 Welcome to everybody. Thank you for joining us at our latest future tense social. This is very exciting for me because I'm a huge fan of Eric Larson's books and we all got to listen to a little bit of Churchill as we as we were warming up to get in the mood. My name is Andres Martinez. I'm the editorial director of future tense, which is a collaboration between New America slate magazine and Arizona State University. We look at the implications of the impact of technology on society. I'm also a professor of practice at our Cronkite School of Journalism out at Arizona State University. It's really an honor and pleasure to have you with us today. Eric, and what brings us here today is your latest book, the splendid and the vile, a saga of Churchill family and defiance during the blitz. As all of you probably know, I'm sure Eric is also the author of such fabulous books as Dead Wake in the Garden of Beats, Thunderstruck, Devil in White City. I have read most of your books, but I have not read your first book I was intrigued, looking at your biography that you wrote a book called the naked consumer how companies spy on individual consumers which is actually a very future tensey subject and maybe we will have you come back and talk about that one. I also loved on your website which all of you should listening should check out. I think it's Eric Larson books.com I loved on your website you have an alternative biography which is which is fantastic and you describe the naked consumers a book that you really liked, but nobody else did. And I seriously doubt that but I'm gonna I'm gonna take a look at that. Welcome and really thank you for thank you for being with us. I think we should just get right to it and I want to because we're having this conversation today of all days I feel like I should ask the question that I'm sure is on everyone's minds and that is, how did Winston Churchill celebrate Cinco de Mayo. No, I'm kidding. That was okay. You're like that was not one of the things we discussed. No, in all seriousness we are having this event on zoom as opposed to in person which I would have loved. And so I just want to read a paragraph from your book just to set a scene here. You wrote, Churchill's notion of what constituted an office was expansive. The general's ministers and staff members would find themselves meeting with Churchill, while he was in the bath in his bathtub, one of his favorite places to work. He also liked working in bed and spent hours there each morning going through dispatches and reports with a type of seated nearby. And that was the box, a black dispatch box that contained reports correspondence and minutes minutes from other officials requiring his attention replenish daily by his private secretary. So clearly Winston Churchill was was was someone who had mastered the art of working from home. That is something that we're all struggling to do these days and so maybe not the place that these conversations about your book usually start but I'm really curious as to whether you think Churchill would have some your mortals on working from home. But this way if I were Winston Churchill I were doing the zoom interview with you right now, I would be in the bathtub. I'd be in the bathtub and actually Churchill had no sense of that and he very likely would have been completely naked doing it. But you know he was he was an ace and ace work at Homer I mean you know the guy would get up relatively late in the morning and he would work in bed. And he would have had his, his typist his personal secretary nearby with a, at all times with a with a typewriter taking notes he would more than likely have a have a cigar and also frankly more than likely would have a, and this is very appropriate for today, would very likely have a tumbler full of water and whiskey very little whiskey in it, but but nonetheless a whiskey and water. Can you talk about. We tend to think of this, you know, epic relationship friendship partnership alliance whatever we want to call it between FDR and and Churchill, and the communications going back and forth between Washington and London and the, and the summits. I was, it was interesting reading your book how a lot of the early conversations in DC when when Churchill first enters office is is about the drinking and sort of some of his the sort of over the top nature of his personality and sort of, I guess people were wondering, is this somebody we can take seriously. The drinking has always been something that people have have have have noted about Churchill, but it is a mistake to ever think that that he was a drunk or an alcoholic he certainly was not. In fact, is very close. Private Secretary John Colville wrote later on that he had never seen Churchill drunk or even in any way with his faculties limited by by alcohol and Churchill himself once said the clementine is clementine, by the way, he once said to her after she was criticizing him for drinking he said, I've, I've taken a lot more out of alcohol and alcohol has taken out of me, you know, so that that's how he felt when one thing back to the back to the working at home aspect you know one thing that certainly resonates today is that Churchill in this period spent a lot of time at the prime ministerial country home checkers every weekend. And actually later began dividing his time between two two country homes, which is what a lot of people are also doing doing now so he would have been he would have been very likely quite quite at home with this with this whole situation. And I was struck that the, I did not know this checkers was was donated by somebody to the government was that correct as a kind of as a camp David I mean it was more of a traditional country home I suppose. It was in America in America who donated. Before the war, well before the war back in I think I believe he donated it in 1914 anyway don't don't quote me on that one but it was it was donated to the government the idea of being the checkers was to be used. No work was to be done there this is a corner. No work was to be done there. It was a place for the prime ministers because sort of just enjoy the the bucala countryside, and, and let their faculties restore now Churchill of course took that very very differently he decided to make this his his country command post and packed it every weekend with guests and booze and fun. I have to confess that when when I first heard that this was the subject of your next book. I was intrigued. I feel like I had, I had read quite a lot about this this this first year of Churchill's being in office and and that moment you know the finest hour that Britain face and the blitz and so forth and I think if this, you know and I and recently I read. I think it was Andrew Roberts's biography of Churchill and and you know I feel like a lot of us are even if we're not specialists we have been inundated with books about this this great historical character. And I might have skipped this book had it not been written by you because but I just I having read your other books I felt like he is going to have a new angle a new insight, some new framing. But it wasn't daunting at all. I mean did you read right about Churchill because you felt like there were too many books written about Abraham Lincoln or what what was it that drew you to this. No listen I was I was totally daunted. But let me let me let me let me be clear it was not actually Churchill that that drew me to do this book Churchill kind of became a entered the party a little bit late in the process because what happened is that I had I had decided for a variety of relatively complicated reasons that it would be very interesting to look into how it was that people actually got through the day during during the blitz during the German Air and including that portion we know as as the blitz. How did they actually do it and then the reason was, I mean, the reason was that we had my wife and I had moved from Seattle to New York City. And no sooner that I moved to New York City than I had this kind of epiphany about what 911 had been like for New Yorkers versus what the rest of us who perhaps watched in real time had experienced and it's just a world world of difference this, you know, not just sense and sights but also the sense of violation of having your home city attack. And that's what made me start thinking about writing about how people actually got through the blitz and as you can imagine 57 consecutive nights of bombing how did people get through it. My original thought was maybe I'll just, maybe I'll just write about the typical London family. And I thought, wait a minute, why not the quintessential London family, Churchill, his family, his advisors and see exactly how they got through the day and really much just my surprise but nobody had actually done that nobody had decided to take a close look at that that that day to day and that's what really helped me get through it, but was I daunted. Oh yes. Oh yes, once I realized how much material had been written about Churchill and how much good stuff also people like Andrew Roberts is my, my favorite of the Churchill scholars actually is a brilliant writer. So much material have been done that I actually early on had to do a had to make a strategic decision, but how I was going to pursue the research. The idea of reading everything that had ever been written about Churchill, or by Churchill which itself would have been her I realized would be a fool's errand it would take me it would take me a decade and even then, even then by the time I got to the 10th year, I wouldn't be done because eight more books would come out about Churchill. So what I did I had to I did I made a strategic decision that I was going to simply read as much as I could to get a sense of of Churchill and the landscape in that period, and then dive right into the archives to see what was really there. So I feel most comfortable with it with original materials and so forth. And so that's how I managed to kind of pair things down otherwise I would have just been overwhelmed. That's not to say however that that every single day for the last four and a half years that I did not in fact ask myself, what am I doing. It was, it was very interesting to see the how it did feel like a portrait of of Churchill's orbit and you had these, we were looking, we were often seeing Churchill, and that historical moment through the eyes of his personal secretary, or his daughter, or other advisors that sometimes are not quite. We don't necessarily see things through their perspective as much and some of the other accounts that I have read. You mentioned Churchill's own writing. I, one of the things that astonished me reading the Roberts biography was I had, I had no, I never had realized just how prolific. He wrote after the war but the fact that throughout his life, he would always get himself out of financial holes by by his own writing and he was so prolific and and commanded quite a lot of money for his journalistic writings earlier. Yes, yes. And ultimately, it was his writing that got him ultimately finally out of the out of the financial hole but this is one of the things about the Churchill that is so, so remarkable is that is that he was extremely well read he was an extremely talented writer. And also quite good, good painter, but, you know, he all this went into that machine that was, you know, the church, Churchill's brain and it all really helped him in this process of trying to lead the nation through this, through this particular to this, the crisis of that German air campaign. So, it's interesting that that you said you gravitated towards this moment by thinking about what it must have been like to be in New York on 911, and then sort of multiply that by, you know, 57 nights of the blitz and so forth. And then your book comes out in early 2020 and of course, we're now the entire world is is is fighting off this global pandemic, which is a, an existential challenge to our societies that's quite different from from war, although we see people reaching for those analogies but the analogy that is unquestionable is is the need for leadership to mobilize society to meet, you know, the crisis in hand that requires extraordinary efforts and sacrifices and so I want to ask you about about and whether there's a secret sauce to Churchill's leadership but before we even get to that, and you've started alluding to this but maybe just sort of set the scene, you know, May 10 1940. Amazing day in history it's where your, your account starts, it's 80 years from this coming Sunday I was I was also thinking about that in preparation of this. So just just sort of set the scene in terms of describing what it was that the UK and Winston Churchill were facing. So May 10 1940, which is when the action starts and in my book was the day that Churchill became Prime Minister, the greatest day in his life, I think even he would agree. This is the thing that he wanted most of all, he became Prime Minister, owing to something in the House of Commons, where the consensus was that Neville Chamberlain, the prior Prime Minister was not was not up to the challenge of dealing with Hitler and Germany. But that same day May 10 1940 was the day that Hitler went to the so called phony war ceased to be a phony war it became a hot shooting war when, when, when Hitler invaded the low countries. So here's this situation where Churchill is this is the greatest day of his life, but also one of the darkest days in the history of the world. This did not not Churchill Churchill thought this simply this is this is like this is like added spice to the challenge the idea of being in charge of this this of this great empire at such a dire time really kind of thrilled him. So, so but he becomes he becomes Prime Minister immediately appoints his cabin and this is sort of a crucial element also we can talk about the people he appointed two of them in particular, our main characters in this book who in, I think in other works are have been delegated to simply the secondary secondary posture, but he quickly appoints his cabinet but but he immediately is confronting, we talked about existential threats. The, the presumption at the time was that once once Germany consolidated consolidated its whole over France, you know the British expeditionary force was being expelled that's what that speech was about was about the chaos at Dunkirk and so forth. Once France fell it would seem quite certain that France was going to fall that the entire strategic picture had would change. Prior to France fall in the assumption was the France would always stand that that that this would keep the Luftwaffe at bay because the planes would not be fighter escorts particular would not be would not have the endurance to fly all the way to Britain. Suddenly with France falling suddenly there were German air bases on the coast of the English channel minutes, literally just just minutes away from from England and minutes away from from London something that planners in Britain had never and had never even speculated. And so you have some you had you had that that that threat and the very real fear that Hitler that Germany was going to invade in a cross channel attack this seemed to many people most people at that time to be a certainty that if Germany ever attained air superiority over the channel there was going to be an invasion so if you can imagine taking control of Britain taking at this time when not only has Hitler you know begun invading various countries in Europe and succeeding and just crushing them. But now suddenly he's facing what could be an existential threat in terms of an invasion across the channel. I mean what a what a hellish prospect for for any normal mortal but not for not actually for Churchill he took this on with a with a verb in Augusta that came through time and time again in subsequent months. And, you know, we were listening to snippets of his speech and his oratory, you know, we're all, we've all been exposed to it. And there's been lots of Hollywood renditions and there's a, and obviously he had a gift with the language. But when you, when you, when you think of the the his recipe for leadership is there I think there's a tendency to just focus on the oratory and and that ability to communicate and inspire through the, you know, sort of leveraging the English language maybe shouldn't be underestimated but was it mostly that he was a great communicator or how much of the the the ratio of elements and success was that. Yeah, well it was a mix of things first of all, we're all familiar with with the oratory the great lines you know the never has some so much been owed by so many to so few. But I would argue that that's not really the strong point of his of his speeches in fact at the time that particular line did not necessarily have the same resonance it does now for all of us. You know it's basically a speech was just a speech, but the thing that I think that made me Churchill I think a particularly excellent at communicating not just news and information but also communicating also a sense of a sense of reason for for for courage is how he structured his speeches. And we got a taste of that at the the opening speech about Dunkirk. First of all he was a great storyteller and he was telling as you as you heard in those opening those opening moments. He was telling it as a story as as this is this is what was happening this is how it was unfolding sort of a thrilling story if you think about it. What he would do is he would give you give his audience a sober appraisal of the situation, not not happy talk just just a really down to earth sober appraisal sometimes too sober and too detailed and scared the heck out of the audience on occasion. And we follow with with comments about, you know, real grounds for why people should be optimistic by, by how this problem of the blitz of Dunkirk of, of the potential for a German invasion, how this could be how this can be can be resolved as a sort of reason for for for optimism and again not happy talk real grounds for optimism and then would come this rhetorical force at the end of it. metaphorically and perhaps not so metaphorically have people rising from their seats and saying right I'm going to be part of this I'm going to. We're going to take this guy on God damn it and this is this is how this is going to be. We're going to we're going to be, you know, we're going to be Hitler. But there's another element to churches leadership, a couple of other elements one is this comes into play also in terms of his ability to communicate. He being this this this great reader of history, he had this ability to put people to place people into into the grand epic of British history to make them feel as if they were part of this great island story as he would put it. It's very important to make them all feel part of this thing this, this great tradition that they had to hold, but also, he had, he had a real understanding of the power of symbolic ads. And along our continuum even something as simple as as as refusing to call Hitler by his name, he would say that man or that wicked man which when you think about it. It's a very subtle very tiny thing, but it's a very powerful thing if you don't, if you don't identify if you don't, if you don't, you know demonize your enemy and makes him seem a little like like like this this this unimportant presence often the distance, but then the under the other end of this continuum. He learned very early on in the blitz the power of visiting bombed out areas and showing himself there. Showing himself, you know, certainly, you know, surveying the damage talking to people expressing emotion, he was not afraid at all of, of weeping in public but also showing his resolve simply by, you know, simply by being there he was he was being in a, in a courageous act and was showing, showing defiance and this was a very very powerful flip. You know, just to give you a sort of a contemporary example I mean I had to laugh. You know, sort of a grim way the other day when we saw, we saw Vice President Mike Pence at the Mayo Clinic without a mask when everybody else around him was wearing a mask. You know, to think of that, to think of the optics of that, you know, possibly appealing to one's tiny slice of America maybe but you know somebody like Churchill would be wearing that mask he'd be charging around you know saying this is this is this is what we do. You know, that's that that power of symbolic acts and, and, and, you know, if you if you engage in symbolic acts that created dissonance with your audience, like, you don't wear a mask when your audience knows damn well you should be wearing that mask. That's a problem. That's a problem that undercuts your credibility as a, as a leader. So, Churchill had this acute sense of the power of symbolic acts. Another example of that by the way is that, you know, he, he, he certainly seemed to be utterly, utterly fearless and frankly I think fearlessness is his infections were. As I would argue, can be taught sort of the art of fearlessness but when they were air raids Churchill was more than likely, more than likely to go up on a nearest roof to watch that area and to bring people with him including staff. So that's the kind of leader, leader he was. I've actually been to the, the bunker the which they've now expanded to a nice museum in London. That was there for him and, and of course then to read that he wasn't going to be very excited to spend that much time there because he was going to the rooftops. He only spent three nights actually in the Churchill war rooms. One of the other things that fascinates me. And I don't, maybe you could talk a little bit about this as a source is the extent to which we, we, we have, we have some real time information on how people responded to his speeches and so forth through this project of mass observation. It's something I first learned about reading Britain's war by Daniel Todman, a book about the home front and describing this mass observation phenomenon, where I guess it was a sociological project, but you just describe that a little bit I don't. And I don't know what today's equivalent of that would be I mean maybe it'd be social media or people's Google search, but you know talk about that because that's fascinating. Well, you know, so mass observation was a social sciences organization that was founded before the war. The point being to create as its founder said to create a, a social psychology of ourselves. The idea of being to recruit hundreds of diarists to just write about daily life in Britain, you know, real just the quotidian things in fact one, one way that the diarists recruited to do this kind of sharpen their skills was to describe things on their mantelpiece. You know is that it's that kind of daily personal detail was supposed to go into these diaries. Well so here are all these diarists keeping their diaries submitting them to mass observation for for analysis. And then the war starts, and many of these diaries continue to keep their diaries. What a tremendous resource one of my favorite diaries of this mass observation group. Olivia Cockett, who is she is a clerk for Scotland yard she is dating an older man well he's a married man she's in this affair love affair with it with an older man. And her diary shows this, I think shows in metaphorically what the broader culture, but the broader culture in Britain was was experiencing and how they evolved. Here comes the blitz September 7 1940 she is terrified, like, like everybody else in London, this is this is a shocking thing. You know up until then the belief was that for whatever reason London was not going to be attacked, you know, by German bombers directly. She's terrified. Over time, she becomes less terrified, but the pivotal moment for her is when the the incendiary bomb lands outside her house when the Germans attacked at night. They would first. Well, South Tennessee, in many cases, but they would first drop a lot of incendiary bombs, these point being to set things on fire so that the flames would serve as a beacon for bombers to follow because you know this is this is still an era when when flying at night was best done, you know, with moonlight, if you didn't have moonlight, you had to have these fires that as beacons. So one of these incendiary bombs landed outside her house. She put out the incendiary bomb she snuffed this thing out and she was so proud of herself so elated that really suddenly suddenly she was no longer no longer afraid she had, she had stood up to this, this, this, this, you know, this this awful assault from from Germany and she had she had had the courage to do this and had the courage to put this thing out. Meanwhile, her, her lover became as she's quite candid about her lover and about their sex life actually. Meanwhile, her lover became more and more fearful. And my favorite moment is as as as the story proceeds as as time passes, they're walking during as an air raid begins to occur and they hear two bombs falling they have a distinctive sound. And her lover sells for her to get down, get down and she says, not my new code on that. That's great. That's great. So, you know, we are, as I mentioned, future tense we're we're we're usually focused on our relationship to technology and the impact of technology and society and so part of the reason I wanted to have this conversation with you other than the fact that I am a fan of your books and a history buff. There is sort of a future tense connection here which is I was one of the other things that I was really struck by reading your book, however familiar, I may or may not have been with with Churchill is that you really you really portray him as a. I don't know if you would call him a technologist in today's sense of the word, but certainly like a tech enthusiast and and the character Professor Lindemann in the book is an interesting one and and his role as part of Churchill circle. Yeah, if you could just talk a little bit about that that relationship and Churchill's relationship to science and technology writ large I mean clearly that you know whether was radar or all the cryptography that we're familiar with with the enigma code and you know technology was a huge part of what you know turn the tide and help and help the allies and in particular the English contributions but that was not something you know we think of we have this image of Churchill as sort of like this antiquated figure from another from the distant past and I think even in his day a lot of people have that image of Churchill. So he's not necessarily like technology savvy isn't necessarily the first thing that comes to mind but in your book there was that that was kind of an interesting theme. Yeah, yeah well first of all he he loved the idea of secret weapons. He was a big believer in the potential for for technology to give Britain a significant edge in terms of weaponry and so forth. Toward that end, one of the advisors he appointed and this is another aspect of his his his leadership smarts by the way his special sauce if you will, was that he appointed advisors that that that he knew would give him the straight story, he didn't have people who were simply going to suck up to him and say oh yes oh yes my lord you are doing exactly the right thing. Frederick Lindemann was one of one of the most thoroughly dislike men in the government in Whitehall and the district of London that is considered to be the British government he was he was dislike by just about everybody, except maybe Churchill and except maybe Churchill's wife and and the Churchill's children because Frederick Lindemann, aka the Prophet never forgot their birthdays, but he was he was shortly after Churchill became Prime Minister he appointed Frederick the Prophet to be his personal scientific advisor, which was a very very smart very savvy move. Because, first of all, it gave Churchill an insight into, you know what technological things were actually happening within within Britain within the defense establishment. But also, it gave Frederick Lindemann caught watch to investigate anything that he wanted to any technological issue. And this was very powerful because it assured that Churchill was going to be getting the straight, the straight story. It's going to be getting the straight story, not something that was fabricated not something that was massaged, because Frederick Lindemann had this had this ability to look into into into anybody's affairs any any ministries affairs, and bring back a report to Churchill, and in some cases he actually wrote his own, his own memoranda for Churchill to sign that would be distributed then to the to the ministries in question. This proved to be a very very valuable thing for example, it turned out that that that the British didn't really actually know how many planes. And I didn't really know how many aircraft, Germany had, and it's kind of an important thing to know in terms of what kind of offensive they can wage, but also didn't know how many aircraft the ref had. That was another that was another issue and that comes, that comes out in the saga as well in fact it was such a such a conundrum that Churchill decided he would have to actually hire a criminal court judge to review the evidence on both sides. And the judge who would actually handle the very famous murder case called the jigsaw murder because the bodies were chopped up into so many pieces that they had to be reassembled before they could sort of make a determination of cause and death and start not cause and death, but, but who the victims were and so anyway, so he actually had to hire a judge to sit in on this on this meeting of the minds about just, you know, statistical statistical assessments, you know, reconnaissance, all these other technological elements, codes and so forth to try to determine how many planes did these people have, and how many planes do we have so it was a fascinating thing, but the prof, the prof is one of those characters who gets short shrift I feel in in Churchillian histories and he was crucial to the story. And there's also the, the, I'm sorry I'm thinking about what you said about. Not needing to surround himself with with yes men are going to tell him and I don't know if it's there's also been sort of a cultural shift but in our contemporary politics it seems like you cannot have any press conference or cabinet meeting without everybody going around and the leader tremendous, you know, and I think in the Trump administration is taking that to a completely new level but but I think there's it's it's it's broader than that it's it's more widespread but I don't I don't get the sense that that was, you know, when there were, there were updates about the situation, you know, on the front lines that they spent 30 minutes thanking Churchill for his great leadership. So this analogy that we can make actually to contemporary situation is that, you know, I would argue that Anthony Fauci serves the purpose today of Frederick Lindemann of the prof. The difference being that the current administration doesn't want that kind of input doesn't doesn't like having somebody like Fauci out there as sort of a sort of a loose cannon where as Churchill wanted Frederick Lindemann to be in everybody's face. This is what this is this was his mandate was to get out there and cause trouble and he did in space. And I want to remind people that you can upload questions on the Q amp a feature and we're starting to get some, but but don't forget about that. And then on this on the sort of industrial side Eric you had Lord beaver Brooke who was sort of the the productions are and he was sort of he's an interesting character to that that I feel might might be a little bit more familiar but and we had analogous characters on in the once the US entered the war. Forget his name but a former CEO of GM was was brought in for a dollar a year famously by FDR to sort of ramp up production and beaver Brooke, I guess, even if they didn't know they had how many planes they had the RF realized they needed a lot more. And so he's brought in for that now that was another interesting. Well, yeah, so Lord beaver Brooke is another key element of the story man beaver book is is obviously there been biographies of him but again I would I feel that in in larger larger biographies of Churchill he tends to get sort of still still somewhat somewhat short shrift but he was crucial in this era and wonderful thing about, but first of all he was he was widely hated as well. And in that case, even Clementine Churchill did not like Lord beaver Brooke, but immediately after Churchill became Prime Minister he appointed beaver Brooke, the Minister of aircraft production and set up an entirely new ministry the ministry of aircraft production, because Churchill recognize something early on, and that is church and his military advisors recognize something early on and that is that, if, if they were, if Britain was was ever to be able to repel an invasion, it would require first. It would require that they hold the, that the Luftwaffe a, if the Luftwaffe got air superiority, the potential for an invasion would be would be very, very big indeed. So and he realized also though that the only way to prevent Germany from getting your superiority is through the use of fighter aircraft to take down their fighters and take down their bombers. And that's beaver Brooke to be a minister of aircraft production with the express goal of, of, of, of ramping up production of fighters fighter production was already starting to increase but on a very sort of programmed level, Churchill recognized much more had to be done, but needed the vast numbers of fighters to repel this assault. Beaver Brooke steps in he'd never built an industrial object before he was a newspaper. His smarts were in newspapers and, and, and ramping up circulation and knowing the dirt on everybody else. So now suddenly he's put in charge of this this ministry of aircraft reduction. And the whole point was to shake things up Churchill knew that this guy was hated. He knew that he was incredibly energetic and incredibly smart and that if anybody could do this job, it was going to be more beaver Brooke, and he did he came through and in, in, to an incredible degree maybe not as incredible as he would like people to remember, but to an incredible degree and really kind of saved the day. So there too, yeah, it was a, it was a, it's not exactly the technology side but you know, he really, he really understood. The manufacturing of aircraft aircraft he understood the motivation of people and one of the most interesting things that that he did was he made sure that he made sure that RAF pilots actual pilots people who actually had their wings would visit aircraft industry aircraft manufacturing companies to talk about what the planes were doing and how valuable it was that they were doing it. Another thing here to he was sort of very good at the power of symbolic gestures as well. He would, they would bring German aircraft if they were shot down. They would put them on the back of the truck or drive them through towns, you know as if they're just simply reclaiming this aircraft and bringing it back but the point was to show people, we've done this, we brought down this, this German aircraft and this sort of sort of clever little detail. One of the things that we it's also easy to forget is the longevity that Churchill had on the historical scene I mean he doesn't become Prime Minister until 1940 may 10th. As you say, and by that point he's how he's when he becomes famous 65. Okay, 65. But he had been this, you know, famous character even in his youth because of his experiences in the war wars and his writings about it. And then he is in a, in a high position in the cabinet during one with some controversies involving Gallipoli. But there is a question he gets kicked out of his post as first Lord of the Admiralty because of Gallipoli. Right, right. I was I was I was putting it nicely, but you're right. So Amy Jackson has a question. She's in the audience and she's asking an interesting question about so I bring up the longevity longevity because of course, Churchill was the first Lord of the Admiralty. I'm hearing the timeframe I think of the sinking of the Lusitania. And so he is a character in Dead Wake, your, your book about Lusitania, which was also amazing I had to recommend it. And so Amy's question was, did your research for this book change the image of Churchill that you have then and that you portrayed in Dead Wake. And I went I was wondering if that's one of the things that led you to want to write up more about this, this character. And the answer to your question is no, the answer to her because that's a very interesting question. You know, I, I, in writing about Churchill in the book about Lusitania I actually, I liked, I liked Churchill, even then I mean I know he screwed up with Gallipoli. And that's, you know, really, really an interesting story in and of itself, but, but I think rather than changing my perception of him it's sort of, it fleshed out my sense of what Churchill was really all about. And made him seem to me a richer. His experience during World War One informed my research in this current book by, by making him seem more of a nuanced character, you know, a flawed character, which he was he was deeply flawed and, and make no mistake that that you can criticize Churchill for many, especially in his, in his, in his post post World War Two roles and also in, in some of the things he did prior to basically it was he was he was an Argent periodist. But during this period, during this period, he was in fact the leader of the moment that the man man of the hour. And his experience during World War One was, was I think important to know because you know he he he screwed up, he screwed up big time in that prior experience and now here he was coming into coming into this role during this this even. I think action with regards to graver apparent apparent existential threat. And, you know, how he then, you know, how he mustered the confidence to do so I mean this is a tremendous, tremendous story. But, you know, the two. The first did not leave me to do this at all. Right, got you. You talk about his, him being a flawed character, and him being sort of an arch imperialist and I always get the sense. And this really comes across in the Roberts biography to that, you know, even at even in his, in his days, he seemed his way of thinking seemed a little bit outdated and overly nostalgic and, you know, and in the 30s he is, I think he's, he's seen by many people as as a bit preposterous and over the top and too melodramatic and, and, you know, and partly it's because he's beating the drums on the notes he's posed and other people wanted to have a more temperate, but but I do wonder if when when you think about the kind of leadership that we need when we are faith when our a democratic society is facing a an existential crisis is the persona and the traits that you want that you need in the leader, maybe, maybe they're different from the kinds of leaders and traits in your leaders that you want in a time of normalcy. I mean that night that made 10th 1940 they turned the Churchill, who was sort of, you know, this this larger than life and then and character that it was sort of had been so out of the mainstream until sort of events caught up. It's like they have no more choice in a way. And then one of the things that's just so poignant about the whole saga of the war from the British perspective and then the Churchill protagonist is that he gets voted out of office, you know, two months after the day a month before the war ends in Japan. I mean that's just, it's so unimaginable to us reading in, you know, to us learning about this and you know, 80 years on that that would happen to somebody who who sort of carried the country through this experience on his shoulders and so it was there a realization even then that this guy's great for an emergency but this is not the kind of this is too much there's too much melodrama in this in this type of leadership for for peace time. But but but clearly clearly what what what brought Churchill in was a profound sense that that Neville Chamberlain was not up to the task and clearly the British, the British public at the end of this at the end of the war just before the end of the war, had had the same kind of but contrapuntal feeling about Churchill that while he was great, you know, during the war confident, strong and really able to rouse the public with his rhetoric. Maybe, maybe that's not what we need now maybe now we need a little bit more stability and a little bit, you know, to manage the post war era. So yeah, I mean I think that there are people who are suited to certain kinds of leadership just as there are I mean there are there are certain generals who are suited for desk jobs and there are certain generals who are suited for being out there on the battlefield. And so yeah, right. There are a couple of questions here about coventry which are which are interesting it's something that you hear off and on about and I'm not clear exactly on what's urban legend what's true. Tom Herman asks, Eric a movie indicated that Churchill was told by the decoders at Blanchley about an impending attack by Germany and the church will chose not to warn the target I think it was kind of dream he says, because that would make the Germans realize their codes have been cracked. Any truth to that story. You know, not in the case, not in the case of Coventry nothing that I found the story of Coventry is this. Because thanks to thanks to code breaking and deciphering German and Lofa communications. It was known that there was a big raid that was coming it was it was called moon lights and that was the code name but, but it wasn't at all clear where this thing was going to go the presumption was among the among air intelligence was in British air intelligence. And that was that the attack was going to be on London. And I thought it was going to be on a particular particular night it actually happened one night earlier. Churchill was a report was done full of detail and that was meant for the for the Prime Minister was given to him, apparently in according to one account given to him in the in the car as he was leaving town to go to to go to checkers. It was so alarming, suggesting that there was this massive massive raid that was going to occur against London that night. He came back and in fact he was on the rooftop of one of the, I think was the Air Ministry building. He was on the on the rooftop waiting for this huge raid that he feared would come, but it was not coming to London it was coming to Coventry so did he know this rate was going to come he did know a raid was coming. And he presumed that the target was going to be was going to be London he had no idea that Coventry was going to be involved. And, and also on the subject of Coventry which you described the aftermath very movingly. David Peters. Thanks you for joining us. He says he found your description of that aftermath of the bombing of Coventry apropos to our current moment particularly the speech by the bishop at the first mass funeral where he says let us vow before God to be better friends and neighbors in the future because we have suffered this together and I've stood here today. In your book and your many others what morals believes principles have you found have been critical in times of despair and tragedy. I guess what would be the modern day equivalent of that bishops speech asks David. The modern day equivalent of that Bishop speech. You know that we've that we've heard thus far will nothing, frankly from the federal government but, but I would think I think that I think that you know, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo. I'm impressed by his daily briefings is his emphasis on, you know, yes, things are improving now rates of hospitalization and so forth are coming down in in New York State. Very, very careful to emphasize how tragic how the disaster of all these deaths night after night of night he never has let us all forget the fact that you know what even though we're in this, you know, there's this race now to reduce this, the virus to make it subside. You know, he's always reminding us of the grave losses that we are still we are still experiencing he never loses that that perspective and that's, that's a very important thing. Another aspect of leadership and then Churchill had this as well is is, you know, first of all, I think to be a power to be a to be an effective leader I think you have to have a strong well balanced moral compass and one ancillary effect of having a strong moral compass that you also are able to to experience and express empathy. And that's something that the Churchill was very, very good about he can he can manage both he could manage waging war, which he loved he was the first to defend the love the thrill of war, but he was also deeply empathic and understood on a very, very personal level, what the people of Britain were were experiencing that speech by the by the Bishop that Coventry was to me, I think very, very, very, very moving and very, very Christian in the best sense. I found it very important to make reference to that. So we're saying a lot of nice things about Churchill in terms of his rising to the occasion in that first year and meeting the moment. Dennis asks a question. She writes in that the book gives very little attention to any unhappiness and the population with Churchill and his handling of the war. Was there indeed very little of this. Well you know I can't I can't, I can't go through all the home intelligence reports now and tell you what I found didn't find the overall sense that I got was that people were quite satisfied with with Churchill. There were moments when they were less satisfied. It depends on on which moments you want to talk about. But generally, the overall the sense that I got about about the public and Churchill from home intelligence reports and from these mass observation tires was that people were very impressed with him and, and, and they were very, very satisfied and happy with his with his leadership, there are of course critics, but you know well seem to be the override sense. In the time of war when you're facing existential threat, there's a rally around the flag effect you mentioned, and obviously over time it, people adjusted and as we talked about four years later voted amount of office but you were talking about 911. I think we can forget that two months after 911 in November 2001. George W Bush's approval ratings stood at 91%. And, you know, so that kind of effect is obviously in a global pandemic with all of the current environment it's not necessarily going to play out the same way. It is also the case that one important thing to note also about Churchill is then one of the reasons he became Prime Minister in the first place was because he had overwhelming public support, overwhelming public support. And I think that the king and the, and the rebels actually had to have the parliamentarian rebels had to acknowledge that he had this this this great reservoir of popularity and it persisted through this, at least through this period. A couple of people, I don't want to turn to get to this because a couple of people watching and this was my reaction to felt like Mary Churchill's diary was an amazing addition to your book. Somebody's asking, can you talk a little bit about the diary has this been used before in other books. Yes. So, first of all, Mary Churchill is my favorite character. The diary, I think, I think was a tremendous asset in working working on this on this book. I got permission to use it from her, her daughter. I was at that point one of only two people who had actually looked at this the story so this diary is really very new in terms of new material and her perspective. What I loved about this diary was the first of all she she's a very, very smart, very, very astute and accurate observer of, of everything around her and she adored her father and would talk of 17 at the time at the time she would she agree for him when he came under came under criticism which he did periodically for for for for perceived perceived errors. But she she was a wonderful observer and all that, but the thing that the thing that I really really loved about Mary was that she, she was exactly the kind of presence or or observer that I was trying to, trying to corral for for this book for for this lens that I was trying to open on that particular piece of how they got through this thing how did they do this on a daily basis. In addition to being a very, very astute observer and very smart and very articulate, you know, observer. She also was after all a 17 year old girl who really like to have fun. And, you know, there are references to snogging, snogging in the hayloft with young rf pilots, you know, going to parties at rf bases. This was a lovely counterpoint and also talking about her, you know, she and she and a friend of hers at one point resolved that they were going to to learn all the Shakespearean sonnets one one one per day during that summer they did okay at that but didn't I don't think they completed the mission. But anyway, so Mary Church would turn out to be this really wonderful charming charming character I think she makes the book honestly. Yeah. So, lastly, we have a question from Victoria, who talks about how she's struck by Churchill's appreciation and understanding of history, something that maybe he did share with the previously referenced Abraham Lincoln. And so you could say a little bit about that but also her question is, what are you as somebody who appreciates history, choosing to read these days while you are homebound in New York. I will tell you that when it comes to when it comes to reading for for pleasure, or in this particular time, I read totally for escape. I mean I'm, I'm, I'm doing the literary equivalent of cowering I mean like I love thrillers, I love thrillers you know I just, although I have to qualify that a little bit. I just finished reading, I just finished reading when William Golding's The Lord of the Flies. I'd read it before but I just I reread it for for whatever. For a second reason but but it actually turned out to be a really great comforting kind of read for this period because you know, honestly I'd rather be sequestered in my house now under the circumstance I am, then to be on that island with a bunch of primal school boys help each other. So anyway, it was, it actually turned out to be kind of a very interesting, but I read for, I read for distraction I read for for. I mean I love a good, I love a good, I love a good thriller. You know one of my favorite things that I just read recently was the couple next door by Shari Lapinia I think I'm pronouncing that right. It's a terrific nice really, really sharp kind of edgy edgy thriller site and I read totally for escape that's that's my mission right now. Great well Eric this is a, this has been such a pleasure, the hour flew by, you know, on a personal note I also I wanted to mention that I met you know I've read a lot of your other books as I'm sure a lot of us watching have. In the Garden of Beasts was was really, I had sort of a slight personal connection to it because my father, I grew up in Mexico and my father who was, I was, I'm a mutt my mom was American my father was Mexican. When I was going to night school in Mexico City in the 50s. He got, he was offered an, like administrative office job by somebody named Alfred Stern, and got to know Martha Dodd. And when I was a kid I would hear these, these, these interesting stories about these people. He was like, yeah, he was a he was studying law at night and working for the end during the day for this character who turns out was a great interest to the US government. And, and to read your book where Martha Dodd is the daughter of the US ambassador in Berlin, 20 years before that, and quite the character. It's, it was an interesting corroboration and interesting and postscript on these stories that I would hear from my father so. Interesting interesting. Thank you for that. And maybe at some point we can have a sidebar on that. But thank you so much thanks to all of you for. Yeah, thank you for calling it for watching this this latest future tense. Social, we do these Tuesdays and Thursdays at four o'clock Eastern. Please check out our the events page in New America or slate. And, and, and come come join us for more of these and Eric, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Stay safe everybody. Thank you.