constricted, when I read

1030
00:40:37.634 --> 00:40:40.501
-- I think it's Michael Pierson (ph) who first said it, the

1031
00:40:40.501 --> 00:40:42.934
definition of friendship is it's God's apology for relations.

1032
00:40:42.934 --> 00:40:45.167
God's apology for family.

1033
00:40:45.167 --> 00:40:47.067
I thought, I know what he means by that.

1034
00:40:47.067 --> 00:40:48.734
It is family.

1035
00:40:48.734 --> 00:40:50.801
It is family.

1036
00:40:50.801 --> 00:40:52.634
Yes.

1037
00:40:52.634 --> 00:40:54.567
Yes.

1038
00:40:54.567 --> 00:40:56.634
Now, are you all equally close, or are you closer to Martin than

1039
00:40:56.634 --> 00:40:59.000
others or is it just--

1040
00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:01.000
Well, you know, we're all English

1041
00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:03.167
originally, so it's considered extremely embarrassing to talk

1042
00:41:03.167 --> 00:41:07.367
about intimacy and that - - one doesn't--

1043
00:41:07.367 --> 00:41:10.133
If you have to say it, probably there's

1044
00:41:10.133 --> 00:41:12.467
something terribly wrong.

1045
00:41:12.467 --> 00:41:14.734
Here you write your memoir, and you do not fail

1046
00:41:14.734 --> 00:41:17.267
to put in several sexual experiences with men-- none of

1047
00:41:17.267 --> 00:41:19.834
the above.

1048
00:41:19.834 --> 00:41:22.567
It's almost a cliche-- and many

1049
00:41:22.567 --> 00:41:25.534
Americans think it's more than that-- that's a formative thing

1050
00:41:25.534 --> 00:41:28.100
with young English men who go to--

1051
00:41:28.100 --> 00:41:30.767
They do, exactly, I've been told that.

1052
00:41:30.767 --> 00:41:33.968
In fact most of them think we never

1053
00:41:33.968 --> 00:41:36.601
completely get over it.

1054
00:41:36.601 --> 00:41:38.834
It can be got over, I assure you.

1055
00:41:38.834 --> 00:41:40.767
But it is -- it can also be very powerful

1056
00:41:40.767 --> 00:41:42.467
at the time emotionally.

1057
00:41:42.467 --> 00:41:44.501
You're young.

1058
00:41:44.501 --> 00:41:46.267
You're unformed.

1059
00:41:46.267 --> 00:41:48.601
You're churning.

1060
00:41:48.601 --> 00:41:51.200
You are surrounded by Latin poets who write

1061
00:41:51.200 --> 00:41:54.300
about homoerotic love.

1062
00:41:54.300 --> 00:41:57.167
It's pretty amazing if something doesn't kindle.

1063
00:41:57.167 --> 00:41:59.901
And the point I think I wanted to make, I decided for that

1064
00:41:59.901 --> 00:42:02.634
reason to include these things in the book, is it isn't a form

1065
00:42:02.634 --> 00:42:05.701
of sex as well, or only.

1066
00:42:05.701 --> 00:42:09.100
It's a form of love.

1067
00:42:09.100 --> 00:42:11.901
And this is understood that way.

1068
00:42:11.901 --> 00:42:15.000
So at a time when there's a lot of attempts to criminalize or

1069
00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:17.567
defame homosexual behavior, I thought I might speak up that

1070
00:42:17.567 --> 00:42:20.601
far about it.

1071
00:42:20.601 --> 00:42:23.200
Did you have any reluctance to do it in any way,

1072
00:42:23.200 --> 00:42:25.367
for any reason?

1073
00:42:25.367 --> 00:42:27.534
No, no.

1074
00:42:27.534 --> 00:42:29.601
I don't put in any names.

1075
00:42:29.601 --> 00:42:31.667
Right.

1076
00:42:31.667 --> 00:42:33.734
I don't feel I have copyright (ph) in

1077
00:42:33.734 --> 00:42:35.767
anyone but myself.

1078
00:42:35.767 --> 00:42:37.801
Which leads me to the larger question.

1079
00:42:37.801 --> 00:42:39.801
Was there anything -- what is not in here?

1080
00:42:39.801 --> 00:42:41.834
What is it that is part of who are you that is not here?

1081
00:42:41.834 --> 00:42:43.834
I specifically say at the

1082
00:42:43.834 --> 00:42:46.601
beginning I have a special little note, a warning to say if

1083
00:42:46.601 --> 00:42:48.901
that's what you're interested in, you'll be disappointed.

1084
00:42:48.901 --> 00:42:51.834
Because I have only copyright on myself first.

1085
00:42:51.834 --> 00:42:54.968
I can't really commit other people's stores

1086
00:42:54.968 --> 00:42:58.334
to enhance my own.

1087
00:42:58.334 --> 00:43:01.467
Unless they're already public figures in some way.

1088
00:43:01.467 --> 00:43:04.367
And the book is supposed to be about a journey of ideas and

1089
00:43:04.367 --> 00:43:06.767
experiences and battles over ideology and principles.

1090
00:43:06.767 --> 00:43:09.067
It's not a racy memoir of myself.

1091
00:43:09.067 --> 00:43:10.567
It's not a tell-all about--

1092
00:43:10.567 --> 00:43:12.067
Yes.

1093
00:43:12.067 --> 00:43:13.601
On the other hand--

1094
00:43:13.601 --> 00:43:15.100
Maybe now would be the

1095
00:43:15.100 --> 00:43:16.634
time to beguile the

1096
00:43:16.634 --> 00:43:18.300
weary (INAUDIBLE).

1097
00:43:18.300 --> 00:43:19.901
Well, why not.

1098
00:43:19.901 --> 00:43:21.634
Yes, please, do.

1099
00:43:21.634 --> 00:43:23.901
Bring some comfort to those

1100
00:43:23.901 --> 00:43:26.000
chemotherapeutic evenings.

1101
00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:28.067
Some of the more interesting observations--

1102
00:43:28.067 --> 00:43:30.133
I can't toll you how little like sex I

1103
00:43:30.133 --> 00:43:31.901
feel like talking about.

1104
00:43:31.901 --> 00:43:33.767
Well, I understand that.

1105
00:43:33.767 --> 00:43:35.400
I'v never felt so unmanned (ph) my

1106
00:43:35.400 --> 00:43:37.100
entire life.

1107
00:43:37.100 --> 00:43:38.901
Back to living with cancer.

1108
00:43:38.901 --> 00:43:40.801
Yes.

1109
00:43:40.801 --> 00:43:42.801
What's the worst part of it?

1110
00:43:42.801 --> 00:43:44.534
Is it -- it puts some sense of mortality in your focus?

1111
00:43:44.534 --> 00:43:46.100
No, because I think the focus on

1112
00:43:46.100 --> 00:43:47.501
mortality is a useful thing to have, and that's why I begin my

1113
00:43:47.501 --> 00:43:49.167
book with it.

1114
00:43:49.167 --> 00:43:51.234
You should always know--

1115
00:43:51.234 --> 00:43:53.467
Before you knew.

1116
00:43:53.467 --> 00:43:56.100
-- that your time is very limited, and

1117
00:43:56.100 --> 00:43:58.534
that you're lucky to live in a time and place where you can be

1118
00:43:58.534 --> 00:44:00.934
healthy until you're 60, as I was.

1119
00:44:00.934 --> 00:44:03.434
Most people in history never had a chance even to hope for a

1120
00:44:03.434 --> 00:44:06.234
thing like that.

1121
00:44:06.234 --> 00:44:08.567
So, no for the avoidance of hubris, I think it's good to

1122
00:44:08.567 --> 00:44:10.834
have a sober feeling of the presence of death.

1123
00:44:10.834 --> 00:44:13.267
But did you only get it when you

1124
00:44:13.267 --> 00:44:15.334
got to 59 and 60?

1125
00:44:15.334 --> 00:44:17.968
No, but you get more of it when you

1126
00:44:17.968 --> 00:44:20.501
realize you're going to -- you've seen more sunsets than

1127
00:44:20.501 --> 00:44:22.667
you're going to see.

1128
00:44:22.667 --> 00:44:25.033
You're bound to feel a bit more retrospective.

1129
00:44:25.033 --> 00:44:27.434
You also -- the worst thing about it is, I think the feeling

1130
00:44:27.434 --> 00:44:29.667
that I'm boring.

1131
00:44:29.667 --> 00:44:31.801
Which your mother said was the worst sin.

1132
00:44:31.801 --> 00:44:33.734
Yes, an unforgivable one.

1133
00:44:33.734 --> 00:44:35.734
People say, can I come around?

1134
00:44:35.734 --> 00:44:37.868
And I think they really mean it.

1135
00:44:37.868 --> 00:44:39.801
I'd love to see you.

1136
00:44:39.801 --> 00:44:42.701
Can I bring you some food or something to drink?

1137
00:44:42.701 --> 00:44:45.501
I say I'd love you to come, but I really don't think I'm much

1138
00:44:45.501 --> 00:44:47.901
fit for human consumption.

1139
00:44:47.901 --> 00:44:50.367
I hate that feeling very much.

1140
00:44:50.367 --> 00:44:52.868
There are days when I'm very afraid it will

1141
00:44:52.868 --> 00:44:55.234
stop me from writing.

1142
00:44:55.234 --> 00:44:57.133
There are days I find it hard to write, and writing was

1143
00:44:57.133 --> 00:44:59.367
recreational to me all my life.

1144
00:44:59.367 --> 00:45:02.000
It's hard work, but I enjoy doing it.

1145
00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:05.501
I wasn't happy not doing.

1146
00:45:05.501 --> 00:45:08.567
Now it can be an effort, and I am terrified it will kill my

1147
00:45:08.567 --> 00:45:11.467
ability to do that, because that would sap my will to live.

1148
00:45:11.467 --> 00:45:14.534
What else is bad about it?

1149
00:45:14.534 --> 00:45:17.767
It makes you feel sick.

1150
00:45:17.767 --> 00:45:21.033
Physically.

1151
00:45:21.033 --> 00:45:24.067
Makes - yes, time passes so you feel--

1152
00:45:24.067 --> 00:45:26.667
your time has been -- everything takes a long time.

1153
00:45:26.667 --> 00:45:29.100
So you never get a feeling you've done a full day's work.

1154
00:45:29.100 --> 00:45:31.434
If you've done anything at all, you're pleased.

1155
00:45:31.434 --> 00:45:33.667
And bored.

1156
00:45:33.667 --> 00:45:35.601
Boring and passive, impotent.

1157
00:45:35.601 --> 00:45:37.701
None of these are attractive words.

1158
00:45:37.701 --> 00:45:39.501
And none of these -- it goes exactly against the

1159
00:45:39.501 --> 00:45:41.367
grain of the life you've lived.

1160
00:45:41.367 --> 00:45:43.634
You can't really seize the initiative.

1161
00:45:43.634 --> 00:45:46.000
You can pretend you are.

1162
00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:48.033
You can go and look up treatments, you can read books

1163
00:45:48.033 --> 00:45:49.834
about cancer, look up other protocols, feel you're trying to

1164
00:45:49.834 --> 00:45:51.634
steal the march on the thing, but I can't help the feeling I'm

1165
00:45:51.634 --> 00:45:53.501
fooling myself.

1166
00:45:53.501 --> 00:45:55.501
Excuse me.

1167
00:45:55.501 --> 00:45:57.934
You're not seizing (INAUDIBLE).

1168
00:45:57.934 --> 00:46:00.200
Well, you're not getting-- you know,

1169
00:46:00.200 --> 00:46:02.634
you're not turning the tide on it.

1170
00:46:02.634 --> 00:46:04.701
The initiative is still with the tumor.

1171
00:46:04.701 --> 00:46:06.601
It's rather dictating terms.

1172
00:46:06.601 --> 00:46:08.567
Do you think about how death happens?

1173
00:46:08.567 --> 00:46:11.100
Yes.

1174
00:46:11.100 --> 00:46:13.534
What it's like?

1175
00:46:13.534 --> 00:46:15.767
Yes.

1176
00:46:15.767 --> 00:46:18.334
In my book, I say that I want to be conscious for it.

1177
00:46:18.334 --> 00:46:20.767
You want to be conscious?

1178
00:46:20.767 --> 00:46:23.234
Yes.

1179
00:46:23.234 --> 00:46:25.467
That I -- it's an experience-- it's yet another experience,

1180
00:46:25.467 --> 00:46:28.534
and I don't want to miss anything that comes.

1181
00:46:28.534 --> 00:46:31.634
The experience I'd like to see coming, have some remark,

1182
00:46:31.634 --> 00:46:34.834
perhaps, to make about it.

1183
00:46:34.834 --> 00:46:37.734
That's very qualified when you think of how painful a cancer

1184
00:46:37.734 --> 00:46:39.934
death can be.

1185
00:46:39.934 --> 00:46:42.167
You might lose your ability to make an observation or really to

1186
00:46:42.167 --> 00:46:44.367
be taking in the situation at all.

1187
00:46:44.367 --> 00:46:46.601
Are you trying to find everything

1188
00:46:46.601 --> 00:46:48.801
you possibly can

1189
00:46:48.801 --> 00:46:51.467
about it, your cancer?

1190
00:46:51.467 --> 00:46:53.767
Yes, I' now becoming someone who hasn't

1191
00:46:53.767 --> 00:46:56.000
got anything else to do, to talk about it, to read about it.

1192
00:46:56.000 --> 00:46:57.901
I mean, most of my reading is not about that.

1193
00:46:57.901 --> 00:47:00.267
I try to keep reading.

1194
00:47:00.267 --> 00:47:02.534
I'm reading Saul Bellow's (ph) letters at the moment.

1195
00:47:02.534 --> 00:47:04.734
Why?

1196
00:47:04.734 --> 00:47:06.634
Because they've just come out, and they

1197
00:47:06.634 --> 00:47:08.701
have never been collected before.

1198
00:47:08.701 --> 00:47:11.534
And because I knew him a bit, and wrote quite

1199
00:47:11.534 --> 00:47:13.934
a lot about him.

1200
00:47:13.934 --> 00:47:17.100
It's wonderful to be reading that.

1201
00:47:17.100 --> 00:47:19.834
And I'm reading Mark Twain's biography,

1202
00:47:19.834 --> 00:47:22.501
long delayed. Terrific.

1203
00:47:22.501 --> 00:47:24.767
I read Hans Falada's novel about the tiny resistance family

1204
00:47:24.767 --> 00:47:27.400
in Berlin in the 1940s.

1205
00:47:27.400 --> 00:47:29.934
What recent books have influenced you the most,

1206
00:47:29.934 --> 00:47:32.234
you think?

1207
00:47:32.234 --> 00:47:35.167
Recent ones?

1208
00:47:35.167 --> 00:47:38.167
Especially at times like this, I tend to go back to the old

1209
00:47:38.167 --> 00:47:40.934
ones, I have to say.

1210
00:47:40.934 --> 00:47:44.300
I'm not any more up on the ne books than I am on seeing new

1211
00:47:44.300 --> 00:47:47.901
films, which is interesting me less and less as well.

1212
00:47:47.901 --> 00:47:51.133
Keeping up to date seems less of a point now.

1213
00:47:51.133 --> 00:47:53.834
Everybody wants to know the following answer:

1214
00:47:53.834 --> 00:47:56.567
Has any of this caused you to have any change of your ideas or

1215
00:47:56.567 --> 00:47:59.534
opinions about religion?

1216
00:47:59.534 --> 00:48:02.234
No.

1217
00:48:02.234 --> 00:48:04.968
Why could it possibly do that?

1218
00:48:04.968 --> 00:48:07.467
Because of the old maxim that there are no

1219
00:48:07.467 --> 00:48:10.400
atheists in foxholes.

1220
00:48:10.400 --> 00:48:13.000
Well, there, I already know from my

1221
00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:15.534
own experience and from other people's, because I've several

1222
00:48:15.534 --> 00:48:17.968
times been in positions where I thought, ah, I'm not going to

1223
00:48:17.968 --> 00:48:20.033
get out of this.

1224
00:48:20.033 --> 00:48:22.067
I describe a couple of them, one in

1225
00:48:22.067 --> 00:48:24.133
Beirut, one in Afghanistan.

1226
00:48:24.133 --> 00:48:25.901
Right, right.

1227
00:48:25.901 --> 00:48:28.067
At leas -- it looks bad.

1228
00:48:28.067 --> 00:48:29.934
Never crossed my mind to resort to incantation or entreaties at

1229
00:48:29.934 --> 00:48:32.234
that point.

1230
00:48:32.234 --> 00:48:34.601
And I know a lot of soldiers and others who say the same.

1231
00:48:34.601 --> 00:48:37.868
It's simply not true.

1232
00:48:37.868 --> 00:48:41.334
No one seems to know where this silly adage comes from, but it's

1233
00:48:41.334 --> 00:48:44.300
definitely false.

1234
00:48:44.300 --> 00:48:47.467
Anyway, even-- even the small point that it contains is what?

1235
00:48:47.467 --> 00:48:50.701
It's people saying maybe an exception to the general rule

1236
00:48:50.701 --> 00:48:53.400
made in my own case.

1237
00:48:53.400 --> 00:48:55.934
Well, that's pathetic, isn't it?

1238
00:48:55.934 --> 00:48:58.300
No exception is going to be made

1239
00:48:58.300 --> 00:49:00.968
in my case. (INAUDIBLE).

1240
00:49:00.968 --> 00:49:04.067
On the other hand--

1241
00:49:04.067 --> 00:49:07.400
And people who say, well, if you'd

1242
00:49:07.400 --> 00:49:10.801
only give up the principles you've been attached to for a

1243
00:49:10.801 --> 00:49:14.133
lifetime, you might impress God that way.

1244
00:49:14.133 --> 00:49:17.200
The likelihood that intercessionary prayer or things

1245
00:49:17.200 --> 00:49:20.267
of this kind are going to make a difference to you, whether

1246
00:49:20.267 --> 00:49:23.534
you're healthy or ill, seems to be -- to be nil.

1247
00:49:23.534 --> 00:49:26.501
And you say about those people having prayer

1248
00:49:26.501 --> 00:49:28.968
vigils and whatever they're going to do on September 20, one

1249
00:49:28.968 --> 00:49:31.534
great united prayer, you say to them, if it makes them--

1250
00:49:31.534 --> 00:49:34.734
They have my blessing if it makes them

1251
00:49:34.734 --> 00:49:37.868
feel better, absolutely.

1252
00:49:37.868 --> 00:49:40.434
I don't want to be churlish about it.

1253
00:49:40.434 --> 00:49:43.434
I've had a lot of very nice letters from people who say,

1254
00:49:43.434 --> 00:49:46.200
since it is you I won't pray for you because they

1255
00:49:46.200 --> 00:49:48.734
think I might mind.

1256
00:49:48.734 --> 00:49:52.501
But I mean, anyone who is kind enough to express sympathy, I

1257
00:49:52.501 --> 00:49:56.200
am not going to sneer at them.

1258
00:49:56.200 --> 00:49:59.567
That would be -- that would be cheap.

1259
00:49:59.567 --> 00:50:02.534
But there is a long history, very unattractive history, of

1260
00:50:02.534 --> 00:50:06.000
religious people going around claiming that nonbelievers

1261
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:08.934
reconsidered everything at the last and will be received into

1262
00:50:08.934 --> 00:50:12.100
the bosom and so forth.

1263
00:50:12.100 --> 00:50:15.200
This involves the fabrications, telling lies about Thomas Paine,

1264
00:50:15.200 --> 00:50:18.033
David Hume, Voltaire.

1265
00:50:18.033 --> 00:50:21.267
Now, the circulation of real slanders.

1266
00:50:21.267 --> 00:50:24.400
And I think it's a disgraceful advantage to want to take of

1267
00:50:24.400 --> 00:50:28.067
people, too.

1268
00:50:28.067 --> 00:50:31.634
Why do you think a conversion made by someone whose body and

1269
00:50:31.634 --> 00:50:34.567
mind is giving way is worth having?

1270
00:50:34.567 --> 00:50:37.534
It seems like a horrible form of moral blackmail to me, to go

1271
00:50:37.534 --> 00:50:40.400
and offer people salvation on those conditions and terms.

1272
00:50:40.400 --> 00:50:43.400
So if a man--

1273
00:50:43.400 --> 00:50:46.567
So I do find this and its history

1274
00:50:46.567 --> 00:50:49.200
positively repulsive.

1275
00:50:49.200 --> 00:50:52.033
In the soft form it's offered to me, we pray either that you get

1276
00:50:52.033 --> 00:50:54.901
better or you see the light, what's the harm?

1277
00:50:54.901 --> 00:50:58.167
It's like holy water.

1278
00:50:58.167 --> 00:51:01.467
It can't burn you.

1279
00:51:01.467 --> 00:51:04.567
Any Dylan Thomas in you?

1280
00:51:04.567 --> 00:51:07.534
No.

1281
00:51:07.534 --> 00:51:11.133
No, because what's to be-- what's to be enraged about?

1282
00:51:11.133 --> 00:51:14.601
It's a very necessary thing.

1283
00:51:14.601 --> 00:51:18.267
The end, to be enraged about.

1284
00:51:18.267 --> 00:51:21.601
Yes, anger I can't muster.

1285
00:51:21.601 --> 00:51:24.467
Really because it's necessary that people die.

1286
00:51:24.467 --> 00:51:27.567
It would be terrible if people did not.

1287
00:51:27.567 --> 00:51:31.033
People have to die in large numbers every day

1288
00:51:31.033 --> 00:51:34.267
so as to make room.

1289
00:51:34.267 --> 00:51:37.534
I'm leaving the party a bit earlier than I'd like.

1290
00:51:37.534 --> 00:51:40.334
Much earlier than I'd like-- or rather, it looks as if I might

1291
00:51:40.334 --> 00:51:42.934
leave quite a bit earlier than I'd like.

1292
00:51:42.934 --> 00:51:45.000
And not only that, but the party will go on without me, a

1293
00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:47.901
more horrible thought.

1294
00:51:47.901 --> 00:51:50.834
Why should I be enraged at that?

1295
00:51:50.834 --> 00:51:53.667
That would be spiteful.

1296
00:51:53.667 --> 00:51:56.734
And the bottom line truth is, you know, that

1297
00:51:56.734 --> 00:52:00.000
whenever that happens, whether it's next week or five years

1298
00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:03.801
from now or 10 years from now or through some miracle of

1299
00:52:03.801 --> 00:52:07.767
medical revelation that we do not yet know, you know, you

1300
00:52:07.767 --> 00:52:11.000
have to know that you have engaged it and you have engaged

1301
00:52:11.000 --> 00:52:14.267
it with great sense of fierce fighting for ideas you believed

1302
00:52:14.267 --> 00:52:17.234
in, fierce commitment to friends, and

1303
00:52:17.234 --> 00:52:19.968
fierce love of family.

1304
00:52:19.968 --> 00:52:22.467
Life is a terrible thing to waste.

1305
00:52:22.467 --> 00:52:24.934
So I hope I haven't wasted too much of it.

1306
00:52:24.934 --> 00:52:27.434
It's very kind of you to put it like that.

1307
00:52:27.434 --> 00:52:29.901
Clearly, when you look at these

1308
00:52:29.901 --> 00:52:32.400
books, "Hostage to

1309
00:52:32.400 --> 00:52:35.300
History," "Blood, Class and Nostalgia," "Imperial Spoils,"

1310
00:52:35.300 --> 00:52:38.100
"Why Orwell Matters," "No One Left to Lie To: The

1311
00:52:38.100 --> 00:52:41.000
Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton," "Letters to

1312
00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:44.000
a Young Contrarian," "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," "Thomas

1313
00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:47.334
Jefferson, Author of America," "Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A

1314
00:52:47.334 --> 00:52:50.067
Biography," "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons

1315
00:52:50.067 --> 00:52:52.601
Everything," "Essays, Collaborations and Pamphlets,"

1316
00:52:52.601 --> 00:52:54.801
you know that it has been a fascinating time.

1317
00:52:54.801 --> 00:52:56.934
Thank you.

1318
00:52:56.934 --> 00:52:59.033
Thank you, Charlie.

1319
00:52:59.033 --> 00:53:00.901
It's a pleasure.

1320
00:53:00.901 --> 00:53:02.701
Thanks for coming.

1321
00:53:02.701 --> 00:53:04.567
The book is called "Hitch 22: A Memoir" by

1322
00:53:04.567 --> 00:53:06.400
Christopher Hitchens.

1323
00:53:06.400 --> 00:53:08.267
Thank you for being with us.

1324
00:53:08.267 --> 
See you next time.