WEBVTT

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We begin this evening with a look at Iraq and

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its impact on next week's U.S. elections.

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Polls show that a majority of Americans believe that

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Democrats will reduce or end the U.S.

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military involvement in Iraq if they win control of Congress.

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Tom Ricks of the "Washington Post" wrote recently, October

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2006 may be remembered as the month that the U.S.

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experience in Iraq hit a tipping point when the violence flared

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and shook both the military command in Iraq and the

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political establishment back in Washington.

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October was also the fourth deadliest month of the war with

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105 troops killed.

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The questions we ask tonight are how will it change in power in

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Congress if it comes affect U.S.

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policy in Iraq?

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And what exactly is the situation in that country, and

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what does it mean for the U.S.

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national security interest?

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Joining me now are Anthony Shadid of the "Washington Post."

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He has just returned from Iraq, and joins us from Oklahoma City.

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His book about Iraq "Night Draws Near," was recently

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released in paperback.

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From Washington, General Jack Keane, he was the Army's vice

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chief of staff from 1999 to 2003.

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Also with us, Adam Nagourney of the "New York Times." He is

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covering the political campaign of 2006.

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With me here in New York is Fareed Zakaria.

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Fareed is editor of "Newsweek International." His article

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"Rethinking Iraq, The Way Forward," appears in the current

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issue of "Newsweek".

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I am pleased to have each of them.

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I go first to Oklahoma City and talk to Anthony Shadid.

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Tell me what it was like on the ground for you, and where you

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think it is at this moment, and what the consequences of that

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are and what alternatives does it offer for America?

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You know, I have to say, I hadn't

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been to Iraq in

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quite a few months, and it was -- when I returned in October,

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it was -- it was quite a bit grimmer than I

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expected it to be.

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You know, I've always been struck by the resilience of

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Baghdad, how the city bounces back from the tragedies that it

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experiences so often.

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You didn't sense that resilience anymore.

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And I think, you know, both in Baghdad and then in other parts

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of the country, when I was down in southern Iraq, you got the

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sense as well as that we're seeing so many conflicts take

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place at one time -- it's not only the insurgency, which is

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continuing unabated, but also this, of course, the Sunni on

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Shiite conflicts, but as well as you're seeing a power grab, a

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conflict between Shiite militias themselves in southern Iraq,

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for instance.

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And this is where we're not really dealing with sectarian

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issues necessarily, but we are seeing militias basically carve

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out territories in different parts of the country.

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You know, what way forward at this point, it's hard to say.

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It does feel, like I said, a little bit grimmer and quite a

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bit bleaker than I expected it to be after having been gone for

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so many months.

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Do most of the people you have known -- and

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some of the people who appeared in your book --

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have they given up?

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You know, it was a sense -- you

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know, what - what

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I used to hear back in 2003 and 2004, that kind of anger and

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resentment, frustration in a lot of ways, you didn't hear

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that as much.

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It wasn't as pronounced.

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What I was, you know, hearing today in conversations from --

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from people I had spent time with since the invasion was this

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almost a sense of despair.

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I mean, I was talking to a professor at Baghdad University

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who I have come to know over the years, and, you know, he --

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we had a conversation about what, you know --

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could it get worse?

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And I remember he turned to me and said, "No, what could be

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worse at this point?"

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I saw him a week later over dinner and he said, "You know,

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sometimes I think what I would do if I were the Americans and

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-- and I don't really, you know, it feels like a volcano

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has erupted, and I don't know how you stop that." That sense

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like kind of despair and hopelessness, I heard, you

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know, time and again in this conversations.

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Fareed, take a look first before we get to your

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proposals for what America ought to do, where you see it

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there today.

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Well, I think Anthony has

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written about this brilliantly.

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What has happened in Iraq, it seems to me, is that people have

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essentially given up on the American project, the idea that

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a new Iraq is going to be created, that it's going to be

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liberal, democratic, secular, and they are retreating to

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their clans, tribes; sects.

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If you look at the Iraqi army and you talk to people who work

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with them, they say they're all maintaining an option, an option

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to go back to a militia, maintaining a dual

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loyalty right now.

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So what you have in effect is the power struggle for the

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post-American Iraq that has already begun.

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And that's why it doesn't really make much sense to talk about

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more troops, less troops -- that's all irrelevant.

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We have become one more militia, in a sense,

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in Iraq, and they're

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trying to figure out what the landscape is going to look like,

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and in that context, they want to maintain their ties to the

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Badr Brigade or to the Sadr Army, and that's really what's

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going on in Iraq today.

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For all intents and purposes, it is a civil war.

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Oh, there's no question it's a civil war in

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terms of -- you know, 35,000 people, conservatively, Iraqi

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civilians, have died.

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But it's a civil war in the sense that -- again, Anthony has

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written, which is everyone is maintaining a very strong

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primary loyalty to a sect, to a tribe, to a clan, and not to

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the state or to the nation.

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You make the comparison with Korea in this

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piece on "Newsweek".

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What is the analogy?

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The analogy is this: there's - there's no real

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prospect that we can win this the way the

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president talks about.

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He's - he's thinking of a World War II kind of victory.

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That's not likely.

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But I don't think it's going to look like Vietnam in that, you

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know, we're not going to be chased out of the country with a

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huge nationalist rebellion against us.

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What we can hope for is some kind of gray, unsatisfying

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ending that doesn't quite look like a victory and doesn't quite

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look like a defeat, where we can find a way to stabilize in

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some way the situation, leave with a certain degree of

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credibility and dignity and honor, but I do say, Charlie,

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that's the best-case scenario.

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You can easily imagine a much, much worst-case scenario.

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You also say that if in fact we

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would leave today,

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the situation would be grim.

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It would.

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It would get worse.

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There is no question.

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We're the spine holding up, for example, the Iraqi army.

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But the way things are going right now, time

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is not on our side.

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It might well be that a year from now, it will be even worse,

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if we don't make some significant adjustments.

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General Keane, you listened to this and you have

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been both - - you are a military man to your core.

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You are a friend of the secretary of defense.

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How do you see it?

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And how do you think the Pentagon sees it?

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Well, I think the Pentagon is really

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re-calibrating in their own mind.

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I mean, the way I see it, is if we continue on the path we're

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on, we'll have a fractured government and an all-out civil

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war, and then a failed state.

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So, the current strategy that we're using is not working.

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We've got to admit that it's been -- it's been a failure, and

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we've got to re-look this thing comprehensively -- politically,

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diplomatically, economically and certainly militarily.

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Do you think the administration and the vice

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president and the president and the secretary of defense would

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agree with what you just said?

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I don't think they'll

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agree publicly, certainly.

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I don't think they're prepared to make that statement.

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But I know that there is some thoughtfulness

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going on right now.

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General Pace, for example, he has put together a group of

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people to re-look the entire strategy.

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And -- and I know that they -- they have come to some harsh

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realities right along the lines that your guests have just

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mentioned as well, and my own concerns about the failure of

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the strategy.

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And -- and I think we'll see, after this election, what I'm

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hoping for is certainly some movement in another direction

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and some new thinking on how to approach the problem.

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Listen to this -- and this was from Ralph Peters

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who also, I guess, had -- was a military officer writing in "USA

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Today," in -- a couple of days ago, "Iraq could

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have turned out differently.

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It didn't.

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And we must be honest about it.

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We owe that much to our troops.

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They don't face the mere forfeiture of a few

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congressional seats, but the loss of their lives.

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Our military is now being employed for political purposes.

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It is unworthy of our nation." General Keane.

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Well, sir, I agree with most of what he is saying,

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but at the same time, I don't believe that this

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is all about politics.

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I've never accepted that.

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This is - this is about people's judgment, trying to accomplish

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goals, which are much too lofty.

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I mean, imposing a democracy on a state that has no art of

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compromise, that has irreconcilable differences

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between the Sunnis and the Shias, that acts out its

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differences using violence, that has a history of that level

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of violence and is more of a militaristic state than it is a

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democracy, it was just too much to think that we

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could achieve that.

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At best, what we want is a stable government that at times

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is friendly to us, no sanctuary in that country whatsoever with

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the al-Qaeda, and certainly not contributing to Iranian hegemony

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in the region.

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When you look at the possibilities -- and you

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mentioned the election -- do you suggest that you think that

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the administration after this election might be changing its

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policy, whether they win or lose the majority in

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either or both houses?

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I sense that there's a very good chance that there

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will be a re-look at the entire strategy and some recalibration.

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It just has to take place here.

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There's compelling evidence that the strategy that we have been

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using is failing, and we're heading towards a fractured

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state, and we clearly have to make some major adjustments to

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turn that around.

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Adam Nagourney, tell me about Iraq on the

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campaign trail.

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At a certain point, I want to tell you

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mid-September, it just -- it became the dominant issue.

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And the election, I would argue, nationalized around President

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Bush and around the Iraq war, precisely the way the White

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House did not want it to happen.

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For a long time, as you recall, Charlie, early in the summer the

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White House was telling Republican candidates or members

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of Congress to run proactively, aggressively on the war, as part

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of a political strategy to equate the war in Iraq with the

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war on terror, which has proven to be a winning strategy in the

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past two elections.

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And at certain point, Democrats began attacking Republicans

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directly on the war, and you saw it first in advertisements

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-- because one of the things we do is we take a look at TV

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advertisements that are being produced, and that's a really

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good way of figuring out what these campaigns are thinking.

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And all over the country, we began seeing advertisements

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where candidates were directly -- Democrats were directly

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challenging Republican incumbents on the war, telling

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them -- say that these people were supporting President Bush

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blindly on the war, showing battlefield signs, you know,

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signs, calling -- in some cases calling for withdrawal.

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And then I think about two weeks ago, we began

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noticing even some

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Republican incumbents were beginning to distance themselves

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or criticize the president on the war.

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So, you know, I think it's huge, and I think that if Democrats

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do take over the House, I think it's going to be impossible to

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argue that the war wasn't the main reason it happened.

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And if that happens, what will change?

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What are these Democrats, who may win -- whether it's House or

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Senate -- saying they will do if they have the power to do it?

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See, that's a tougher question.

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I think it's incorrect to sa flat out the Democrats don't

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have a plan or any kind of alternative vision.

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There's a sort of general feeling, I think, among the

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Democrats -- and obviously some Republicans, I don't want to

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oversimplify this -- that the plan has to be getting us out of

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there, one way or another.

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The difference is -- and where you find the vagueness -- is

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what to do.

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I mean, obviously, there is some Democrats that are calling

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- you know like Murtha and Kerry, who are calling for

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setting a date certain for withdrawal.

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A lot of Democrats are not.

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A lot of the Democrats are not.

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There's no unified position.

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Now, whether that matters or not, I'm not sure.

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How much control -- especially for the Democrats - the most

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likely outcome, win only the House and not the Senate -- how

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much control will they really have over this White House?

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My guess is the political (inaudible) will be that the --

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that the race will be interpreted, if Democrats win,

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correctly, as a referendum by the American people on the war,

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and the need -- as you were citing the poll you cited before

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-- the fact that most Americans want a change in policy in what

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we're doing in Iraq, and I assume to some extent the White

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House would have to reflect that and act on that.

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And also, at some point we'll have the

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Baker-Hamilton recommendation  --

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That's right.

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-- as to what might be done, which will give

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some cover to whoever wants to change their mind at that point.

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Yes, it will help them think about it in

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different ways, right.

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Let me -- let me just make one point, because I

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want Fareed and I want all of you to jump in on this without

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necessarily following my own line of questioning, and I go

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for it first, but - but we're doing this program on this

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Friday night before an election to give us a sense of where we

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think Iraq is on the ground, to repeat myself, and the political

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dynamics and what it means and what may be a real possibility

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for a plan after election day. Fareed.

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Charlie, I would agree with

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what Adam said about

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the nature of the -- the politics of this.

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Except that this week, Hillary Clinton gave an important speech

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that didn't get the kind of coverage I

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thought it would get.

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She gave a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in which

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she came out with a fairly specific plan about Iraq.

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It's not that dissimilar from the one I outline in the -- in

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the magazine.

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I'd sort of call it a "push and pull." You push the Iraqis for a

302
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political deal that will solve or begin to solve the violence,

303
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and you pull back American forces.

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She doesn't get at numbers, but you can pull them back into

305
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bases, you can withdraw some of them.

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The idea is you give the Iraqis -- you force the Iraqis to take

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the lead role in two things, one in solving the politics

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behind this and taking control of their streets.

309
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Now, that's a very different plan from the administration's.

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It's also a plan that does involve fewer troops and -- and

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in effect involves a kind of way out of Iraq.

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And if we end up with that as the Democratic position -- and

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remember, Hillary is still the front-runner, the most important

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Democrat in the country -- that's a big change that will

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have taken place.

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What's the administration's position, that

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we simply will change tactics as we see events

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on the ground dictate?

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It's not even that.

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As far as I can tell, the administration's position is

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we're going to keep 144,000 troops in Iraq, and hope that

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things get better.

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Because the administration's entire strategy is premised on

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the idea that this sectarian stuff is almost not happening,

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so that Bush keeps saying, as they stand up,

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we will stand down.

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But the problem, is of course, as you stand up, a largely Shia

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army, the Sunnis fight harder.

329
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Yes.

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So our policy is actually

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not just not working.

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It's exacerbating the sectarian tensions.

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General Keane, I mean you suggested the

334
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administration privately and we're right on election time,

335
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must understand the reality on the ground.

336
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I mean, is in any way are they in denial?

337
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Well, I think there probably has

338
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been some of that,

339
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but given the overwhelming body of evidence that -- that's out

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there now -- and I think the thoughtful commentary that's

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taking place, both inside the government and then outside it,

342
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I'd -- I'd find it hard to believe that there's not a

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realistic understanding of what truth is now.

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Anthony, what do you think Iraqis want, other

345
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than -- how do they feel about America at this point?

346
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What do they want us to do?

347
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Obviously, if you are Sunni, you -- a lot of

348
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them want us to stay

349
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because they would look down the barrel at a massacre.

350
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You know, I think you look at it on a couple

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of different levels.

352
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And in one sense, there really isn't any credibility left for

353
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-- for what might be called the American project, you just don't

354
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hear that, either - either for the Americans or for the

355
00:15:37.434 --> 00:15:39.434
British, for that matter, down in Basra and southern Iraq.

356
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That said, there is, you know, you will hear in conversations,

357
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and you hear this often that if the Americans do leave, it will

358
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get worse.

359
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It will be - - it will be more chaotic, there

360
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will be more trouble.

361
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You know, when I was down as visiting a friend down in Basra,

362
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and he said to me -- he gave me a kind of a proverb, and I

363
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thought it said something about the state of mind today.

364
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He said, you know, "We'll show you death, so that you'll

365
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accept the fever." And the idea is that we're being shown death

366
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today, so that we'll accept the fever of something else.

367
00:16:02.167 --> 00:16:04.501
And his line was that, you know, at this point, Iraqis probably

368
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would accept anything that would end the bloodshed, just --

369
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a form of security, a form of stability.

370
00:16:09.434 --> 00:16:11.801
I mean, this talk about democracy, about a democratic

371
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government -- I think that comes -- that's secondary at this

372
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point to having, you know, to worry about the more -- more

373
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central issues of life, which is survival.

374
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And, you know, I think there is a sense among Iraqis at this

375
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point that they're pretty desperate for anything that will

376
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stop the bloodshed.

377
00:16:25.067 --> 00:16:26.701
Is there any -- desperate meaning what?

378
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That they just to - - because they've lost, even in their own

379
00:16:28.367 --> 00:16:30.000
neighborhoods they're no longer safe?

380
00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:31.667
You know, there are some

381
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neighborhoods where you

382
00:16:33.334 --> 00:16:35.267
basically enter a neighborhood as a stranger and you're going

383
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to be killed.

384
00:16:36.968 --> 00:16:38.734
I mean, it's such a -- it's such a pitched environment right

385
00:16:38.734 --> 00:16:40.334
now, such an intense environment in a way because of

386
00:16:40.334 --> 00:16:41.767
this fear.

387
00:16:41.767 --> 00:16:43.334
You know, most of the people I talk to

388
00:16:43.334 --> 00:16:45.033
have basically withdrawn.

389
00:16:45.033 --> 00:16:46.801
They've withdrawn behind doors.

390
00:16:46.801 --> 00:16:48.667
So, you know, there isn't any engagement in political life

391
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really beyond what is going on inside the Green Zone.

392
00:16:50.734 --> 00:16:52.767
I mean, I think there is a sense of trying to wait it out,

393
00:16:52.767 --> 00:16:55.100
a sense of hoping this is going to -- this is going to end

394
00:16:55.100 --> 00:16:57.367
relatively soon, and a fear that it's not, a fear that it is

395
00:16:57.367 --> 00:16:59.634
going to go on for quite a while.

396
00:16:59.634 --> 00:17:01.834
You know, this is -- it's -- it -- like I said earlier, when we

397
00:17:01.834 --> 00:17:04.000
were speaking, I think there is more of a sense of despair than

398
00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:05.901
anything else at this point, not really anger or frustration,

399
00:17:05.901 --> 00:17:07.834
a sense of hopelessness and despair.

400
00:17:07.834 --> 00:17:10.033
And I was struck by how many people told me that they never

401
00:17:10.033 --> 00:17:12.601
expected to reach this point.

402
00:17:12.601 --> 00:17:15.067
I mean, when we do talk about the sectarian killing, we have

403
00:17:15.067 --> 00:17:17.400
to understand that, you know, while sectarian issues have

404
00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:19.400
always been, you know, a facet of Iraqi political life, no one

405
00:17:19.400 --> 00:17:21.634
probably imagined they would have reached the point they've

406
00:17:21.634 --> 00:17:23.634
reached today when you are having killings that are in a

407
00:17:23.634 --> 00:17:25.834
lot of ways, random.

408
00:17:25.834 --> 00:17:27.767
What is the wisest thing you have

409
00:17:27.767 --> 00:17:30.234
heard, General Keane?

410
00:17:30.234 --> 00:17:32.534
Well, I -- I think the -- the issue is more

411
00:17:32.534 --> 00:17:35.033
political than anything else.

412
00:17:35.033 --> 00:17:37.567
Look, we don't have a democracy there, because we

413
00:17:37.567 --> 00:17:39.834
disenfranchised the Sunnis.

414
00:17:39.834 --> 00:17:42.634
The Shia-dominated government did it, and that is what

415
00:17:42.634 --> 00:17:45.601
sparked the sectarian violence, certainly with the al-Qaeda

416
00:17:45.601 --> 00:17:48.300
having their hands on it.

417
00:17:48.300 --> 00:17:51.000
So Maliki has got to begin to enfranchise the Sunnis.

418
00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:53.501
He's got to bring the Sunni Arabs, who were former

419
00:17:53.501 --> 00:17:56.167
Baathists, back who are in exile.

420
00:17:56.167 --> 00:17:58.968
Bring them back, get them involved; get some of the

421
00:17:58.968 --> 00:18:01.334
leaders that they want involved.

422
00:18:01.334 --> 00:18:03.868
He may have to declare a state of emergency, go to an executive

423
00:18:03.868 --> 00:18:06.334
council to be able to deal with these fractious

424
00:18:06.334 --> 00:18:09.467
groups that he's got.

425
00:18:09.467 --> 00:18:12.667
And then he has to deal with Iran and its covert influence --

426
00:18:12.667 --> 00:18:15.801
and we can help him with that, certainly.

427
00:18:15.801 --> 00:18:18.667
And also, moderation has to take place among the Shia militias.

428
00:18:18.667 --> 00:18:21.367
But the Shia militias are not going to stand down while the

429
00:18:21.367 --> 00:18:24.267
Sunni - while the Sunnis are raging inside that country

430
00:18:24.267 --> 00:18:26.667
because they're not enfranchised.

431
00:18:26.667 --> 00:18:28.968
And this business of not providing amnesty to people who

432
00:18:28.968 --> 00:18:31.200
have killed Americans, we've got to -- we've got to seriously

433
00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:33.968
rethink that.

434
00:18:33.968 --> 00:18:36.667
I mean, certainly, Americans have been killed in other wars,

435
00:18:36.667 --> 00:18:38.968
and we certainly reconciled our enemies in major wars in the

436
00:18:38.968 --> 00:18:40.734
past, and we certainly should be able to do it here.

437
00:18:40.734 --> 00:18:42.501
He has to do that, and we have to politically support him in

438
00:18:42.501 --> 00:18:44.300
doing that.

439
00:18:44.300 --> 00:18:46.067
Adam, is there any resonance in

440
00:18:46.067 --> 00:18:47.834
terms of what the

441
00:18:47.834 --> 00:18:49.868
president is just saying on the stump and what the vice

442
00:18:49.868 --> 00:18:51.901
president says?

443
00:18:51.901 --> 00:18:53.667
On the war or in general?

444
00:18:53.667 --> 00:18:55.234
On the war in general -- no, no, no, on the

445
00:18:55.234 --> 00:18:56.934
war specifically -- I don't know --

446
00:18:56.934 --> 00:19:00.601
Yeah. Yeah.

447
00:19:00.601 --> 00:19:03.067
I actually don't -- I mean, I think not, frankly.

448
00:19:03.067 --> 00:19:05.434
I mean I think - I had thought for a while -- because we've had

449
00:19:05.434 --> 00:19:07.968
a series of these sort of moments where the president has

450
00:19:07.968 --> 00:19:10.501
tried to rally support for his policies in Iraq, and every time

451
00:19:10.501 --> 00:19:13.267
he's tried to do it -- I guess the first couple of times you

452
00:19:13.267 --> 00:19:16.200
see a slight increase in support for the war, a grudging support

453
00:19:16.200 --> 00:19:18.901
for the war in some polls, but less and less.

454
00:19:18.901 --> 00:19:21.267
And I -- I have thought for a while that people have shut the

455
00:19:21.267 --> 00:19:23.901
president out in listening to the war and making his arguments

456
00:19:23.901 --> 00:19:26.067
about the war.

457
00:19:26.067 --> 00:19:27.901
So, I don't think the president has that much political impact

458
00:19:27.901 --> 00:19:29.801
beyond his base and just talking pure

459
00:19:29.801 --> 00:19:31.701
elections the next Tuesday.

460
00:19:31.701 --> 00:19:33.634
That counts for something.

461
00:19:33.634 --> 00:19:35.567
But beyond his base, I don't think he's making a case that

462
00:19:35.567 --> 00:19:37.534
the people are listening to anymore at all.

463
00:19:37.534 --> 00:19:39.534
Do you have any sense where -- do you have any

464
00:19:39.534 --> 00:19:41.868
sense where the base is on this?

465
00:19:41.868 --> 00:19:44.367
Well, the base -- the White House's polling

466
00:19:44.367 --> 00:19:46.767
shows that the base is very sensitive to the issue of

467
00:19:46.767 --> 00:19:49.133
security, OK, not necessarily the war, but the security.

468
00:19:49.133 --> 00:19:51.200
So when the president talks about the war, he's talking to

469
00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:53.200
-- to some extent, I don't want to reduce this all to politics

470
00:19:53.200 --> 00:19:55.501
because obviously it's not -- but he's talking about security

471
00:19:55.501 --> 00:19:57.767
to his base.

472
00:19:57.767 --> 00:19:59.801
So that's what it's about for his base, and his base, you

473
00:19:59.801 --> 00:20:02.067
know, really reacts to this -- to this sort of warnings that if

474
00:20:02.067 --> 00:20:04.334
Democrats take over, we're going to, you know, could be

475
00:20:04.334 --> 00:20:06.300
victims of terrorists.

476
00:20:06.300 --> 00:20:08.300
Fareed, in the last part of this article as I

477
00:20:08.300 --> 00:20:10.067
remember it, basically says that there

478
00:20:10.067 --> 00:20:11.634
have been some achievements.

479
00:20:11.634 --> 00:20:13.300
We can at least say there are some achievements if we prepare

480
00:20:13.300 --> 00:20:14.667
to accept the reality.

481
00:20:14.667 --> 00:20:16.033
Yeah.

482
00:20:16.033 --> 00:20:17.400
What are those achievements?

483
00:20:17.400 --> 00:20:18.767
The achievements are -- look, we

484
00:20:18.767 --> 00:20:22.367
had a problem in Iraq.

485
00:20:22.367 --> 00:20:25.000
Saddam Hussein was a problem.

486
00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:27.334
We had a policy in that country that was not easily viable.

487
00:20:27.334 --> 00:20:29.767
We were embargoing the country, killing tens of thousands of

488
00:20:29.767 --> 00:20:31.868
people, we had a no-fly zone; we had troops in Saudi Arabia to

489
00:20:31.868 --> 00:20:33.901
enforce the no-fly zone.

490
00:20:33.901 --> 00:20:35.767
And if you remember, that's why Osama bin Laden issued his

491
00:20:35.767 --> 00:20:37.701
first fatwa.

492
00:20:37.701 --> 00:20:40.067
Because we had troops in Saudi Arabia.

493
00:20:40.067 --> 00:20:42.100
Saddam is gone.

494
00:20:42.100 --> 00:20:43.901
Kurdistan is a genuine achievement.

495
00:20:43.901 --> 00:20:45.734
Kurdistan looks a lot like the Iraq we hoped we would find,

496
00:20:45.734 --> 00:20:47.367
largely secular  --

497
00:20:47.367 --> 00:20:49.067
Right.

498
00:20:49.067 --> 00:20:50.601
-- pro-western, pro-modern.

499
00:20:50.601 --> 00:20:52.601
Largely secure.

500
00:20:52.601 --> 00:20:54.734
Largely secure.

501
00:20:54.734 --> 00:20:56.868
And look.

502
00:20:56.868 --> 00:20:58.868
Many of these -- these horrible things we're finding in Iraq,

503
00:20:58.868 --> 00:21:00.901
they were there, and they're there in the Arab world.

504
00:21:00.901 --> 00:21:02.968
They're just brutally suppressed by dictators.

505
00:21:02.968 --> 00:21:05.300
So there may be some  --

506
00:21:05.300 --> 00:21:07.801
Tell me what you mean by that.

507
00:21:07.801 --> 00:21:10.234
The sectarian divides; the tribal divides.

508
00:21:10.234 --> 00:21:12.334
The -- you know, the issue of people not being right -- in

509
00:21:12.334 --> 00:21:14.200
Iraq, you are seeing all the problems of the Arab world

510
00:21:14.200 --> 00:21:16.267
upfront because they haven't been stamped down by a

511
00:21:16.267 --> 00:21:18.601
repressive dictator.

512
00:21:18.601 --> 00:21:21.067
Let me go to -- to Anthony.

513
00:21:21.067 --> 00:21:23.434
Anthony, did this -- was there an inevitability of that?

514
00:21:23.434 --> 00:21:25.767
No matter how good -- let's assume that - that Jack Keane

515
00:21:25.767 --> 00:21:28.334
hadn't retired and he'd have been army chief of staff and he

516
00:21:28.334 --> 00:21:31.300
would have understood how many troops to use, he would have

517
00:21:31.300 --> 00:21:34.334
understood the kinds of things that every book written about,

518
00:21:34.334 --> 00:21:38.000
there talks about, which is de-Baathification and - and the

519
00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:41.567
army, which is primarily Sunni, leaving them in place -- if all

520
00:21:41.567 --> 00:21:44.467
that had happened, would all these things that are happening

521
00:21:44.467 --> 00:21:47.334
now still have happened because it was in the DNA of the region?

522
00:21:47.334 --> 00:21:49.968
I mean by that, sectarian conflict, I mean by that all the

523
00:21:49.968 --> 00:21:52.467
other issues?

524
00:21:52.467 --> 00:21:54.834
You know, I think Fareed is right, and I --

525
00:21:54.834 --> 00:21:57.100
I wrestle with that question as well.

526
00:21:57.100 --> 00:21:59.334
I think a lot of these forces were incubating under Saddam,

527
00:21:59.334 --> 00:22:01.234
and it was the invasion that unleashed them.

528
00:22:01.234 --> 00:22:03.167
I mean, you know, what was inevitable and what was not --

529
00:22:03.167 --> 00:22:05.100
to be honest, I'm not so much sure what the

530
00:22:05.100 --> 00:22:07.067
answer is, you know.

531
00:22:07.067 --> 00:22:08.801
I think certain things were inevitable.

532
00:22:08.801 --> 00:22:10.567
I think once you have an American military presence in a

533
00:22:10.567 --> 00:22:12.434
country like Iraq, some form of an insurgency is

534
00:22:12.434 --> 00:22:14.300
going to be inevitable.

535
00:22:14.300 --> 00:22:16.200
Did it -- you know, did the sectarian divide have to become

536
00:22:16.200 --> 00:22:18.133
as pronounced as it is, the bloodletting, this class of

537
00:22:18.133 --> 00:22:20.167
social services that we're dealing with in Baghdad and

538
00:22:20.167 --> 00:22:22.200
other parts of the country, that stuff was not inevitable.

539
00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:24.267
So, I think you're almost -- you know, some degree of

540
00:22:24.267 --> 00:22:26.434
instability, some degree of, you know, chaos is too strong a

541
00:22:26.434 --> 00:22:28.834
word, but some degree of instability was inevitable.

542
00:22:28.834 --> 00:22:31.300
It certainly wasn't -- it certainly didn't necessarily

543
00:22:31.300 --> 00:22:33.868
have to reach this point that we're seeing today.

544
00:22:33.868 --> 00:22:36.400
I think General Keane's point is -- was very

545
00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:38.868
well taken, which is the issue of disenfranchising the Sunnis.

546
00:22:38.868 --> 00:22:41.334
What we did -- we didn't do a regime change.

547
00:22:41.334 --> 00:22:44.167
We affected a social revolution that changed a 600-year-old

548
00:22:44.167 --> 00:22:46.934
governing structure almost without thinking about it,

549
00:22:46.934 --> 00:22:49.734
without having any replacement for it, without any -- we didn't

550
00:22:49.734 --> 00:22:52.567
ask ourselves are there 20,000 Shia bureaucrats who can take

551
00:22:52.567 --> 00:22:55.601
the place of the 20,000 Sunnis we just fired.

552
00:22:55.601 --> 00:22:58.501
We just did it, and it was a very American idea, we thought

553
00:22:58.501 --> 00:23:01.200
it was unfair, these guys were a minority, they were oppressed,

554
00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:03.434
so we just in one day upended the entire social structure of

555
00:23:03.434 --> 00:23:06.634
the country that had literally been in place for 600 years.

556
00:23:06.634 --> 00:23:09.734
General Keane, what is the president saying

557
00:23:09.734 --> 00:23:12.767
that you agree with?

558
00:23:12.767 --> 00:23:16.267
Well, he talks in such generalities I think I

559
00:23:16.267 --> 00:23:19.767
would have a lot to disagree with.

560
00:23:19.767 --> 00:23:23.000
It's more of what he's not saying that troubles me.

561
00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:26.200
Because we're really not directing the absolute truth to

562
00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:29.300
the American people in terms of what's happening now, what the

563
00:23:29.300 --> 00:23:32.200
problems are, and how we contributed to it.

564
00:23:32.200 --> 00:23:35.000
We've learned so much in these three-plus years.

565
00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:37.801
You know, we know now that they planned to do this right from

566
00:23:37.801 --> 00:23:40.834
the outset.

567
00:23:40.834 --> 00:23:43.334
And -- and we didn't adjust very well to it.

568
00:23:43.334 --> 00:23:45.801
So one is to state clearly what the problems are, what the

569
00:23:45.801 --> 00:23:48.167
impediments have been to our strategy, and what we need to

570
00:23:48.167 --> 00:23:50.434
do to fix it.

571
00:23:50.434 --> 00:23:52.367
And the fact that we're not having that kind of a discussion

572
00:23:52.367 --> 00:23:54.200
I think is -- is my frustration.

573
00:23:54.200 --> 00:23:56.767
And great disappointment?

574
00:23:56.767 --> 00:23:58.934
Yes.

575
00:23:58.934 --> 00:24:00.834
Yeah.

576
00:24:00.834 --> 00:24:03.067
What should be the debate after this election is

577
00:24:03.067 --> 00:24:05.767
over, General Keane?

578
00:24:05.767 --> 00:24:08.767
What should be the debate?

579
00:24:08.767 --> 00:24:11.701
Well, I think we really should start talking

580
00:24:11.701 --> 00:24:14.734
about a new strategy for Iraq that has to be put together.

581
00:24:14.734 --> 00:24:17.300
And - and bring that out an start talking openly about it,

582
00:24:17.300 --> 00:24:19.868
and get bipartisan support for it.

583
00:24:19.868 --> 00:24:22.033
I would hope that kind of discussion should -

584
00:24:22.033 --> 00:24:24.400
should take place.

585
00:24:24.400 --> 00:24:26.434
There are a number of things that we can do to improve this -

586
00:24:26.434 --> 00:24:28.467
this situation.

587
00:24:28.467 --> 00:24:30.234
And there are certainly thoughtful minds that - that can

588
00:24:30.234 --> 00:24:32.133
help contribute to that.

589
00:24:32.133 --> 00:24:34.300
What's the most important question we have to

590
00:24:34.300 --> 00:24:36.501
ask, Anthony?

591
00:24:36.501 --> 00:24:38.434
You know, I guess I stand back and look at

592
00:24:38.434 --> 00:24:40.367
this and I thought about this when I was there in October --

593
00:24:40.367 --> 00:24:42.334
you know, is there an American answer to this

594
00:24:42.334 --> 00:24:44.067
question right now?

595
00:24:44.067 --> 00:24:45.934
Obviously, there's an American interest, a tremendous American

596
00:24:45.934 --> 00:24:47.934
interest in what happens in Iraq, but is there

597
00:24:47.934 --> 00:24:49.734
an American answer?

598
00:24:49.734 --> 00:24:51.601
Let me just take a very small example of this, this idea of

599
00:24:51.601 --> 00:24:53.567
legitimacy in Iraq, and the government -- this is what we're

600
00:24:53.567 --> 00:24:55.534
dealing with Maliki right now.

601
00:24:55.534 --> 00:24:57.501
It's, you know, how do you secure legitimacy for a

602
00:24:57.501 --> 00:24:59.501
government that when the perception -- I want to stress

603
00:24:59.501 --> 00:25:01.601
the word perception -- in the country is still that the

604
00:25:01.601 --> 00:25:03.968
Americans are the final arbiter.

605
00:25:03.968 --> 00:25:06.033
This is something we struggled with in 2003, and something

606
00:25:06.033 --> 00:25:08.434
we're struggling with to a large degree in 2006, and I'm

607
00:25:08.434 --> 00:25:11.667
not sure how we answer that question as long as we maintain

608
00:25:11.667 --> 00:25:14.400
the status the way it is.

609
00:25:14.400 --> 00:25:16.801
Are the Americans the final arbiter if in fact

610
00:25:16.801 --> 00:25:19.067
Maliki can -- can order a Mahdi -- a high Mahdi

611
00:25:19.067 --> 00:25:21.133
official to be released?

612
00:25:21.133 --> 00:25:23.167
Exactly, and I don't think they are anymore,

613
00:25:23.167 --> 00:25:25.234
and I think this is part of that kind of ambiguity we're

614
00:25:25.234 --> 00:25:27.267
dealing with in the situation on the ground.

615
00:25:27.267 --> 00:25:29.267
But I really want to stress perception, and when you do

616
00:25:29.267 --> 00:25:31.300
talk to Iraqis, there is that -- and you hear this often in the

617
00:25:31.300 --> 00:25:33.300
Arab world.

618
00:25:33.300 --> 00:25:35.567
I mean, there is this perception of the Americans being a final

619
00:25:35.567 --> 00:25:37.767
arbiter, and often, you know, perceptions in the situations

620
00:25:37.767 --> 00:25:39.901
like this have as much force as the reality.

621
00:25:39.901 --> 00:25:42.000
Do the Iraqis believe -- and I think we've

622
00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:44.100
touched on this - - that nothing could be worse than the way it

623
00:25:44.100 --> 00:25:46.133
is now?

624
00:25:46.133 --> 00:25:48.200
That was my sense in talking to people.

625
00:25:48.200 --> 00:25:50.234
And I heard that time and again in conversations.

626
00:25:50.234 --> 00:25:52.000
Not only, I mean, of course, people could

627
00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:53.834
see it getting worse.

628
00:25:53.834 --> 00:25:55.701
I think the better way to maybe describe it is they never

629
00:25:55.701 --> 00:25:57.367
expected it to get this bad.

630
00:25:57.367 --> 00:25:59.434
The plans that we see -- you mention what you

631
00:25:59.434 --> 00:26:02.000
write here, Richard Holbrooke's plan, Les Gelb and Joe Biden

632
00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:05.267
have a plan.

633
00:26:05.267 --> 00:26:08.501
Others talk about, you know, an immediate withdrawal by the end

634
00:26:08.501 --> 00:26:11.200
of 2007, which is Kerry's I think, it might

635
00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:13.701
be with some modification.

636
00:26:13.701 --> 00:26:16.067
There is -- there is in that the consensus for what we ought

637
00:26:16.067 --> 00:26:18.133
to do.

638
00:26:18.133 --> 00:26:20.434
There is, actually.

639
00:26:20.434 --> 00:26:22.801
It's a -- there's a striking similarity to

640
00:26:22.801 --> 00:26:25.200
some of these ideas.

641
00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:27.734
The first one I would say is that the Iraqis have to make a

642
00:26:27.734 --> 00:26:30.300
political deal, and you heard General Keane say that.

643
00:26:30.300 --> 00:26:33.133
You've heard Anthony say that in some ways, that this is not an

644
00:26:33.133 --> 00:26:35.601
American problem to solve.

645
00:26:35.601 --> 00:26:38.067
The Iraqis have to - have to make a deal that cuts -- that

646
00:26:38.067 --> 00:26:40.734
invests these three communities in the future of Iraq.

647
00:26:40.734 --> 00:26:43.067
What that deal is I don't care.

648
00:26:43.067 --> 00:26:45.267
Yeah, but you have pointed out here and Anthony

649
00:26:45.267 --> 00:26:47.200
has, too, it doesn't look like the Shia want to make a deal.

650
00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:49.133
Right.

651
00:26:49.133 --> 00:26:51.267
They are not interested in a deal because

652
00:26:51.267 --> 00:26:53.801
they see winning in the end.

653
00:26:53.801 --> 00:26:56.100
And, therefore, point two becomes, in the

654
00:26:56.100 --> 00:26:58.100
absence of such a deal -- and it appears we have the absence

655
00:26:58.100 --> 00:26:59.968
-- we've got to start pulling back because we cannot -- we

656
00:26:59.968 --> 00:27:02.067
cannot resolve this violence.

657
00:27:02.067 --> 00:27:04.367
We can suppress it.

658
00:27:04.367 --> 00:27:06.300
We cannot solve it.

659
00:27:06.300 --> 00:27:08.067
So we - we need to start getting off the streets of Baghdad,

660
00:27:08.067 --> 00:27:09.801
getting into what I call the four super bases  --

661
00:27:09.801 --> 00:27:11.534
Right.

662
00:27:11.534 --> 00:27:13.267
-- and become a kind of

663
00:27:13.267 --> 00:27:15.000
expeditionary force that

664
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:17.934
chases down al-Qaeda terrorists, but we cannot

665
00:27:17.934 --> 00:27:22.067
provide security on the streets of Iraq because that is a

666
00:27:22.067 --> 00:27:26.000
political problem to which we don't have the key.

667
00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:29.901
Adam, does this war, certainly among Democratic

668
00:27:29.901 --> 00:27:33.200
voters, have them energized to have a turnout that might rival,

669
00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:35.334
in your judgment, the Republican turnout which Karl

670
00:27:35.334 --> 00:27:37.434
Rove and Ken Mehlman and others have always

671
00:27:37.434 --> 00:27:39.567
been able to generate?

672
00:27:39.567 --> 00:27:41.667
Charlie, that is really

673
00:27:41.667 --> 00:27:43.801
one of the key questions

674
00:27:43.801 --> 00:27:46.667
that we'll be able to see resolved next Tuesday.

675
00:27:46.667 --> 00:27:49.734
I'm not dodging the question.

676
00:27:49.734 --> 00:27:52.300
I think the combination of the war and dislike of President

677
00:27:52.300 --> 00:27:54.701
Bush and dislike of Republicans and dislike of the way the

678
00:27:54.701 --> 00:27:57.334
country is going, I think has energized Democrats to a

679
00:27:57.334 --> 00:28:00.234
considerable extent.

680
00:28:00.234 --> 00:28:02.734
I mean, that's - you know, we'll see.

681
00:28:02.734 --> 00:28:05.667
We do know that just talking brass tacks politics, that the

682
00:28:05.667 --> 00:28:08.634
Republicans have an extremely sophisticated and proven "get

683
00:28:08.634 --> 00:28:11.767
out the vote" operation.

684
00:28:11.767 --> 00:28:14.634
And the whole dynamic of this election is whether that

685
00:28:14.634 --> 00:28:17.567
machine, whether that sort of dynamic they've developed will

686
00:28:17.567 --> 00:28:20.300
be enough to counter this very, very negative environment

687
00:28:20.300 --> 00:28:23.234
that's been created largely by Iraq.

688
00:28:23.234 --> 00:28:25.934
Last point I would make is, remember, this isn't a national

689
00:28:25.934 --> 00:28:28.434
election next week, this is, whatever.

690
00:28:28.434 --> 00:28:30.834
You know, basically 50 House seats and five Senate seats,

691
00:28:30.834 --> 00:28:33.200
and a lot of them are really close.

692
00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:35.400
And close elections are determined by turnout.

693
00:28:35.400 --> 00:28:37.667
So, you can -- Iraq could make the difference in terms of

694
00:28:37.667 --> 00:28:39.734
getting Democrats out and letting them beat back the

695
00:28:39.734 --> 00:28:42.133
Rove-Mehlman political machine.

696
00:28:42.133 --> 00:28:44.601
General Keane, one last question for you, and we

697
00:28:44.601 --> 00:28:47.434
close this out.

698
00:28:47.434 --> 00:28:50.534
If they can't make this better, is it the worst foreign policy

699
00:28:50.534 --> 00:28:53.767
disaster for this country that you can remember?

700
00:28:53.767 --> 00:28:57.033
Absolutely, because of the -- the consequences

701
00:28:57.033 --> 00:29:00.434
certainly, and what that will unleash in the region there, and

702
00:29:00.434 --> 00:29:03.734
certainly how it -- how it undermines our relationships

703
00:29:03.734 --> 00:29:07.067
with other allies in all these countries that are struggling.

704
00:29:07.067 --> 00:29:10.400
So we've got to get on top of this, and -- and most of us who

705
00:29:10.400 --> 00:29:13.200
look at this, do not believe this thing is completely lost.

706
00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:15.801
We can make some changes and -- and achieve some stability in

707
00:29:15.801 --> 00:29:18.067
that country, maybe not what we had in mind, but certainly

708
00:29:18.067 --> 00:29:20.067
something that can work.

709
00:29:20.067 --> 00:29:21.868
Depends on your definition of

710
00:29:21.868 --> 00:29:23.567
winning, doesn't it?

711
00:29:23.567 --> 00:29:25.367
Very definitely.

712
00:29:25.367 --> 00:29:27.501
Jack Keane I thank you very much.

713
00:29:27.501 --> 00:29:29.667
Anthony Shadid in Oklahoma City visiting his father.

714
00:29:29.667 --> 00:29:31.801
Thank you very much.

715
00:29:31.801 --> 00:29:33.634
Fareed Zakaria here with -- the table at me, and Adam Nagourney

716
00:29:33.634 --> 00:29:35.334
of the "New York Times." Thank you for joining us.

717
00:29:35.334 --> 00:29:38.300
We'll be back in a moment.

718
00:29:38.300 --> 00:29:46.534
Stay with us.

719
00:29:46.534 --> 00:29:48.834
William Styron, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, died of

720
00:29:48.834 --> 00:29:50.868
pneumonia Wednesday afternoon in Martha's Vineyard where he

721
00:29:50.868 --> 00:29:53.634
lived with his wife Rose.

722
00:29:53.634 --> 00:29:56.501
He was 81 years old.

723
00:29:56.501 --> 00:29:59.400
Bill Styron is the author of "Sophie's choice," "The

724
00:29:59.400 --> 00:30:02.100
Confessions of Nat Turner" and "Lie Down in Darkness." His

725
00:30:02.100 --> 00:30:04.934
explorations of difficult historical topics usually set in

726
00:30:04.934 --> 00:30:07.868
his native South earned him a place among the leading writers

727
00:30:07.868 --> 00:30:11.067
of the post-World War II generation.

728
00:30:11.067 --> 00:30:14.234
He's often been compared to Faulkner and Hemingway.

729
00:30:14.234 --> 00:30:17.501
Norman Mailer said of Styron, "No other American writer of my

730
00:30:17.501 --> 00:30:20.767
generation has had so omnipresent and exquisite a

731
00:30:20.767 --> 00:30:24.133
sense of the elegiac." Kurt Vonnegut, Styron's longtime

732
00:30:24.133 --> 00:30:27.367
friend said, "He was dramatic, he was fun, he was strong and

733
00:30:27.367 --> 00:30:30.501
proud, and he was awfully good with the language."

734
00:30:30.501 --> 00:30:33.801
In 1990, Bill Styron published "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of

735
00:30:33.801 --> 00:30:36.601
Madness" about his struggle with mental illness.

736
00:30:36.601 --> 00:30:39.501
Our thoughts this evening are with his wife, Rose, his four

737
00:30:39.501 --> 00:30:42.200
children, Alexandra, Susanna, Paula and Thomas

738
00:30:42.200 --> 00:30:44.467
and his eight grandchildren.

739
00:30:44.467 --> 00:30:46.701
We remember him with a look at one of several conversations we

740
00:30:46.701 --> 00:30:50.968
had together on this broadcast.

741
00:30:50.968 --> 00:30:53.634
When do you write, in the morning?

742
00:30:53.634 --> 00:30:56.667
I write in the afternoon.

743
00:30:56.667 --> 00:30:59.167
My head is fuzzed in the morning.

744
00:30:59.167 --> 00:31:01.868
And I have a lot of stuff that I do in the morning, and I -- I

745
00:31:01.868 --> 00:31:04.367
wait until my body clock gets turned up, which happens around

746
00:31:04.367 --> 00:31:06.200
two or three in the afternoon.

747
00:31:06.200 --> 00:31:08.033
And then I start  --

748
00:31:08.033 --> 00:31:09.868
You're not sleepy from a nice lunch?

749
00:31:09.868 --> 00:31:11.701
No, I usually eschew alcohol at that

750
00:31:11.701 --> 00:31:13.534
time, so I'm not sleepy.

751
00:31:13.534 --> 00:31:15.434
I'm ready to go.

752
00:31:15.434 --> 00:31:17.367
Tell me about "Three Tales From Youth: A

753
00:31:17.367 --> 00:31:19.601
Tidewater Morning." This area is an area that

754
00:31:19.601 --> 00:31:21.601
I know very well.

755
00:31:21.601 --> 00:31:23.901
So, tell me about these three stories.

756
00:31:23.901 --> 00:31:26.400
Well, they were stories that

757
00:31:26.400 --> 00:31:28.534
were written independently.

758
00:31:28.534 --> 00:31:30.801
They -- they had to do with -- the first one has to do with a

759
00:31:30.801 --> 00:31:32.868
remembrance I had as a young Marine  --

760
00:31:32.868 --> 00:31:34.934
Yes.

761
00:31:34.934 --> 00:31:38.367
-- at the age of 19 or 20.

762
00:31:38.367 --> 00:31:41.767
About ready to land on Okinawa?

763
00:31:41.767 --> 00:31:45.033
About ready to land on Okinawa and the kind of

764
00:31:45.033 --> 00:31:48.167
engulfing home sickness that overtook me at that time, a

765
00:31:48.167 --> 00:31:51.033
reflection on my childhood, my mother and my father.

766
00:31:51.033 --> 00:31:53.434
In other words, all of these stories have a locale.

767
00:31:53.434 --> 00:31:56.133
And the locale is -- is the same one.

768
00:31:56.133 --> 00:31:58.434
It is Tidewater, Virginia  --

769
00:31:58.434 --> 00:32:00.934
Yeah.

770
00:32:00.934 --> 00:32:03.834
-- the area near the James River that I -- I

771
00:32:03.834 --> 00:32:06.467
was born and reared.

772
00:32:06.467 --> 00:32:09.300
Do you have some sense of that -- that this is

773
00:32:09.300 --> 00:32:11.901
your geographical area -- Faulkner was Mississippi, Price

774
00:32:11.901 --> 00:32:13.968
is -- is North Carolina.

775
00:32:13.968 --> 00:32:16.000
But the Tidewater is where you are, the sort of you are the

776
00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:18.067
voice of the Tidewaters, so to speak.

777
00:32:18.067 --> 00:32:20.133
I think so, in the sense

778
00:32:20.133 --> 00:32:22.167
-- you know, Hemingway

779
00:32:22.167 --> 00:32:24.968
said that we are the products of our first 25 years.

780
00:32:24.968 --> 00:32:27.334
That as writers, we feed off those first 25 years.

781
00:32:27.334 --> 00:32:29.334
For the rest of your career.

782
00:32:29.334 --> 00:32:31.934
Yes, for -- and I think there's

783
00:32:31.934 --> 00:32:35.000
some truth in that.

784
00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.901
I would even shorten it.

785
00:32:39.901 --> 00:32:44.200
I would say the first 17 or 18 years of one's life, and those

786
00:32:44.200 --> 00:32:47.934
first 17 or 18 years of my life were spent in this region along

787
00:32:47.934 --> 00:32:51.000
the James River, the estuarial part of -- of the Tidewater  --

788
00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:53.534
Close into the Norfolk and Newport News and

789
00:32:53.534 --> 00:32:55.701
Portsmouth there, right where Virginia and North

790
00:32:55.701 --> 00:32:57.133
Carolina come together.

791
00:32:57.133 --> 00:33:00.000
Exactly. Yeah.

792
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:01.434
You -- the themes that you

793
00:33:01.434 --> 00:33:02.868
continue to explore are

794
00:33:02.868 --> 00:33:04.501
present here -- death and race.

795
00:33:04.501 --> 00:33:06.234
Death and race.

796
00:33:06.234 --> 00:33:07.801
Well  --

797
00:33:07.801 --> 00:33:09.234
Or immortality -- or mortality.

798
00:33:09.234 --> 00:33:10.634
Yes, they have preoccupied me most of my life,

799
00:33:10.634 --> 00:33:12.767
I guess.

800
00:33:12.767 --> 00:33:15.868
Why is that?

801
00:33:15.868 --> 00:33:19.000
I don't know.

802
00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:22.567
I - I suppose growing up in Virginia, in the '30s, in a

803
00:33:22.567 --> 00:33:25.834
totally segregated society, I became intensely aware of this

804
00:33:25.834 --> 00:33:29.734
extraordinary social injustice.

805
00:33:29.734 --> 00:33:33.734
I don't mean to sound like I'm a politically correct writer -- I

806
00:33:33.734 --> 00:33:37.300
don't think I am.

807
00:33:37.300 --> 00:33:40.400
But the disparity between what I saw -- that is this - this

808
00:33:40.400 --> 00:33:43.701
freedom for whites and a kind of apartheid for blacks imprinted

809
00:33:43.701 --> 00:33:47.801
itself on my brain very early.

810
00:33:47.801 --> 00:33:51.367
And I -- it haunted me.

811
00:33:51.367 --> 00:33:54.567
I was haunted by what the French would call "negritude", the

812
00:33:54.567 --> 00:33:57.968
sense of blackness being part of my experience, and yet being a

813
00:33:57.968 --> 00:34:00.968
separate part of my experience.

814
00:34:00.968 --> 00:34:03.467
The sense of blackness meaning  --

815
00:34:03.467 --> 00:34:05.834
The sense of - of racial -- that I was

816
00:34:05.834 --> 00:34:08.133
surrounded by blacks  --

817
00:34:08.133 --> 00:34:11.033
Right.

818
00:34:11.033 --> 00:34:13.467
-- who had no relation to me, nor did I have

819
00:34:13.467 --> 00:34:15.801
any relation to them, this apartheid.

820
00:34:15.801 --> 00:34:18.467
It became almost an obsession with me as a very young person.

821
00:34:18.467 --> 00:34:20.701
Yes.

822
00:34:20.701 --> 00:34:22.868
And of course that's what started me, I guess,

823
00:34:22.868 --> 00:34:25.000
writing eventually many years later the

824
00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:27.100
Confessions of Nat Turner.

825
00:34:27.100 --> 00:34:29.100
Where you - I want to come -- I'm jumping around

826
00:34:29.100 --> 00:34:31.067
but I'll just stay with it since you brought it up now.

827
00:34:31.067 --> 00:34:34.467
Were you surprised that the reaction it had and some of the

828
00:34:34.467 --> 00:34:37.267
criticisms you took for that?

829
00:34:37.267 --> 00:34:39.868
For the "Confessions of Nat Turner?"

830
00:34:39.868 --> 00:34:42.067
Yes, I was surprised  --

831
00:34:42.067 --> 00:34:44.234
And disappointed.

832
00:34:44.234 --> 00:34:46.334
And disappointed, and

833
00:34:46.334 --> 00:34:48.434
quite shocked, yes.

834
00:34:48.434 --> 00:34:51.100
I took it in my stride because I -- I realized I had done

835
00:34:51.100 --> 00:34:54.334
nothing either morally or esthetically improper.

836
00:34:54.334 --> 00:34:57.434
But it was a disappointment because I hoped to write a book

837
00:34:57.434 --> 00:35:00.000
about slavery, in which I - I covered as much as I could about

838
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:02.767
- about that dreadful institution, I tried to explore

839
00:35:02.767 --> 00:35:05.167
it to the best of my ability and tried to show the tragedy of

840
00:35:05.167 --> 00:35:07.300
that institution.

841
00:35:07.300 --> 00:35:08.734
But it was -- the book was misconstrued.

842
00:35:08.734 --> 00:35:10.167
It was called racist.

843
00:35:10.167 --> 00:35:11.601
And that disappointed me.

844
00:35:11.601 --> 00:35:13.033
Did you come back to this notion

845
00:35:13.033 --> 00:35:14.467
here in the story

846
00:35:14.467 --> 00:35:16.067
of Shadrach?

847
00:35:16.067 --> 00:35:17.567
Yeah.

848
00:35:17.567 --> 00:35:19.033
Yeah.

849
00:35:19.033 --> 00:35:20.534
Tell me that story, which is in here, one of the three stories.

850
00:35:20.534 --> 00:35:22.033
Well, about 20 years ago I was

851
00:35:22.033 --> 00:35:26.300
visiting back in Virginia.

852
00:35:26.300 --> 00:35:29.634
I met a boyhood friend of mine who - who said, "Do - do you

853
00:35:29.634 --> 00:35:33.167
remember, or did you ever hear about that old black man who

854
00:35:33.167 --> 00:35:36.767
came all the way from Alabama and stay - and came to our house

855
00:35:36.767 --> 00:35:40.067
and - and revealed to us that he had come from Alabama in order

856
00:35:40.067 --> 00:35:44.000
to die in Virginia, where he had been born a slave."

857
00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:48.100
And this to me was such an astounding story, that I just

858
00:35:48.100 --> 00:35:52.167
developed it into this story called "Shadrach", which is of

859
00:35:52.167 --> 00:35:56.167
course is about a 99-year-old one-time slave, born in

860
00:35:56.167 --> 00:35:59.400
Virginia, reared in Alabama, and - experiencing most of his

861
00:35:59.400 --> 00:36:01.934
adult life in Alabama coming back, feeling destiny's bones

862
00:36:01.934 --> 00:36:04.467
and coming to Virginia to die on the ground that

863
00:36:04.467 --> 00:36:07.000
he had been born.

864
00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:09.501
In your technique, you just take a

865
00:36:09.501 --> 00:36:12.033
central idea of

866
00:36:12.033 --> 00:36:15.033
a young - you were at Okinawa, but you were in the Marines,

867
00:36:15.033 --> 00:36:18.334
early - at an early age, fought in World War II, you take just

868
00:36:18.334 --> 00:36:21.234
that and your own feelings.

869
00:36:21.234 --> 00:36:23.667
Here you just take the idea of Shadrach, someone expresses this

870
00:36:23.667 --> 00:36:26.100
idea to you, and then you move and your sense of connection to

871
00:36:26.100 --> 00:36:28.200
reality is only  --

872
00:36:28.200 --> 00:36:30.400
Well  --

873
00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:33.234
-- is only the idea for the story.

874
00:36:33.234 --> 00:36:36.334
Yeah.

875
00:36:36.334 --> 00:36:39.434
In the case of Shadrach I had so many things involved.

876
00:36:39.434 --> 00:36:42.000
This is an ancient, old man, he's 99 years old.

877
00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:44.167
Well, just by coincidence, my father, who lived to be almost

878
00:36:44.167 --> 00:36:46.501
90, was at that moment in my life, dying  --

879
00:36:46.501 --> 00:36:48.968
Yeah.

880
00:36:48.968 --> 00:36:51.767
-- himself.

881
00:36:51.767 --> 00:36:55.267
He was -- he had -- you know, reached the end of his life.

882
00:36:55.267 --> 00:36:58.300
And he was -- he was living with us.

883
00:36:58.300 --> 00:37:01.367
And -- and the connection was obvious.

884
00:37:01.367 --> 00:37:04.400
I saw this dying white man and I transposed him into - into the

885
00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:06.934
body of this dying black man.

886
00:37:06.934 --> 00:37:09.400
So, there were a lot of things like that that enter into one's

887
00:37:09.400 --> 00:37:11.968
creative process, the sort of subconscious, I guess.

888
00:37:11.968 --> 00:37:14.300
Yeah.

889
00:37:14.300 --> 00:37:16.934
And the third one is about mothers and death.

890
00:37:16.934 --> 00:37:19.968
Yes, it's the death of my mother, I guess,

891
00:37:19.968 --> 00:37:22.868
when I was 13.

892
00:37:22.868 --> 00:37:26.300
And that is very -- quite autobiographical.

893
00:37:26.300 --> 00:37:29.367
Although, none of the -- none of the incidents in that story

894
00:37:29.367 --> 00:37:32.734
actually took place as I described it.

895
00:37:32.734 --> 00:37:35.934
It's an amalgam of - of a lot of impressions brought together

896
00:37:35.934 --> 00:37:38.734
in what I hope is a coherent story.

897
00:37:38.734 --> 00:37:41.133
How do you think your generation of writers --

898
00:37:41.133 --> 00:37:43.167
you -- who else will we put there?

899
00:37:43.167 --> 00:37:44.934
Philip Roth, Saul Bellow.

900
00:37:44.934 --> 00:37:46.767
I mean, you know  --

901
00:37:46.767 --> 00:37:48.400
Mailer.

902
00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:49.868
Norman Mailer.

903
00:37:49.868 --> 00:37:51.234
I may have mentioned Philip Roth.

904
00:37:51.234 --> 00:37:52.501
Who else?

905
00:37:52.501 --> 00:37:53.701
Who am I missing?

906
00:37:53.701 --> 00:37:55.033
Updike.

907
00:37:55.033 --> 00:37:56.334
John Updike.

908
00:37:56.334 --> 00:37:57.667
Yeah.

909
00:37:57.667 --> 00:37:59.000
Compare with the previous

910
00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:00.334
generation of Hemingway

911
00:38:00.334 --> 00:38:02.801
and Faulkner and others?

912
00:38:02.801 --> 00:38:06.067
Well, I -- it's a very difficult question

913
00:38:06.067 --> 00:38:09.033
because I don't -- I don't even know if it's answerable.

914
00:38:09.033 --> 00:38:12.133
I would say this that -- that, you know, that - that we were,

915
00:38:12.133 --> 00:38:15.400
in a sense, the - the epigones, the -- the descendants of

916
00:38:15.400 --> 00:38:18.200
Faulkner and Hemingway and company.

917
00:38:18.200 --> 00:38:21.834
I think what Faulkner an Hemingway achieved individually

918
00:38:21.834 --> 00:38:25.367
was - was a breakthrough in terms of -- almost

919
00:38:25.367 --> 00:38:28.834
revolutionary breakthrough.

920
00:38:28.834 --> 00:38:31.868
Hemingway, especially, was this extraordinary ability to almost

921
00:38:31.868 --> 00:38:34.701
re-conceive the English language.

922
00:38:34.701 --> 00:38:37.300
And his impact was enormous, and so was Faulkner's.

923
00:38:37.300 --> 00:38:39.100
I - I think that  --

924
00:38:39.100 --> 00:38:40.868
But in terms of the use of language, Hemingway

925
00:38:40.868 --> 00:38:42.634
was more powerful than Faulkner.

926
00:38:42.634 --> 00:38:44.434
No, I wouldn't -- I'm not trying

927
00:38:44.434 --> 00:38:48.701
to say that at all.

928
00:38:48.701 --> 00:38:50.834
I'm not trying to make a comparative judgment.

929
00:38:50.834 --> 00:38:52.901
I'm merely saying that I do think that - that in terms of

930
00:38:52.901 --> 00:38:54.734
his impact on the English language, Hemingway  --

931
00:38:54.734 --> 00:38:57.200
Yes.

932
00:38:57.200 --> 00:39:00.200
-- was - was revolutionary in a most

933
00:39:00.200 --> 00:39:03.033
extraordinary way.

934
00:39:03.033 --> 00:39:05.734
What I'm trying to -- to -- when I make the leap to this

935
00:39:05.734 --> 00:39:07.567
generation, our generation, I don't believe that we had any

936
00:39:07.567 --> 00:39:09.400
such figure in our generation.

937
00:39:09.400 --> 00:39:11.234
I think our work stands on its own.

938
00:39:11.234 --> 00:39:13.067
As a body of work that every bit

939
00:39:13.067 --> 00:39:14.901
as important and

940
00:39:14.901 --> 00:39:16.567
- and  --

941
00:39:16.567 --> 00:39:18.234
I would like to think so, yes.

942
00:39:18.234 --> 00:39:19.868
Yeah.

943
00:39:19.868 --> 00:39:21.534
I think taken in aggregate;

944
00:39:21.534 --> 00:39:23.200
it's a very powerful

945
00:39:23.200 --> 00:39:25.200
body of work.

946
00:39:25.200 --> 00:39:26.934
Getting to this notion that you once wrote a

947
00:39:26.934 --> 00:39:28.634
letter to the "Paris Review" I think in which you expressed a

948
00:39:28.634 --> 00:39:30.534
notion that it was a generation in waiting.

949
00:39:30.534 --> 00:39:33.033
Yes.

950
00:39:33.033 --> 00:39:35.901
What did you mean?

951
00:39:35.901 --> 00:39:38.767
Well, I think writing that as I did in the

952
00:39:38.767 --> 00:39:41.934
early '50s, 1951 or '2, I really think I just meant what I

953
00:39:41.934 --> 00:39:45.334
said that we didn't - we were then in our 20s, roughly.

954
00:39:45.334 --> 00:39:48.133
We didn't know what the hell we were waiting for, but we were

955
00:39:48.133 --> 00:39:50.767
waiting for something to happen because I think we had had an

956
00:39:50.767 --> 00:39:53.467
enormous trauma happen to us in the form of World War II.

957
00:39:53.467 --> 00:39:56.167
Yeah.

958
00:39:56.167 --> 00:39:58.801
It was a hellish war.

959
00:39:58.801 --> 00:40:01.567
I mean, not all of us went into combat.

960
00:40:01.567 --> 00:40:03.901
I did not, nor did I ever claim to.

961
00:40:03.901 --> 00:40:06.200
But I came damn close to it.

962
00:40:06.200 --> 00:40:08.267
I had the -- I had a lot -- I was scared.

963
00:40:08.267 --> 00:40:10.667
Yeah.

964
00:40:10.667 --> 00:40:13.634
And formed the basis of Mailer's first breakthrough.

965
00:40:13.634 --> 00:40:16.734
That's right.

966
00:40:16.734 --> 00:40:19.634
And I think because of this trauma, we - we were waiting

967
00:40:19.634 --> 00:40:22.667
around to -- to -- to let the -- let our thoughts settle, to let

968
00:40:22.667 --> 00:40:25.701
our spirits determine where we were going in the future.

969
00:40:25.701 --> 00:40:29.234
And I think that's what I meant by the waiting generation.

970
00:40:29.234 --> 00:40:32.567
Of course, eventually, we di begin to make our own impact.

971
00:40:32.567 --> 00:40:36.567
Do you know -- can you point to who the new

972
00:40:36.567 --> 00:40:39.801
generation is that succeeded you know, from Faulkner, pre-war

973
00:40:39.801 --> 00:40:42.701
whose generation, you know, sort of been between the wars,

974
00:40:42.701 --> 00:40:45.167
so they made their mark in the '40s and '50s  --

975
00:40:45.167 --> 00:40:47.501
Yeah.

976
00:40:47.501 --> 00:40:49.734
-- and then you come along, and you and all

977
00:40:49.734 --> 00:40:51.934
those we talked about.

978
00:40:51.934 --> 00:40:54.067
Who is the new generation of writers in America?

979
00:40:54.067 --> 00:40:56.167
I hesitate to answer a question like that

980
00:40:56.167 --> 00:40:57.968
because I get bugged down and  --

981
00:40:57.968 --> 00:40:59.868
In forgetting somebody.

982
00:40:59.868 --> 00:41:01.501
-- in forgetting somebody or not

983
00:41:01.501 --> 00:41:03.234
getting the right names.

984
00:41:03.234 --> 00:41:04.801
I think there is certainly a lot of good work being done.

985
00:41:04.801 --> 00:41:07.400
Yeah.

986
00:41:07.400 --> 00:41:10.267
I think of younger writers like Anne

987
00:41:10.267 --> 00:41:13.067
Beatty, this comes to mind.

988
00:41:13.067 --> 00:41:15.400
But - but I share this with a lot of people, writers of my

989
00:41:15.400 --> 00:41:17.667
generation, who when faced with this - faced with this question,

990
00:41:17.667 --> 00:41:19.868
always draw a blank  --

991
00:41:19.868 --> 00:41:22.000
Yeah.

992
00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:24.133
-- for some reason.

993
00:41:24.133 --> 00:41:25.968
You -- does writing get easier?

994
00:41:25.968 --> 00:41:27.834
Writing gets harder.

995
00:41:27.834 --> 00:41:29.501
Others have said that to me.

996
00:41:29.501 --> 00:41:31.334
It doesn't get any easier.

997
00:41:31.334 --> 00:41:33.334
I don't know why it doesn't get easier, but it

998
00:41:33.334 --> 00:41:35.934
certainly doesn't.

999
00:41:35.934 --> 00:41:38.400
I think it just doesn't come with the - with the exuberant

1000
00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:40.501
flow that it once did.

1001
00:41:40.501 --> 00:41:42.467
The  --

1002
00:41:42.467 --> 00:41:44.434
What does that mean, an urgency  --

1003
00:41:44.434 --> 00:41:47.133
Well  --

1004
00:41:47.133 --> 00:41:50.467
-- an excitement, a passion, or what?

1005
00:41:50.467 --> 00:41:53.667
A kind of euphoric passion, if you will.

1006
00:41:53.667 --> 00:41:59.601
I used to have this kind of exuberance, and I still -- I

1007
00:41:59.601 --> 00:42:04.534
still accept the active writing with equanimity.

1008
00:42:04.534 --> 00:42:09.501
It's not that - that I shrink from it.

1009
00:42:09.501 --> 00:42:13.734
But I don't have that same goaded desire  --

1010
00:42:13.734 --> 00:42:17.400
But is it a complacency?

1011
00:42:17.400 --> 00:42:20.634
It's not complacency, no, I think it's

1012
00:42:20.634 --> 00:42:23.567
You've made your mark, you've written well, and

1013
00:42:23.567 --> 00:42:26.267
people have acknowledged you as a man of letters in America, and

1014
00:42:26.267 --> 00:42:28.801
so therefore, what else do I have to prove.

1015
00:42:28.801 --> 00:42:31.200
Thank you very much, Michael Jordan.

1016
00:42:31.200 --> 00:42:33.501
Rest on one's laurels.

1017
00:42:33.501 --> 00:42:35.734
Yes, rest on one's laurels.

1018
00:42:35.734 --> 00:42:37.901
No, I don't feel that at all.

1019
00:42:37.901 --> 00:42:40.033
I feel like I've got a lot more to say.

1020
00:42:40.033 --> 00:42:41.868
But I do think that there is a diminution of the - that old

1021
00:42:41.868 --> 00:42:43.501
juicy passion that one once had.

1022
00:42:43.501 --> 00:42:44.968
And virtually every writer I know of my vintage  --

1023
00:42:44.968 --> 00:42:46.334
Feels it.

1024
00:42:46.334 --> 00:42:47.567
Feels it.

1025
00:42:47.567 --> 00:42:48.767
It's nothing to be ashamed of.

1026
00:42:48.767 --> 00:42:50.167
It's just there.

1027
00:42:50.167 --> 00:42:51.467
What do you fear?

1028
00:42:51.467 --> 00:42:52.701
What I do fear?

1029
00:42:52.701 --> 00:42:53.868
I suppose I fear dying in some obscene and crippled way.

1030
00:42:53.868 --> 00:42:55.000
And painful  --

1031
00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:56.334
Yeah.

1032
00:42:56.334 --> 00:42:57.601
-- way that  --

1033
00:42:57.601 --> 00:42:59.033
Yeah.

1034
00:42:59.033 --> 00:43:00.634
That's speaking of my own self, if that's what you mean.

1035
00:43:00.634 --> 00:43:02.334
Yeah.

1036
00:43:02.334 --> 00:43:04.100
Well, I just wondered, as you think about where you are in

1037
00:43:04.100 --> 00:43:05.667
your skills and the kinds of things you're doing - you know,

1038
00:43:05.667 --> 00:43:07.100
I once had a moving conversation about depression,

1039
00:43:07.100 --> 00:43:08.667
which later -- not my conversation, but your

1040
00:43:08.667 --> 00:43:10.367
experiences led to the book.

1041
00:43:10.367 --> 00:43:12.300
Yeah.

1042
00:43:12.300 --> 00:43:14.234
Do you still -- do you still - depressed about?

1043
00:43:14.234 --> 00:43:16.534
I have not suffered a real, profound -- if

1044
00:43:16.534 --> 00:43:18.501
you want to call it clinical depression, since I experienced

1045
00:43:18.501 --> 00:43:20.534
the one that I wrote about.

1046
00:43:20.534 --> 00:43:22.934
It was so pain - and so painful that you just

1047
00:43:22.934 --> 00:43:25.133
screamed out.

1048
00:43:25.133 --> 00:43:27.367
Yeah, well that was -- that's an experience I

1049
00:43:27.367 --> 00:43:29.334
wouldn't wish on -- on Heinrich Himmler.

1050
00:43:29.334 --> 00:43:31.334
As I kept saying to myself.

1051
00:43:31.334 --> 00:43:33.334
The most evil person you could think of?

1052
00:43:33.334 --> 00:43:34.968
Yeah.

1053
00:43:34.968 --> 00:43:36.634
You wouldn't wish they've got to go through  --

1054
00:43:36.634 --> 00:43:39.033
No, it's unbelievable torment.

1055
00:43:39.033 --> 00:43:41.667
Yes.

1056
00:43:41.667 --> 00:43:44.234
But as I tried to point out in the book,

1057
00:43:44.234 --> 00:43:45.934
"Darkness Visible," it is a -- an ordeal from which most people

1058
00:43:45.934 --> 00:43:47.667
do recover, and if they're in the midst of this, they have to

1059
00:43:47.667 --> 00:43:49.400
remember that they most likely will recover.

1060
00:43:49.400 --> 00:43:51.100
And if they're in the midst of

1061
00:43:51.100 --> 00:43:52.834
it, will they know

1062
00:43:52.834 --> 00:43:54.601
for sure?

1063
00:43:54.601 --> 00:43:56.200
Will they know what?

1064
00:43:56.200 --> 00:43:57.901
That they're in the midst of it?

1065
00:43:57.901 --> 00:43:59.667
Oh, yes.

1066
00:43:59.667 --> 00:44:02.267
If you --

1067
00:44:02.267 --> 00:44:04.734
It's the pain, and an excruciating  --

1068
00:44:04.734 --> 00:44:07.067
If you're in the midst of it, it is

1069
00:44:07.067 --> 00:44:09.100
indistinguishable from any other pain you can possibly  --

1070
00:44:09.100 --> 00:44:11.267
What kind of mail did you get?

1071
00:44:11.267 --> 00:44:14.133
What kind of response did it generate for you to be public

1072
00:44:14.133 --> 00:44:17.300
about this?

1073
00:44:17.300 --> 00:44:19.901
Well, you know, all writers of any -- I guess

1074
00:44:19.901 --> 00:44:22.133
note eventually get rather a heavy amount of mail.

1075
00:44:22.133 --> 00:44:24.267
But in all my life I've gotten a sort of a flow,

1076
00:44:24.267 --> 00:44:26.133
but this was a deluge.

1077
00:44:26.133 --> 00:44:28.067
This  --

1078
00:44:28.067 --> 00:44:29.734
"Sophie's Choice" and  --

1079
00:44:29.734 --> 00:44:31.501
Yeah.

1080
00:44:31.501 --> 00:44:33.067
"Nat Turner" and all of that  --

1081
00:44:33.067 --> 00:44:34.734
Yeah.

1082
00:44:34.734 --> 00:44:36.467
-- you have written things that resonated in

1083
00:44:36.467 --> 00:44:38.300
American  --

1084
00:44:38.300 --> 00:44:39.901
Well, this was - this was just overwhelming.

1085
00:44:39.901 --> 00:44:41.601
I -- it was just by the thousands the letters came in.

1086
00:44:41.601 --> 00:44:43.133
Saying understand  --

1087
00:44:43.133 --> 00:44:44.801
Yeah.

1088
00:44:44.801 --> 00:44:46.534
You told my story, and that kind of thing?

1089
00:44:46.534 --> 00:44:48.334
Yeah.

1090
00:44:48.334 --> 00:44:50.200
And phone calls and the whole thing.

1091
00:44:50.200 --> 00:44:52.067
It's -- it was very touching to me that I -- I had not really

1092
00:44:52.067 --> 00:44:54.367
realized that I was going to touch that kind of a nerve.

1093
00:44:54.367 --> 00:44:56.400
Did it make you want to write nonfiction more?

1094
00:44:56.400 --> 00:44:58.801
Not particularly.

1095
00:44:58.801 --> 00:45:01.400
I think one's nonfiction or fictional subjects sort of

1096
00:45:01.400 --> 00:45:03.834
choose themselves.

1097
00:45:03.834 --> 00:45:06.067
But it certainly demonstrated that -- that the written word

1098
00:45:06.067 --> 00:45:08.400
is still a very powerful vehicle for reaching out.

1099
00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:10.400
How about memoir?

1100
00:45:10.400 --> 00:45:12.400
Memoir?

1101
00:45:12.400 --> 00:45:14.167
Well, I think that "Darkness Visible" in a

1102
00:45:14.167 --> 00:45:15.734
sense was a memoir.

1103
00:45:15.734 --> 00:45:17.734
Everything you

1104
00:45:17.734 --> 00:45:19.767
write in part is autobiographical.

1105
00:45:19.767 --> 00:45:21.901
It has been.

1106
00:45:21.901 --> 00:45:24.100
It seems to me that I do touch on that, the autobiographical

1107
00:45:24.100 --> 00:45:26.033
mode quite a bit.

1108
00:45:26.033 --> 00:45:28.167
I don't know what precipitates that, but it's there.

1109
00:45:28.167 --> 00:45:30.367
Because a writer knows what - I mean you are

1110
00:45:30.367 --> 00:45:32.234
shaped by your own experience.

1111
00:45:32.234 --> 00:45:34.033
You are shaped by your own experiences.

1112
00:45:34.033 --> 00:45:36.133
The important thing is not whether you do it, but whether

1113
00:45:36.133 --> 00:45:38.200
you do it well.

1114
00:45:38.200 --> 00:45:39.834
And it seems to me  --

1115
00:45:39.834 --> 00:45:41.501
-- that's true about a lot of things.

1116
00:45:41.501 --> 00:45:43.701
Like most things.

1117
00:45:43.701 --> 00:45:46.100
Right.

1118
00:45:46.100 --> 00:45:48.467
But it means for me doing it so that for the

1119
00:45:48.467 --> 00:45:51.167
reader it will have another appeal aside from the

1120
00:45:51.167 --> 00:45:54.267
egocentric, which - which is often a problem.

1121
00:45:54.267 --> 00:45:56.868
And what is that other appeal?

1122
00:45:56.868 --> 00:45:59.300
Ability to put it down in prose that resonates

1123
00:45:59.300 --> 00:46:01.367
and that  --

1124
00:46:01.367 --> 00:46:03.434
That sings.

1125
00:46:03.434 --> 00:46:05.467
And that one hopes sings and that people will

1126
00:46:05.467 --> 00:46:07.467
respond to.

1127
00:46:07.467 --> 00:46:09.501
And the people say, "That's my story," or

1128
00:46:09.501 --> 00:46:11.534
somehow they can feel the emotion of the character.

1129
00:46:11.534 --> 00:46:13.267
Yeah, I think that it's - you know, the

1130
00:46:13.267 --> 00:46:15.100
imaginative act -- is - is just that, is just trying to search

1131
00:46:15.100 --> 00:46:16.968
for levels of meaning that you are quite

1132
00:46:16.968 --> 00:46:19.033
unaware that you possess.

1133
00:46:19.033 --> 00:46:21.467
I mean, this tapping into your subconscious.

1134
00:46:21.467 --> 00:46:23.534
You sit down, at first you have no idea what you're going to

1135
00:46:23.534 --> 00:46:25.434
do, and then all of a sudden, after an hour, you suddenly

1136
00:46:25.434 --> 00:46:27.367
realize you're saying things you had not even known existed.

1137
00:46:27.367 --> 00:46:29.267
Yeah.

1138
00:46:29.267 --> 00:46:31.167
Because they're down there and

1139
00:46:31.167 --> 00:46:35.934
somewhere in your subconscious.

1140
00:46:35.934 --> 00:46:38.567
I find that a number of writers who have

1141
00:46:38.567 --> 00:46:41.067
written memoirs, or written nonfiction, will tell me that as

1142
00:46:41.067 --> 00:46:43.934
they began to write -- and you might have experienced this here

1143
00:46:43.934 --> 00:46:46.367
because this was in part reflecting your personal

1144
00:46:46.367 --> 00:46:48.767
experience and certainly your mother's death, and you think

1145
00:46:48.767 --> 00:46:50.868
about your father dying -- you remember things you had no idea

1146
00:46:50.868 --> 00:46:53.334
were part of your subconscious.

1147
00:46:53.334 --> 00:46:55.634
It just sort of floats to the surface.

1148
00:46:55.634 --> 00:46:58.367
Absolutely.

1149
00:46:58.367 --> 00:47:01.067
It - it just -- you don't dredge it up.

1150
00:47:01.067 --> 00:47:04.000
It pops up.

1151
00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:06.934
And there's a kind of astonishing -- they're - they're

1152
00:47:06.934 --> 00:47:10.334
revelations, epiphanies, as George used to call them, these

1153
00:47:10.334 --> 00:47:13.234
kind of moments that -- I don't mean to sound fancy.

1154
00:47:13.234 --> 00:47:15.767
They're not - they're not spiritual experiences, but they

1155
00:47:15.767 --> 00:47:17.934
are enormously fascinating revelations of what goes on in

1156
00:47:17.934 --> 00:47:19.834
one's subconscious.

1157
00:47:19.834 --> 00:47:21.968
Yeah.

1158
00:47:21.968 --> 00:47:24.367
What's easiest for you?

1159
00:47:24.367 --> 00:47:26.400
Is it creating character?

1160
00:47:26.400 --> 00:47:28.901
Creating dialogue, or descriptive narrative?

1161
00:47:28.901 --> 00:47:31.367
Well, I think dialogue is probably the easiest

1162
00:47:31.367 --> 00:47:33.467
of all.

1163
00:47:33.467 --> 00:47:35.534
Most people  --

1164
00:47:35.534 --> 00:47:37.601
Well, it can be done badly, but I think most

1165
00:47:37.601 --> 00:47:39.634
writers  --

1166
00:47:39.634 --> 00:47:41.200
But that requires an ear, doesn't it?

1167
00:47:41.200 --> 00:47:42.834
It does require an ear, but if you have -- I

1168
00:47:42.834 --> 00:47:45.000
think if you have an ear for music  --

1169
00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:48.734
Yeah.

1170
00:47:48.734 --> 00:47:52.367
-- and I am lucky, I think, in having an ear

1171
00:47:52.367 --> 00:47:56.033
for music -- you usually have an ear for dialogue, too.

1172
00:47:56.033 --> 00:47:59.367
And the rest is -- is just the sheer sweating it out with, you

1173
00:47:59.367 --> 00:48:02.467
know, I have to confess, sometimes just seeking that

1174
00:48:02.467 --> 00:48:05.334
absolutely perfect word, which I often find in the thesaurus.

1175
00:48:05.334 --> 00:48:07.934
Wait a minute.

1176
00:48:07.934 --> 00:48:10.434
Pulitzer Prize-winning, acclaimed novelist  --

1177
00:48:10.434 --> 00:48:12.767
Don't let anyone  --

1178
00:48:12.767 --> 00:48:15.200
-- goes to the thesaurus.

1179
00:48:15.200 --> 00:48:18.434
Don't let anyone underestimate the thesaurus.

1180
00:48:18.434 --> 00:48:21.100
It's a very important tool for me.

1181
00:48:21.100 --> 00:48:23.601
It puts on your menu a word that expresses the

1182
00:48:23.601 --> 00:48:26.934
emotion that you feel other than one that first

1183
00:48:26.934 --> 00:48:30.067
came to your mind.

1184
00:48:30.067 --> 00:48:32.701
Absolutely, absolutely.

1185
00:48:32.701 --> 00:48:35.167
It's -- it should be considered one of the great word aides,

1186
00:48:35.167 --> 00:48:37.934
treasures that we have, Roget's thesaurus.

1187
00:48:37.934 --> 00:48:40.601
I use it all the time.

1188
00:48:40.601 --> 00:48:43.234
When you say you've recovered from clinical

1189
00:48:43.234 --> 00:48:45.834
depression, meaning you never revisited, or - or that it's the

1190
00:48:45.834 --> 00:48:48.467
use of pharmaceuticals that  --

1191
00:48:48.467 --> 00:48:51.100
No, no with me it means -- if

1192
00:48:51.100 --> 00:48:53.701
my case is of any

1193
00:48:53.701 --> 00:48:56.133
-- any benefit, I recovered and I have not

1194
00:48:56.133 --> 00:48:58.467
really suffered a similar.

1195
00:48:58.467 --> 00:49:00.501
A relapse.

1196
00:49:00.501 --> 00:49:02.267
No.

1197
00:49:02.267 --> 00:49:04.067
Now, and what do your doctors

1198
00:49:04.067 --> 00:49:05.868
tell you about that?

1199
00:49:05.868 --> 00:49:07.667
Well, I've been told that it's

1200
00:49:07.667 --> 00:49:09.467
fairly common for

1201
00:49:09.467 --> 00:49:12.734
depression to return.

1202
00:49:12.734 --> 00:49:16.100
The statistics seem to be 50-50.

1203
00:49:16.100 --> 00:49:19.300
But for me, I've kept it at arm's length.

1204
00:49:19.300 --> 00:49:22.400
I occasionally get a down moment, but I have never yet

1205
00:49:22.400 --> 00:49:26.334
suffered the sense that I was going to be plunged into

1206
00:49:26.334 --> 00:49:29.567
something as -- equivalent to what I went through before.

1207
00:49:29.567 --> 00:49:32.501
And what's the message for the family of those

1208
00:49:32.501 --> 00:49:36.133
who might have a husband or a wife or a brother or sister or

1209
00:49:36.133 --> 00:49:39.367
father or mother?

1210
00:49:39.367 --> 00:49:42.767
Endless patience.

1211
00:49:42.767 --> 00:49:45.934
My wife, Rose, was the sort of the -- the star of the game.

1212
00:49:45.934 --> 00:49:49.100
The exemplar of what you ought to do.

1213
00:49:49.100 --> 00:49:52.133
Yeah, because -- because she was always there.

1214
00:49:52.133 --> 00:49:54.901
And this is very important.

1215
00:49:54.901 --> 00:49:57.701
William Styron, dead at 81 years old.

1216
00:49:57.701 --> 
We thank you for joining us, and see you next time.