WEBVTT

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- Welcome to our program,
\"Psychology and Courageous

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Truth-telling, the Prospects for
a New American Heroism.\"

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I\'m Bill Roller, and I\'m
delighted to be speaking to

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two icons of progressive
thought in America.

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Phil Zimbardo is professor
emeritus of psychology at

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Stanford University and is best
known as the creator of

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the Stanford Prison Experiment.

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Dan Ellsberg is an author
and activist.

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He was former RAND Corporation
analyst and worked under

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Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara in the Pentagon.

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He\'s best known for the release
of documents which

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clearly showed the deceptions
and lies which shaped American

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foreign policy in Vietnam
during those years.

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And those papers eventually
became known as

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the Pentagon Papers.

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So welcome, gentlemen.

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- Welcome Bill.

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- Our discussion this evening
will focus on the lives and

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commitments that you\'ve made to

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serving the public interest.

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We also want to address the
concept of heroism...

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The idea that ordinary people
can do something they\'ve never

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done before in defense of an
ethical principle they hold

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dear, even at personal
risk to themselves.

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Phil, you and I are going to
create a documentary video

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that will explore heroism,
challenging young people to

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take courageous action in the
service of their conscience.

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In that process, many questions
will arise: Why is

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it essential to enlist others
as partners in taking

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courageous action?

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Why is it so difficult for
most people to take an

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anti-authoritarian stand?

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Why are people most likely not
to take an heroic action, but

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who are those people that
will take heroic action?

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But first let\'s talk about the
actions you have taken.

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In my conversations with you
both, it\'s clear that you\'ve

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admired each other\'s
work for some time.

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It\'s curious to me that 1971
seems to be a year that stands

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out in both of your lives.

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Phil, that was the landmark
study you did in August 14,

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1971, the Stanford Prison
Experiment.

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And then, Dan, you released
the Pentagon Papers just

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earlier that year, June 13,
1971, to the New York Times.

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Now, I\'m curious if you were
aware of each other\'s activity

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at that time.

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When did you become aware of
the significance of each

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other\'s work?

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- Well, I became aware of the
release of the Pentagon Papers

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almost immediately.

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It was just such a startling
revelation.

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I had been an anti-war activist
for some time and had

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felt hopeless, that it was
clear this was a losing

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proposition, that we were mired
in that muck, and that

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it was not clear how we would
ever get out of it.

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And it was almost as if
everybody knew it was

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\"Disasterville\", and no one
knew how to get out.

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And suddenly this revelation
was, \"Hey, all of our generals

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have been deceiving us\"...

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not the generals, the President.

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The generals were telling
it the way it was.

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\"We are trapped there.

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We don\'t know how to get out
honorably.\" And our President

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said therefore we have
to keep doing it.

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And I knew instantly that this
would be a turning point,

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which clearly it was.

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It was clearly an action which
certainly shortened that

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illegal, immoral war.

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But it was just a name,
a Dan Ellsberg guy,

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and I saluted him.

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I was teaching in the Bronx
campus of NYU at that time.

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And I should mention one other
thing, is that in 1966, I

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think I took my first
what I would now

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consider heroic action.

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At graduation, in 1966, NYU was
going to give an honorary

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degree to Robert McNamara,
in the height of the war.

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And I thought this was such
a misuse of that honor to

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someone who was architect of
that war, that I organized

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several hundred students,
graduating students, families,

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and other faculty, that when
they mentioned his name, we\'d

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all stand up and walk out.

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- What year was this?

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- 1966...

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June, 1966.

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And one of our guests was there.

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And it was a silent protest but
it actually made the front

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page of the New York
Times the next day.

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And I was an assistant professor
without tenure.

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It literally almost
cost me a job.

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I didn\'t get renewed till...

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the renewal was supposed to be
in September, and I didn\'t get

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my renewal papers
till mid-year.

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And the chairman of
the department

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said, \"You\'re too brash.

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You need time to mellow.\"

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- Well, you never did mellow.

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How much more time do you need?

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- I need another decade.

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So I owe a lot to that...

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that\'s what I call a
courageous action.

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- Dan, when did you become
aware of Phil\'s work?

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Do you remember?

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- It wasn\'t in \'71, because
I was under

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indictment at that time.

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- Not doing a lot of reading.

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- And I was on trial for
a couple of years.

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I spent a lot of time after the
trial trying to understand

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a specific phenomenon, actually.

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It strikes me...

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I think the first thing that put
it in my head was in 1968,

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which is a year before I
actually began to copy the

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Pentagon Papers.

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McNamara was perhaps still in
office, he left at the end of

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February in 1968, was replaced
by Clark Clifford.

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But my friend Mort Halpern was
working then in the Defense

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Department.

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I was back at the RAND
Corporation.

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And I was in Washington talking
to him at that point.

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He said, you know, there\'s three
people... we were still,

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of course, bombing North Vietnam
at a total rate.

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And he said, \"You know, there
are three people in this town

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who believe in what
we\'re doing\"...

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speaking in particular
of the bombing.

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He said, \"Lyndon Johnson, Walt
Rostow\", his former MIT

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assistant for national security,
\"and Dean Rusk.\"

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So we thought, three, that seems
like a small number.

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We think about that
a little bit.

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And I remember sitting there
with him and trying to think

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if we\'d add anyone to that list.

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And we actually couldn\'t
think of anyone.

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What he meant, by the way, was
they didn\'t all think that the

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war should get out there.

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There were a lot of
people who felt...

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the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
what we\'re doing now is

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hopeless, useless.

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You have to do it on a much
bigger scale: invade the

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North, mine Haiphong, go
into Laos and Cambodia.

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They\'d been saying all
this since \'65.

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So what we\'re doing is hopeless.

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It will never succeed.

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And on the other hand, people
who\'d realized by that time,

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we had by that time dropped
3.2 million tons of bombs.

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Now let me correct that.

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I think at that point
it was 2.5 million

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tons, I could be wrong...

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under McNamara, which was
a little more than all

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of World War II.

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And we didn\'t think more bombing
was going to do this.

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And a lot of people felt that.

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Most people thought this
will not do it.

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So we wanted to get out, end
the war and whatnot.

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But nobody believed in the heavy
bombing we were doing.

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The bombing went on for
five more years.

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And it was pursued by people who
almost from top to bottom

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believed it was accomplishing
nothing except killing people.

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It was killing a lot of people.

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It wasn\'t affecting the war.

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It wasn\'t weakening, it wasn\'t
shortening the war.

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No one believed that, as I say,
except possibly those

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three people at that time, maybe
a couple more later.

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So I had the question in
my mind very much.

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I want to understand
this phenomenon.

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How can so many people... we\'re
talking now hundreds of

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thousands, the Pentagon, the
armed forces, everybody...

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pursuing this effort, feeling
that what they\'re doing is

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dropping bombs on people to no
good effect, only killing, in

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a war that will not be ended
by doing this, no

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justification for it?

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And to me, that meant it\'s
unjustifiable homicide, which

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as a layman I thought,
that\'s murder.

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That\'s murder.

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It\'s not just a mistake.

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So how can they all
be doing this?

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So I tried to really study that.

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And I came across the Milgram
experiments, which is...

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I don\'t know whether we\'ll
go into that or not.

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And of course you deal with
that a lot in your book.

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The obedience experiments of
how people would go to the

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limit in what they thought
was killing a subject.

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They were wrong.

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They were being misled on that.

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But they thought they were doing
it in obedience to being

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asked to do it by somebody who
had some degree of authority.

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Not real authority, but
it didn\'t take much to

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get them to do it.

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That\'s a very brief
account of that.

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And he describes this phenomenon
of the willingness

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of people to do things that they
feel are not justifiable.

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They\'re not justifiable, but
they\'re asked to do it.

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And they promised to carry
out those orders.

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And they don\'t want to
break the promise.

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And they don\'t want to break
their contract, et cetera.

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- And it goes against
moral conscience.

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And it goes against their
moral conscience.

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Because in every case you
see the participants...

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In those days we called
them subjects...

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Saying, \"I don\'t want to go on;
I can\'t do it; it\'s not

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right.\" And the experiment says,
you have a contract.

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You must continue.

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And they keep pressing, and
they keep pressing.

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- He said, \"You must go on.

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There\'s no choice.\" And
eventually a third of them...

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- 2/3 went all the way.

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- A third eventually say,
\"No, I do have a choice.

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I\'m not going to go further.\"
2/3 did not, and they would go

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to the point of killing.

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So that seemed to explain to me
how people could do their

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jobs even when they felt this is
murderous but I signed up.

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I have a boss.

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I\'ve promised to carry out
the orders, and so forth.

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I did pursue, then,
the psychological

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literature quite a bit.

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And at some point, of course, I
came across your work, which

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is very similar, how the
situation that people are put

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in, the roles they play, feel,
\"Well, this is what I have to

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do, even though it\'s not really
justifiable except that

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I\'m asked to do it.\"

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So I did become aware
of your work.

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And all of this, in other
words, was part of my

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education in trying to
understand what I had been

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caught up in myself when I was
in Vietnam and in the Pentagon

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and why it was still going on
and why it continued to go on.

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- What was your academic
background?

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- Economics.

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I had a Ph.D. in Economics.

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I just yesterday referred to
that, I think, for the first

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time in I don\'t know when.

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I signed a petition for a Robin
Hood tax, a half-percent

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tax on all financial
transactions on Wall Street,

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which would have been a good
demand, in my opinion, for the

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Occupy movement.

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Still would.

00:13:06.918 --> 00:13:07.998
I signed up for it.

00:13:07.999 --> 00:13:10.082
And I said, \"You might be
interested to know that I have

00:13:10.083 --> 00:13:14.998
a Ph.D. in Economics from
Harvard, 1962.\"

00:13:14.999 --> 00:13:17.998
- Phil, I\'ve heard you say that
Dan epitomizes in many

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ways what you talk about in the

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Heroic Imagination Project.

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Can you talk more about that?

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- Yeah.

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The problem is we overuse and
misuse the concept of heroes.

00:13:27.834 --> 00:13:30.998
So now Michael Phelps is a hero
because he won all those

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gold medals.

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He\'s a testimony to hard work,
practice, and genes that give

00:13:36.999 --> 00:13:40.041
him a body like a fish,
but he\'s not a hero.

00:13:40.042 --> 00:13:42.124
So we use that term lightly.

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The way I now insist on the
focus is, a hero is someone

00:13:46.876 --> 00:13:51.583
who takes action, and the action
is in the service of

00:13:51.584 --> 00:13:55.166
other people in need or in
defense of a moral principle.

00:13:55.167 --> 00:13:57.374
And you do it aware
that there\'s a

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potential cost or risk.

00:13:59.542 --> 00:14:02.625
So altruism is service
to others, but it\'s

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heroism-light.

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There\'s no cost.

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There\'s no risk.

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And typically the person does
it without expectation of a

00:14:11.999 --> 00:14:13.458
tangible reward.

00:14:13.459 --> 00:14:18.208
So it doesn\'t count if you are
exposing fraud to get the 20%

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rebate on monies gained.

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So with that definition, Dan
becomes the quintessential

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hero, because the potential
consequence was he could have

00:14:31.999 --> 00:14:33.542
been in jail for 100 years.

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And despite that, he said, even
if that had happened, if

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the court decision went against
them, he was willing

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to suffer that consequence
knowing if his action could\'ve

00:14:48.626 --> 00:14:51.291
shortened the war even one day.

00:14:51.292 --> 00:14:56.998
And so in a sense that\'s
the classic hero.

00:14:56.999 --> 00:15:01.791
Not the hero with the gun and
the white hat, but the hero

00:15:01.792 --> 00:15:04.416
who changed our lives.

00:15:04.417 --> 00:15:09.333
Again, even shortening the war
six months or a year meant

00:15:09.334 --> 00:15:11.374
thousands of lives saved
our own as well

00:15:11.375 --> 00:15:13.998
as Vietnamese...

00:15:13.999 --> 00:15:19.041
As well as just the ugliness
of that endless war.

00:15:19.042 --> 00:15:21.875
- Dan, you\'ve been arrested
more than 84 times?

00:15:21.876 --> 00:15:23.998
Or 84 times and counting?

00:15:23.999 --> 00:15:24.999
- 84, 83, 85...

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:26.833
- For civil disobedience.

00:15:26.834 --> 00:15:29.917
So can you talk about what\'s
allowed you to take so many

00:15:29.918 --> 00:15:31.998
risks in being civilly
disobedient?

00:15:31.999 --> 00:15:34.458
- Well, only a few
of those involved

00:15:34.459 --> 00:15:35.917
very significant risk.

00:15:35.918 --> 00:15:39.917
And when people do it the
first time, it\'s very

00:15:39.918 --> 00:15:43.082
transformative for them, because
it means stepping

00:15:43.083 --> 00:15:45.541
outside of the norms of society.

00:15:45.542 --> 00:15:47.998
It\'s very much not business
as usual.

00:15:47.999 --> 00:15:52.249
They\'re usually indeed very
tense about it and worried.

00:15:52.250 --> 00:15:56.041
I just went through this with
a number of first-timers in

00:15:56.042 --> 00:15:58.875
Vandenburg protesting
a Minuteman launch.

00:15:58.876 --> 00:16:01.833
And I remembered how all these
first-timers felt.

00:16:01.834 --> 00:16:04.249
And they really were quite
worried about it.

00:16:04.250 --> 00:16:06.833
And there are various aspects.

00:16:06.834 --> 00:16:11.541
Anyway, it tends to be quite
exhilarating after they

00:16:11.542 --> 00:16:15.333
discover that they\'re
not made of sugar.

00:16:15.334 --> 00:16:18.166
They don\'t fade away.

00:16:18.167 --> 00:16:19.998
They\'re able to get through it.

00:16:19.999 --> 00:16:23.958
The potentially humiliating
experience of being searched

00:16:23.959 --> 00:16:26.998
or strip-searched, having
your arms bound

00:16:26.999 --> 00:16:28.333
behind you for hours.

00:16:28.334 --> 00:16:32.291
That, by the way, is a little
form of torture, actually,

00:16:32.292 --> 00:16:35.791
because you can\'t lean back in
the car or anything like this.

00:16:35.792 --> 00:16:39.998
And I know people were showing
on their wrists...

00:16:39.999 --> 00:16:41.750
sometimes they make
these plastic

00:16:41.751 --> 00:16:43.833
cuffs very, very tight.

00:16:43.834 --> 00:16:46.291
But it\'s a one-day experience,
or two-day.

00:16:46.292 --> 00:16:47.833
And then you may have a trial.

00:16:47.834 --> 00:16:52.082
And there have been several
times when I expected several

00:16:52.083 --> 00:16:55.541
years imprisonment,
unusual actions.

00:16:55.542 --> 00:16:58.750
And they didn\'t happen usually
because when the jury or the

00:16:58.751 --> 00:17:02.500
judge actually heard the
defendants, they tended to be

00:17:02.501 --> 00:17:04.333
quite impressed by them
and the evil we

00:17:04.334 --> 00:17:06.583
were trying to avoid.

00:17:06.584 --> 00:17:11.583
So we didn\'t actually get the
long sentences that my lawyer

00:17:11.584 --> 00:17:14.751
predicted for me in particular
because I was a recidivist.

00:17:17.792 --> 00:17:19.249
But even so I didn\'t get it.

00:17:19.250 --> 00:17:23.998
So when you talk about 80 times,
it\'s not hard for me to

00:17:23.999 --> 00:17:24.999
do that now.

00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:28.998
And the reason that I do it is
to encourage other people to

00:17:28.999 --> 00:17:32.998
do it, because I know that the
example of people who were

00:17:32.999 --> 00:17:36.666
ready to go to prison in
resisting the draft and went

00:17:36.667 --> 00:17:42.249
to jail for two, three years
often, was crucial, critical

00:17:42.250 --> 00:17:46.166
to my own willingness
to go to prison.

00:17:46.167 --> 00:17:48.998
I wouldn\'t have thought of doing
it without that example.

00:17:48.999 --> 00:17:52.082
And so giving that example to
other people is a way of

00:17:52.083 --> 00:17:55.166
showing my appreciation
for what came to me.

00:17:55.167 --> 00:17:56.998
And also because I think
it\'s useful.

00:17:56.999 --> 00:18:00.583
And I say it does change
people\'s lives to do that.

00:18:00.584 --> 00:18:04.249
They tend to be much more
activist after that and to

00:18:04.250 --> 00:18:09.875
realize, in a way, the biggest
thing you have to get over is

00:18:09.876 --> 00:18:13.833
the fear of looking ridiculous,
of being mocked,

00:18:13.834 --> 00:18:17.875
of being crazy, fanatic, wild.

00:18:17.876 --> 00:18:20.708
Well, you hear those words, and
you discover that you\'re

00:18:20.709 --> 00:18:22.998
able to survive anyway.

00:18:22.999 --> 00:18:30.999
And so I think that the fear
of looking absurd is what

00:18:31.042 --> 00:18:34.541
keeps people in line to an
enormous extent, even when

00:18:34.542 --> 00:18:38.998
tremendous evils are involved,
rather than do that.

00:18:38.999 --> 00:18:40.999
So it\'s good for people
to get arrested.

00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:42.833
And I encourage it.

00:18:42.834 --> 00:18:47.166
And so I do that really because
it draws other people

00:18:47.167 --> 00:18:51.374
in and gets publicity for it and
encourages other people to

00:18:51.375 --> 00:18:53.291
do, which I think
is a good thing.

00:18:53.292 --> 00:18:57.833
- And let me just add that
actions like that have what we

00:18:57.834 --> 00:19:01.998
call a ripple effect, that
you\'re unaware of the extent

00:19:01.999 --> 00:19:06.917
to which tens, hundreds,
thousands of people hear about

00:19:06.918 --> 00:19:11.291
that, and it ignites their moral
courage, so that when

00:19:11.292 --> 00:19:14.291
they\'re in a similar situation,
it makes it easier

00:19:14.292 --> 00:19:16.416
for them to stand up
against unjust

00:19:16.417 --> 00:19:18.041
authority and do the same.

00:19:18.042 --> 00:19:24.374
And so the reason I\'m trying to
promote everyday heroism is

00:19:24.375 --> 00:19:28.333
not just that somebody will
oppose some evil, but in doing

00:19:28.334 --> 00:19:31.374
so publicly you create
a ripple effect.

00:19:31.375 --> 00:19:34.708
And you hope that ripple effect
will influence many

00:19:34.709 --> 00:19:36.541
other people to do
something similar

00:19:36.542 --> 00:19:39.708
or even more important.

00:19:39.709 --> 00:19:42.998
- I might even mention one thing
that really might seem

00:19:42.999 --> 00:19:45.458
almost frivolous, but it\'s not.

00:19:45.459 --> 00:19:49.374
In a lot of these situations,
for me, having done it a lot

00:19:49.375 --> 00:19:52.291
and I know individuals who
have done it a lot more, a lot

00:19:52.292 --> 00:19:56.708
more, than I have, and it\'s
probably true for them too...

00:19:56.709 --> 00:20:00.708
I often like doing it because
I like the people that I\'m

00:20:00.709 --> 00:20:02.041
doing it with.

00:20:02.042 --> 00:20:04.750
And the experience of being
with people, especially

00:20:04.751 --> 00:20:07.958
first-timers who are ready to
change their lives like this

00:20:07.959 --> 00:20:09.998
and do this, it\'s quite
exhilarating.

00:20:09.999 --> 00:20:12.666
And then being in jail
with them...

00:20:12.667 --> 00:20:15.416
I once spent a night, all night,
talking to Dick Gregory

00:20:15.417 --> 00:20:17.291
in a jail, in a cell together.

00:20:17.292 --> 00:20:18.875
That was a real treat.

00:20:18.876 --> 00:20:24.625
But being with these people
overnight or sometimes for a

00:20:24.626 --> 00:20:28.958
couple weeks is a wonderful
experience.

00:20:28.959 --> 00:20:30.583
You meet wonderful people
in jail under these

00:20:30.584 --> 00:20:31.042
circumstances.

00:20:31.042 --> 00:20:31.999
- That\'s good to know.

00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:36.998
- And for me, it\'s kind of a
high in very dark times, the

00:20:36.999 --> 00:20:38.041
things where you don\'t
get a lot of

00:20:38.042 --> 00:20:39.999
encouragement and optimism.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.124
And my experience is, in these
cases, I come back

00:20:44.125 --> 00:20:45.998
refreshed by it.

00:20:45.999 --> 00:20:48.416
- Well, you\'ve both taken
anti-authoritarian stands

00:20:48.417 --> 00:20:50.416
against illegitimate authority.

00:20:50.417 --> 00:20:53.958
So can you talk at all about the
formative experiences as

00:20:53.959 --> 00:20:58.082
young people that allowed you to
take those sorts of stands?

00:20:58.083 --> 00:21:01.166
- Well, let me tell an
experience when I didn\'t do

00:21:01.167 --> 00:21:04.833
anything which I should have.

00:21:04.834 --> 00:21:08.041
So I think all of us have life
experiences where we knew

00:21:08.042 --> 00:21:12.333
something was wrong, and we
knew somebody should act.

00:21:12.334 --> 00:21:14.666
And you look around, and
nobody\'s acting.

00:21:14.667 --> 00:21:17.666
And you know, ultimately, if
you don\'t do it, nobody\'s

00:21:17.667 --> 00:21:18.833
going to do it.

00:21:18.834 --> 00:21:21.917
And so we have a litany of
what are all the times we

00:21:21.918 --> 00:21:24.998
didn\'t do anything, and then
what was the consequence.

00:21:24.999 --> 00:21:28.458
So I\'m in the, I guess, eighth
or ninth grade, in Mrs.

00:21:28.459 --> 00:21:31.791
Weinstein\'s advanced
algebra class.

00:21:31.792 --> 00:21:32.875
And I love math.

00:21:32.876 --> 00:21:35.249
I love trigonometry,
I love geometry.

00:21:35.250 --> 00:21:41.166
And so she got upset when kids,
especially me, would

00:21:41.167 --> 00:21:43.833
raise their hand and say, \"Could
you tell us more?\", or

00:21:43.834 --> 00:21:46.998
\"I don\'t understand; could you
rephrase it?\" So she insisted

00:21:46.999 --> 00:21:48.625
that when she was doing
a proof, we had to

00:21:48.626 --> 00:21:51.958
all sit on our hands.

00:21:51.959 --> 00:21:54.998
And sometimes her proof would
go on for half an hour.

00:21:54.999 --> 00:21:57.998
What it would mean is your hands
got numb, and it was

00:21:57.999 --> 00:22:01.875
incredibly painful, and you
couldn\'t move around.

00:22:01.876 --> 00:22:04.166
She\'d say sit up.

00:22:04.167 --> 00:22:10.291
And so the pain in your hand
got extended to algebra.

00:22:10.292 --> 00:22:13.333
And from that time, I
never liked math.

00:22:13.334 --> 00:22:14.500
I was never good at math.

00:22:14.501 --> 00:22:17.500
It\'s one of my shortcomings,
even now as a research

00:22:17.501 --> 00:22:18.501
psychologist.

00:22:18.502 --> 00:22:21.875
Statistics is my least
competent area.

00:22:21.876 --> 00:22:24.666
And I owe it all to
Mrs. Weinstein.

00:22:24.667 --> 00:22:27.041
But in fact, everybody
felt the same.

00:22:27.042 --> 00:22:29.998
We all talked about it,
how terrible it was.

00:22:29.999 --> 00:22:35.208
And I knew what I should have
done is gone to the principal.

00:22:35.209 --> 00:22:37.249
The simplest thing is to send
a note, to say, \"Mrs.

00:22:37.250 --> 00:22:39.374
Weinstein, I don\'t know if you
realize that what you\'re doing

00:22:39.375 --> 00:22:44.374
is really bad for us, that we
are not learning your thing,

00:22:44.375 --> 00:22:45.833
and we\'re hating math.

00:22:45.834 --> 00:22:48.833
And we\'re hating you on the
side.\" Or go to the principal.

00:22:48.834 --> 00:22:51.208
And so it\'s an example of
all the time... and

00:22:51.209 --> 00:22:52.541
we didn\'t do it.

00:22:52.542 --> 00:22:55.708
So for me, the consequence has
been seriously negative.

00:22:55.709 --> 00:23:00.833
But again, I think about all the
teachers who in the course

00:23:00.834 --> 00:23:01.998
of a lecture...

00:23:01.999 --> 00:23:03.998
Throughout, not only elementary
school...

00:23:03.999 --> 00:23:07.998
Would give a racist or sexist
comment, because it was common

00:23:07.999 --> 00:23:09.875
then in the \'50s and \'60s.

00:23:09.876 --> 00:23:11.917
And you\'d shudder a little bit.

00:23:11.918 --> 00:23:14.500
Or it was always in the
form of a joke,

00:23:14.501 --> 00:23:15.998
some humorous thing.

00:23:15.999 --> 00:23:18.998
But it\'s always putting down
blacks or Hispanics or women

00:23:18.999 --> 00:23:20.750
or something of this kind.

00:23:20.751 --> 00:23:22.416
And you knew it was wrong, and
you knew you should\'ve said

00:23:22.417 --> 00:23:25.333
something, and you didn\'t.

00:23:25.334 --> 00:23:29.998
And I think the extension is
all of us have been in

00:23:29.999 --> 00:23:33.998
situations where a child
was being bullied.

00:23:33.999 --> 00:23:35.998
And you knew it was unfair
and unjust, not

00:23:35.999 --> 00:23:37.291
only to that child.

00:23:37.292 --> 00:23:39.416
And you knew you should have
done something or said

00:23:39.417 --> 00:23:42.998
something, to the bully, to the
kid, even just hugging the

00:23:42.999 --> 00:23:44.458
kid, saying, \"We\'re
really sorry\"...

00:23:44.459 --> 00:23:47.166
or their principal or teacher,
and you did nothing.

00:23:47.167 --> 00:23:50.166
So that\'s what I call the
evil of inaction.

00:23:50.167 --> 00:23:51.000
There are two kinds of evil.

00:23:51.001 --> 00:23:52.998
It\'s the evil of action,
which is perpetrated.

00:23:52.999 --> 00:23:55.875
It\'s people who do bad things
to other people.

00:23:55.876 --> 00:23:58.416
And that\'s a relatively
small group.

00:23:58.417 --> 00:24:02.500
The group that is enormous and
endless is all of us who

00:24:02.501 --> 00:24:04.458
practice the evil of inaction.

00:24:04.459 --> 00:24:08.666
It\'s being passive when
action is called for.

00:24:08.667 --> 00:24:10.374
It\'s not that we\'re indifferent.

00:24:10.375 --> 00:24:14.333
It\'s that you know it, you feel
it, and you\'re hoping

00:24:14.334 --> 00:24:16.124
somebody else will do it.

00:24:16.125 --> 00:24:19.208
And I hate to say it, because
I love mothers, but every

00:24:19.209 --> 00:24:22.333
mother in the world tells their
child two things: mind

00:24:22.334 --> 00:24:24.791
your own business, don\'t
get involved.

00:24:24.792 --> 00:24:27.208
And if you do that, you pass
on coward genes to the next

00:24:27.209 --> 00:24:29.875
generation and to the
next generation.

00:24:29.876 --> 00:24:32.958
So you have to say, \"Mama,
humanity is my business.

00:24:32.959 --> 00:24:36.998
I have to get involved, because
who will be there when

00:24:36.999 --> 00:24:39.583
I am the person getting bullied,
or when I\'m the one

00:24:39.584 --> 00:24:41.998
on the ground, or when I\'m
the one that needs

00:24:41.999 --> 00:24:43.998
help?\" And I think...

00:24:43.999 --> 00:24:46.791
so maybe it really has to start
with a conversation with

00:24:46.792 --> 00:24:48.998
our mothers and fathers.

00:24:48.999 --> 00:24:51.875
- Dan, do you have any formative
experiences that

00:24:51.876 --> 00:24:54.124
affected your anti-authoritarian

00:24:54.125 --> 00:24:54.542
development?

00:24:54.543 --> 00:24:56.998
I\'ll tell you what, it\'s funny,
listening to you has

00:24:56.999 --> 00:25:00.998
brought back of memory that I
haven\'t ever had in a way.

00:25:00.999 --> 00:25:02.998
But in this context, you...

00:25:02.999 --> 00:25:05.917
I was in Economics, as I say.

00:25:05.918 --> 00:25:08.458
And in those days, economists
didn\'t study math.

00:25:08.459 --> 00:25:09.998
And now it\'s the standard thing.

00:25:09.999 --> 00:25:10.918
It\'s the core.

00:25:10.919 --> 00:25:14.625
But I was very unusual in taking
some math courses.

00:25:14.626 --> 00:25:16.666
There was only really two of us
in the Economics department

00:25:16.667 --> 00:25:17.917
who did that.

00:25:17.918 --> 00:25:20.958
And I was taking a course in
linear algebra from Garrett

00:25:20.959 --> 00:25:23.124
Birkhoff, who wrote the book...

00:25:23.125 --> 00:25:27.625
a brilliant mathematician and
very, very quick, very smart.

00:25:27.626 --> 00:25:30.541
But he actually, on the board...
He\'s always doing things...

00:25:30.542 --> 00:25:32.750
He really actually made
quite a few mistakes.

00:25:32.751 --> 00:25:34.833
When he was going through these
proofs and so forth.

00:25:34.834 --> 00:25:37.833
Now, everybody else in the
class was a math major.

00:25:37.834 --> 00:25:40.917
I was an economist.

00:25:40.918 --> 00:25:44.625
So you\'d look at that proof
he was putting up.

00:25:44.626 --> 00:25:46.917
And I was literally the only one
this happened over and

00:25:46.918 --> 00:25:48.041
over again...

00:25:48.042 --> 00:25:51.998
I would say to him, \"Professor
Birkhoff, is that right?

00:25:51.999 --> 00:25:53.917
Or are you sure about
that point?\"

00:25:53.918 --> 00:25:56.541
And he would look at it and say,
\"Oh, no, no.\" He would

00:25:56.542 --> 00:25:58.041
scrub it out, and he
would correct it.

00:25:58.042 --> 00:26:00.708
That happened many times.

00:26:00.709 --> 00:26:02.500
And was I the best student?

00:26:02.501 --> 00:26:04.124
No, I was probably the worst
student in the class.

00:26:04.125 --> 00:26:05.416
- None of the Math majors
would do it.

00:26:05.417 --> 00:26:06.999
- Well, the Math majors
would not say...

00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:08.998
\"What, contradict Birkhoff?

00:26:08.999 --> 00:26:11.833
I\'m going to tell
him he\'s wrong?

00:26:11.834 --> 00:26:14.082
Can I really be right
if he\'s wrong?\"

00:26:14.083 --> 00:26:16.750
Now, as the course went on, the
probability that he was

00:26:16.751 --> 00:26:19.333
wrong was rising.

00:26:19.334 --> 00:26:20.625
It happened quite a bit.

00:26:20.626 --> 00:26:24.998
And even so, they weren\'t
prepared to out him.

00:26:24.999 --> 00:26:27.750
He might not like it, if he was
right and they corrected

00:26:27.751 --> 00:26:28.998
him and so forth.

00:26:28.999 --> 00:26:32.625
So they just didn\'t
do it at all.

00:26:32.626 --> 00:26:34.625
- So you could do it because
you were an outsider?

00:26:34.626 --> 00:26:35.875
- I was an outsider.

00:26:35.876 --> 00:26:41.208
And it\'s partly a little bit
intellectual arrogance, too.

00:26:41.209 --> 00:26:45.082
I have the feeling, if I don\'t
understand this, it needs a

00:26:45.083 --> 00:26:47.998
little more explanation
here somehow.

00:26:47.999 --> 00:26:50.416
And so there\'s that.

00:26:50.417 --> 00:26:53.666
Now, other childhood experiences
that are not

00:26:53.667 --> 00:26:55.833
conventional...

00:26:55.834 --> 00:27:03.041
I grew up on conventious
stories of heroism.

00:27:03.042 --> 00:27:06.124
A lot of the, oddly,
British Empire...

00:27:06.125 --> 00:27:07.750
- In your family?

00:27:07.751 --> 00:27:12.333
- No, no, just Robin Hood.

00:27:12.334 --> 00:27:13.334
And the...

00:27:13.335 --> 00:27:16.998
Arthur and the Round Table,
Lawrence of Arabia.

00:27:16.999 --> 00:27:19.124
And looking back on it...

00:27:19.125 --> 00:27:21.998
I mentioned Lawrence or I
mention the Round Table...

00:27:21.999 --> 00:27:26.625
I don\'t know if this is at all
true now, but boyhood tales of

00:27:26.626 --> 00:27:31.208
heroism used in very much around
the British Empire, and

00:27:31.209 --> 00:27:36.166
the idea of serving the Empire
and serving the Queen...

00:27:36.167 --> 00:27:38.998
King, King Arthur...

00:27:38.999 --> 00:27:40.666
Was very much incorporating
that.

00:27:40.667 --> 00:27:44.208
And that is what most heroism
is looked at now, after all.

00:27:44.209 --> 00:27:46.333
You might or might not regard
Phelps as a hero.

00:27:46.334 --> 00:27:48.875
He is a model, a role model.

00:27:48.876 --> 00:27:52.666
And you look up to him and it\'s
genuine accomplishment,

00:27:52.667 --> 00:27:56.500
not like some stunt movie
actor or something.

00:27:56.501 --> 00:28:03.958
But the standard heroism, of
course, is the military.

00:28:03.959 --> 00:28:09.583
\"Brave soldier\" has become a
Homeric epithet, where you\'re

00:28:09.584 --> 00:28:12.791
in trouble if you were to
mention soldiers right now

00:28:12.792 --> 00:28:16.625
without saying \"Our brave
soldiers, I recognize their

00:28:16.626 --> 00:28:17.958
bravery\" and so forth.

00:28:17.959 --> 00:28:19.666
And that\'s the model of heroism.

00:28:19.667 --> 00:28:23.041
And of course it is heroism in
the sense of risking your

00:28:23.042 --> 00:28:28.249
body, risking your life for a
cause, and for your teammates

00:28:28.250 --> 00:28:28.918
and so forth.

00:28:28.919 --> 00:28:30.333
It\'s not self-serving.

00:28:30.334 --> 00:28:31.998
It\'s not [INAUDIBLE].

00:28:31.999 --> 00:28:38.500
It is, however, in the service
of the President or recognizes

00:28:38.501 --> 00:28:40.333
the country.

00:28:40.334 --> 00:28:47.124
If you throw yourself on a
grenade, or if you go rescue a

00:28:47.125 --> 00:28:51.998
wounded person, teammate, and
so forth, no one is going to

00:28:51.999 --> 00:28:54.708
say of you, whether you live
or die, \"We ought to do a

00:28:54.709 --> 00:28:55.998
psychological profile of him.

00:28:55.999 --> 00:28:57.416
What\'s the matter
with that guy?\"

00:28:57.417 --> 00:29:00.374
Which you will get as
a whistleblower, A

00:29:00.375 --> 00:29:04.208
whistleblower, somebody who
steps out in an organization

00:29:04.209 --> 00:29:07.998
against the wishes of the
superior or against the

00:29:07.999 --> 00:29:10.999
interest of the immediate team,
the first thing said

00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:15.082
about them will be that they are
pathological in some ways.

00:29:15.083 --> 00:29:18.998
They\'re fanatics, extremists,
flakes, this and that, which

00:29:18.999 --> 00:29:23.166
is not pleasant from your
colleagues and your friends.

00:29:23.167 --> 00:29:26.998
And to the kind of thing you\'re
talking about here, I

00:29:26.999 --> 00:29:32.875
think, definitely risks the kind
of questioning, contempt,

00:29:32.876 --> 00:29:37.998
disparagement, from people you
otherwise respect, from your

00:29:37.999 --> 00:29:41.708
teammates, from your
administration, from your

00:29:41.709 --> 00:29:46.958
party, from your bosses, as to
why did he take those risks...

00:29:46.959 --> 00:29:51.750
which you don\'t risk if you\'re
taking the risks for the

00:29:51.751 --> 00:29:53.333
organization.

00:29:53.334 --> 00:29:55.500
Both require courage.

00:29:55.501 --> 00:29:58.833
And remember, in a
war, you see this

00:29:58.834 --> 00:30:01.208
courage on both sides.

00:30:01.209 --> 00:30:05.625
And usually you don\'t have
two good causes.

00:30:05.626 --> 00:30:08.998
You\'re lucky if you have one
good cause going on, and most

00:30:08.999 --> 00:30:10.666
of the time you don\'t.

00:30:10.667 --> 00:30:13.998
But at most one, pretty much.

00:30:13.999 --> 00:30:16.082
And yet the courage is
just as much on the

00:30:16.083 --> 00:30:18.708
other side as much.

00:30:18.709 --> 00:30:23.124
So courage alone is necessary,
but it\'s no guarantee that

00:30:23.125 --> 00:30:27.500
you\'re doing a good thing for
the world or for humanity or

00:30:27.501 --> 00:30:29.998
even necessarily for your team.

00:30:29.999 --> 00:30:33.998
Keeping up with that war, the
Vietnam War going, was not

00:30:33.999 --> 00:30:36.875
good for this country any more
than it was for Vietnam.

00:30:36.876 --> 00:30:38.998
It was a lot worse for Vietnam.

00:30:38.999 --> 00:30:42.292
But still, it was what the
leaders had called for.

00:30:45.999 --> 00:30:48.166
In other words, I was taught,
I was raised on the

00:30:48.167 --> 00:30:52.998
conventional notion of courage
for the country.

00:30:52.999 --> 00:30:57.998
And it took really late in life,
relatively for me, to

00:30:57.999 --> 00:31:01.291
run into people... this was
a kind of grace here...

00:31:01.292 --> 00:31:05.875
That I managed to meet a kind of
person that no one else in

00:31:05.876 --> 00:31:09.708
my official background,
I think, ever met.

00:31:09.709 --> 00:31:14.249
I doubt if I had a colleague
who had met a draft

00:31:14.250 --> 00:31:16.541
resister as I had.

00:31:16.542 --> 00:31:18.998
Somebody who had risked prison
or gone to prison.

00:31:18.999 --> 00:31:22.458
I happened to meet them, and
I searched out more.

00:31:22.459 --> 00:31:25.416
And I came to meet them.

00:31:25.417 --> 00:31:27.124
But they made a big
impression on me.

00:31:27.125 --> 00:31:30.958
Well, looking back, my other
colleagues didn\'t have that

00:31:30.959 --> 00:31:31.998
experience.

00:31:31.999 --> 00:31:33.998
It was another world to them.

00:31:33.999 --> 00:31:36.625
And the idea of doing something
that risked arrest

00:31:36.626 --> 00:31:38.998
or opposed the President...

00:31:38.999 --> 00:31:42.500
and we all prided ourselves
above all on serving the

00:31:42.501 --> 00:31:45.166
President, serving
the President.

00:31:45.167 --> 00:31:47.416
And the idea of doing something
against what the

00:31:47.417 --> 00:31:50.750
President wanted you to do was
just not in your mind at all.

00:31:50.751 --> 00:31:53.998
And so the formative experience
for me was not

00:31:53.999 --> 00:31:54.999
early in my life.

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.998
It was mid in my life, what
it turns out to be now.

00:31:59.999 --> 00:32:01.833
- We talked about this before.

00:32:01.834 --> 00:32:04.999
Is there a personality variable
that helps someone

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:08.541
take risks in the interests
of an ethical principle?

00:32:08.542 --> 00:32:08.999
- Yeah.

00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:11.249
Actually, the interesting thing
is there\'s very little

00:32:11.250 --> 00:32:14.666
research on heroism.

00:32:14.667 --> 00:32:18.333
If you ask me what\'s involved in
getting a good person to do

00:32:18.334 --> 00:32:21.998
bad things, I can give you a
recipe, because there\'s at

00:32:21.999 --> 00:32:26.333
least a dozen psychological
processes that I can

00:32:26.334 --> 00:32:28.500
manipulate to get most
people in a short

00:32:28.501 --> 00:32:29.998
time to do bad things.

00:32:29.999 --> 00:32:32.875
Say, well, what could
make an ordinary

00:32:32.876 --> 00:32:34.249
person do a heroic deed?

00:32:34.250 --> 00:32:36.291
The answer is we don\'t know.

00:32:36.292 --> 00:32:39.833
It\'s really a curious phenomenon
that in psychology,

00:32:39.834 --> 00:32:42.666
sociology, criminology, civics,

00:32:42.667 --> 00:32:44.998
nobody\'s studied heroism.

00:32:44.999 --> 00:32:47.917
For me, it\'s startling.

00:32:47.918 --> 00:32:50.291
When I was finishing up my book
The Lucifer Effect, which

00:32:50.292 --> 00:32:54.291
has 15 chapters on evil, the
Stanford Prison study, the

00:32:54.292 --> 00:32:55.541
Milgram study...

00:32:55.542 --> 00:32:58.583
I was an expert witness in Abu
Ghraib, and I described that

00:32:58.584 --> 00:32:59.998
in great detail.

00:32:59.999 --> 00:33:02.958
I said, I need to come out
of this muck and mire.

00:33:02.959 --> 00:33:05.917
So I need a final chapter
which says A, how do you

00:33:05.918 --> 00:33:08.166
resist these bad influences?

00:33:08.167 --> 00:33:12.666
And why don\'t we celebrate
heroism, the opposite of evil?

00:33:12.667 --> 00:33:15.166
And I did an extensive literacy
research and came up

00:33:15.167 --> 00:33:16.541
with almost nothing.

00:33:16.542 --> 00:33:19.791
There is a literature of
Christians who helped Jews.

00:33:19.792 --> 00:33:22.998
But that\'s all interview studies
done years later,

00:33:22.999 --> 00:33:25.708
because nobody even asked the
question until a bunch of

00:33:25.709 --> 00:33:26.999
years later.

00:33:28.999 --> 00:33:33.583
So again, I\'m trying to do some
of that research, survey

00:33:33.584 --> 00:33:38.082
research, experimental research
on whistleblowing,

00:33:38.083 --> 00:33:44.791
but the only kind of variable
that has been identified is

00:33:44.792 --> 00:33:49.291
people who tend to engage in
heroic action have higher

00:33:49.292 --> 00:33:53.583
self-confidence, higher sense
of self-esteem, higher sense

00:33:53.584 --> 00:33:57.583
of self-purpose, so that they
are willing, they are able to

00:33:57.584 --> 00:34:01.833
resist people who are making fun
of them, are mocking them.

00:34:01.834 --> 00:34:05.666
And they ultimately believe in
themselves enough to then

00:34:05.667 --> 00:34:09.625
believe in the cause that they
are supporting, defending.

00:34:09.626 --> 00:34:12.249
But I don\'t know anything
other than...

00:34:12.250 --> 00:34:15.875
and there\'s a professor at
Berkeley, Robb Willer, he

00:34:15.876 --> 00:34:18.208
identifies self-confidence
as one of the

00:34:18.209 --> 00:34:21.791
key personality traits.

00:34:21.792 --> 00:34:26.166
But I think there\'s not going
to be a lot of individual

00:34:26.167 --> 00:34:29.625
difference variables, even
though we\'d like to say \"Hey,

00:34:29.626 --> 00:34:31.541
here\'s a profile of a hero.\"

00:34:31.542 --> 00:34:34.666
- You just described
Bradley Manning.

00:34:34.667 --> 00:34:36.917
Here\'s a kid who grows up...

00:34:36.918 --> 00:34:40.998
Various places, Wales, in
both places, Oklahoma.

00:34:40.999 --> 00:34:45.208
But looking at Oklahoma in
particular, he\'s very short,

00:34:45.209 --> 00:34:47.791
he\'s gay in Oklahoma.

00:34:47.792 --> 00:34:50.041
By the way, Oklahoma is one of
the two states last week where

00:34:50.042 --> 00:34:52.833
every county went for Romney.

00:34:52.834 --> 00:34:55.998
Two states.

00:34:55.999 --> 00:34:57.791
So he\'s in Oklahoma.

00:34:57.792 --> 00:35:00.999
He believes in the theory
of evolution, which

00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:03.458
isolated him totally.

00:35:03.459 --> 00:35:05.998
And he was an Atheist, which
also isolated him totally.

00:35:05.999 --> 00:35:07.917
He\'s all these things.

00:35:07.918 --> 00:35:09.416
So he had been mocked
and bullied and

00:35:09.417 --> 00:35:10.998
humiliated all his life.

00:35:10.999 --> 00:35:18.082
And when he came to be aware,
as a dedicated, patriotic,

00:35:18.083 --> 00:35:19.833
military man...

00:35:19.834 --> 00:35:23.458
he went into the military, I
think, in part to be a man,

00:35:23.459 --> 00:35:25.625
like a lot of people.

00:35:25.626 --> 00:35:30.416
Like most people in the Marines,
unless their parents

00:35:30.417 --> 00:35:33.998
and brothers were Marines,
which it\'s a legacy very

00:35:33.999 --> 00:35:38.998
often, and unless they\'re sort
of mesomorphs, as we used to

00:35:38.999 --> 00:35:42.791
say, for whom the Marine
infantry seems appropriate,

00:35:42.792 --> 00:35:48.333
they\'re induced by posters that
say, \"Are you man enough

00:35:48.334 --> 00:35:51.500
to be a Marine?\" And that
had it\'s effect on me.

00:35:51.501 --> 00:35:51.959
- Really?

00:35:51.960 --> 00:35:56.291
- Yeah, absolutely, having been
raised to be a pianist

00:35:56.292 --> 00:36:02.166
and couldn\'t play body sports
or even hardball because it

00:36:02.167 --> 00:36:05.708
would threaten my hands
for the piano.

00:36:05.709 --> 00:36:09.833
So that was an attraction.

00:36:09.834 --> 00:36:15.998
But Manning then discovers
that he is gathering

00:36:15.999 --> 00:36:19.998
information on Iraqis, suspects
who are being turned

00:36:19.999 --> 00:36:21.541
over to Iraqi authorities...

00:36:21.542 --> 00:36:22.999
Under Obama now...

00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:24.791
To be tortured.

00:36:24.792 --> 00:36:29.333
And everybody realized that
they were being tortured.

00:36:29.334 --> 00:36:31.998
And some people even protested.

00:36:31.999 --> 00:36:34.041
I\'ll come back to that in just
a minute, about that.

00:36:34.042 --> 00:36:38.249
But anyway, he protested to his
intelligence officer that

00:36:38.250 --> 00:36:40.998
these people are being tortured,
and they happen to

00:36:40.999 --> 00:36:41.459
be innocent.

00:36:41.460 --> 00:36:43.583
They\'ve just been critical
of the government.

00:36:43.584 --> 00:36:44.998
That\'s all they\'ve done.

00:36:44.999 --> 00:36:47.917
The lieutenant says to him,
\"Do your job, forget about

00:36:47.918 --> 00:36:49.583
that, get more suspects.

00:36:49.584 --> 00:36:54.333
We want more bodies here.\" And
he said, \"I felt I was

00:36:54.334 --> 00:36:56.958
involved in doing something...

00:36:56.959 --> 00:36:59.625
I was participating in
something that I was

00:36:59.626 --> 00:37:03.166
absolutely against.\" Now, he
was not the only person who

00:37:03.167 --> 00:37:04.167
probably saw that.

00:37:04.168 --> 00:37:06.998
Most didn\'t, but a lot
of people did.

00:37:06.999 --> 00:37:08.998
And he decided to do
something about it.

00:37:08.999 --> 00:37:13.998
And one thing that he exposed
was, on a very large scale,

00:37:13.999 --> 00:37:19.291
the fact these Iraqi cables
which showed thousands...

00:37:19.292 --> 00:37:22.791
There were literally hundreds
of thousands of reports...

00:37:22.792 --> 00:37:24.998
And there were thousands of
reports of people who were

00:37:24.999 --> 00:37:28.458
reporting torture, and
that this was wrong.

00:37:28.459 --> 00:37:33.082
And they were told in every
case, a formula, \"Do not

00:37:33.083 --> 00:37:34.750
investigate further.

00:37:34.751 --> 00:37:36.917
There are Iraqi allies.

00:37:36.918 --> 00:37:38.416
It\'s not our business.\"

00:37:38.417 --> 00:37:41.998
Now, that was an illegal order.

00:37:41.999 --> 00:37:43.998
We have a treaty [INAUDIBLE]

00:37:43.999 --> 00:37:46.998
which obliges us to investigate
every credible

00:37:46.999 --> 00:37:50.333
instance of torture and to
take steps against it.

00:37:50.334 --> 00:37:53.041
So not only was handing them
over wrong, but refusing to

00:37:53.042 --> 00:37:54.999
investigate it was wrong.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:57.374
And as I say, he revealed that.

00:37:57.375 --> 00:38:00.166
Now, going back to your point,
I agree with Phil.

00:38:00.167 --> 00:38:01.958
I know a lot of whistleblowers,
and I\'ve

00:38:01.959 --> 00:38:04.791
studied this, people who reveal
wrongdoing by their

00:38:04.792 --> 00:38:07.875
organization to outsiders.

00:38:07.876 --> 00:38:10.374
I\'ve made it my business, partly
for the same reason...

00:38:10.375 --> 00:38:12.998
I like to be in jail with
this kind of person.

00:38:12.999 --> 00:38:15.541
The whistleblowers, of course,
I specifically feel a great

00:38:15.542 --> 00:38:16.542
empathy with.

00:38:16.543 --> 00:38:17.998
And I know what they\'ve
gone through.

00:38:17.999 --> 00:38:19.750
And I know their evolution
and so forth.

00:38:19.751 --> 00:38:22.166
So I feel a particular identity
with people like

00:38:22.167 --> 00:38:24.416
Bradley Manning, who I haven\'t
been able to meet.

00:38:24.417 --> 00:38:26.791
When I tried to say hello to
him, I was ejected from the

00:38:26.792 --> 00:38:30.998
courtroom instantly
by armed guard.

00:38:30.999 --> 00:38:34.082
- Does Julian Assange fit
that profile also?

00:38:34.083 --> 00:38:37.208
- I saw Julian Assange in
London, but that was before he

00:38:37.209 --> 00:38:38.998
had to be in the Ecuadorian
embassy.

00:38:38.999 --> 00:38:46.999
But anyway, I met these people,
and it really is hard

00:38:47.250 --> 00:38:50.998
to find a psychological thread
that runs through it.

00:38:50.999 --> 00:38:55.249
I asked many of them what I\'ve
often been asked and I ask

00:38:55.250 --> 00:38:58.416
myself, \"Why you?

00:38:58.417 --> 00:39:01.708
Why did you do it at this time?

00:39:01.709 --> 00:39:03.958
Why not earlier?

00:39:03.959 --> 00:39:05.374
And why did the others
not do it?

00:39:05.375 --> 00:39:08.666
Were you the only person who
saw this?\" Never the case.

00:39:08.667 --> 00:39:13.124
In every case, a lot of people
knew just as well as they did

00:39:13.125 --> 00:39:13.999
this was wrong.

00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:17.917
So why were you the one,
usually, who did it?

00:39:17.918 --> 00:39:19.166
Nobody has an answer really.

00:39:19.167 --> 00:39:21.166
I don\'t have an answer
about myself.

00:39:21.167 --> 00:39:25.082
I do know, as I said earlier,
having a model in mind,

00:39:25.083 --> 00:39:28.041
meeting somebody who\'s
a model for this...

00:39:28.042 --> 00:39:29.708
An example...

00:39:29.709 --> 00:39:30.375
Is very crucial.

00:39:30.376 --> 00:39:32.374
But it doesn\'t apply
in every case.

00:39:32.375 --> 00:39:34.750
And then being aware that
you\'ve missed earlier

00:39:34.751 --> 00:39:37.708
opportunities, that you should
have acted, and finally you

00:39:37.709 --> 00:39:40.998
reach a point where you say,
\"Hey, I should have done this

00:39:40.999 --> 00:39:45.374
before, I\'m going to do it
now.\" Which was true with

00:39:45.375 --> 00:39:49.291
Manning, by the way, among
others, that\'s important.

00:39:49.292 --> 00:39:51.458
It certainly was true
for me as well.

00:39:51.459 --> 00:39:55.166
- Can you talk about Ronald
Ridenhour and his influence as

00:39:55.167 --> 00:39:58.082
a whistleblower, even though
it\'s many years ago now?

00:39:58.083 --> 00:40:01.583
- Yeah, he wasn\'t a
direct influence.

00:40:01.584 --> 00:40:07.666
You\'re talking about Ron
Ridenhour, he was the military

00:40:07.667 --> 00:40:11.374
member of the division
that was responsible

00:40:11.375 --> 00:40:12.958
for the My Lai massacre.

00:40:12.959 --> 00:40:15.998
And he was away on a long range
patrol, actually... a

00:40:15.999 --> 00:40:17.750
very elite kind of thing...

00:40:17.751 --> 00:40:19.333
While the massacre
was taking place.

00:40:19.334 --> 00:40:22.791
So when he came back, he learned
about it from people

00:40:22.792 --> 00:40:25.666
he had looked up to, by the
way, up until that point.

00:40:25.667 --> 00:40:27.374
He heard about it, and
he felt this...

00:40:27.375 --> 00:40:30.583
to make this short, he
felt something has to

00:40:30.584 --> 00:40:31.998
be done about this.

00:40:31.999 --> 00:40:37.998
And he was soon to get out of
the military, the Army.

00:40:37.999 --> 00:40:38.999
And he wrote letters.

00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:40.998
He did various things, but among
other things, he wrote

00:40:40.999 --> 00:40:44.958
letters to nearly all the
senators, giving details of

00:40:44.959 --> 00:40:46.416
what he had learned.

00:40:46.417 --> 00:40:50.124
And eventually it led to
a case being brought.

00:40:50.125 --> 00:40:54.166
And he intersected a lot then
with Sy Hersh, one journalist

00:40:54.167 --> 00:40:58.249
who did get a Pulitzer Prize
for his writing about this.

00:40:58.250 --> 00:40:59.998
And I remember...

00:40:59.999 --> 00:41:03.291
I did meet Ridenhour later,
and he made some other

00:41:03.292 --> 00:41:06.082
revelations which have
never really

00:41:06.083 --> 00:41:07.833
taken off as they should.

00:41:07.834 --> 00:41:11.291
But I\'ll always remember
one thing he said.

00:41:11.292 --> 00:41:13.249
And he said it more than
once, of course, when

00:41:13.250 --> 00:41:14.875
he tells about this.

00:41:14.876 --> 00:41:19.458
He\'s dead now, by the way, but
he was a student at the

00:41:19.459 --> 00:41:21.708
University of Arizona
later when I met

00:41:21.709 --> 00:41:23.458
him, a graduate student.

00:41:23.459 --> 00:41:28.583
And the story tells us that
there was a particular soldier

00:41:28.584 --> 00:41:30.998
who he had particularly
looked up to.

00:41:30.999 --> 00:41:34.208
He was an Eagle Scout this other
guy, among other things.

00:41:34.209 --> 00:41:37.416
But he was a very good soldier,
and Ron had thought

00:41:37.417 --> 00:41:38.998
of him as a model.

00:41:38.999 --> 00:41:41.998
He was a hero to him,
you might say.

00:41:41.999 --> 00:41:45.291
And so when he began hearing
about this, he was somebody

00:41:45.292 --> 00:41:49.750
that he really wanted to ask
about it, what had happened.

00:41:49.751 --> 00:41:54.998
And so they were together on a
berm, a kind of ridge in the

00:41:54.999 --> 00:41:57.875
rice paddies one night.

00:41:57.876 --> 00:42:00.041
And he asked this guy about it.

00:42:00.042 --> 00:42:03.750
And what had happened?

00:42:03.751 --> 00:42:06.041
So the guy described
it in some detail.

00:42:06.042 --> 00:42:08.833
And then either Ron had heard
this earlier or he heard it

00:42:08.834 --> 00:42:10.998
from this guy...

00:42:10.999 --> 00:42:13.583
they were shooting children.

00:42:13.584 --> 00:42:20.541
And by the way, what isn\'t
pretty much in people\'s minds

00:42:20.542 --> 00:42:22.958
is that they didn\'t just
shoot these people.

00:42:22.959 --> 00:42:24.999
By the way, they\'re all women
and children and old people.

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:28.082
There were no military-aged
males among them.

00:42:28.083 --> 00:42:30.374
No shots, no arms, no weapons.

00:42:30.375 --> 00:42:32.666
It was just slaughter.

00:42:32.667 --> 00:42:35.708
And a lot of children.

00:42:35.709 --> 00:42:40.208
So they were shooting these
children in a kind of ditch.

00:42:40.209 --> 00:42:44.541
And then they got hungry.

00:42:44.542 --> 00:42:45.250
It was work.

00:42:45.251 --> 00:42:46.998
It was a hot day.

00:42:46.999 --> 00:42:53.416
And they stopped shooting and
sat up on another rice paddy,

00:42:53.417 --> 00:42:57.541
berm there, and ate their...

00:42:57.542 --> 00:42:58.998
I don\'t know if they\'re
still C rations, but

00:42:58.999 --> 00:43:01.500
they ate their rations.

00:43:01.501 --> 00:43:04.541
And then they went
back to shooting.

00:43:04.542 --> 00:43:09.249
And some of the babies
were still crying in

00:43:09.250 --> 00:43:10.917
this pile of bodies.

00:43:10.918 --> 00:43:14.917
And the guy said, \"We had to
shoot them, quiet them down.\"

00:43:14.918 --> 00:43:19.998
So Ron said to this guy, \"Jesus,
Ed...\" or I forget

00:43:19.999 --> 00:43:21.998
what his name was.

00:43:21.999 --> 00:43:25.666
\"Didn\'t you know that was
wrong?\" And the guy

00:43:25.667 --> 00:43:30.998
immediately got cold, and Ron
realized he had just lost a

00:43:30.999 --> 00:43:33.998
relationship here, overstepped.

00:43:33.999 --> 00:43:34.999
Because up until that
point, he was

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:36.708
just asking what happened.

00:43:36.709 --> 00:43:39.458
And suddenly he had revealed
a judgment about it.

00:43:39.459 --> 00:43:43.333
And the guy said, \"Oh,
it was no big deal.

00:43:43.334 --> 00:43:49.959
Oh, it was no big deal.\"
And so that went on.

00:43:52.417 --> 00:43:56.082
What a lot of this... when you
say you can get people

00:43:56.083 --> 00:43:58.998
ordinary people, these were
ordinary people...

00:43:58.999 --> 00:44:03.082
To do anything, this comes
pretty close to the anything

00:44:03.083 --> 00:44:04.541
kind of thing.

00:44:04.542 --> 00:44:07.958
And they were ordinary people.

00:44:07.959 --> 00:44:15.959
By the way, one officer,
Calley, was

00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:18.500
convicted for this.

00:44:18.501 --> 00:44:19.042
- Only one.

00:44:19.042 --> 00:44:19.876
- Only one.

00:44:19.877 --> 00:44:21.166
Others had been all involved.

00:44:21.167 --> 00:44:23.333
They were watching it at various
levels of helicopters.

00:44:23.334 --> 00:44:26.374
They were seeing the whole
thing, seeing it all happen...

00:44:26.375 --> 00:44:27.375
all got off.

00:44:27.376 --> 00:44:31.708
Calley, in the end, spent a
matter of months, maybe a year

00:44:31.709 --> 00:44:35.374
or two, under house arrest with
his fiancee able to visit

00:44:35.375 --> 00:44:36.666
him and so forth.

00:44:36.667 --> 00:44:38.791
When Nixon pardoned him...

00:44:38.792 --> 00:44:41.999
didn\'t pardon him but commuted
his sentence to this, it was

00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:44.625
one of the most popular
things Nixon ever did.

00:44:44.626 --> 00:44:47.708
His popularity rating went up.

00:44:47.709 --> 00:44:53.041
And something that strikes me
from the Milgram experiments

00:44:53.042 --> 00:44:58.998
is this: Milgram concluded that
there was a very powerful

00:44:58.999 --> 00:45:03.333
set of mind when you\'re in an
authority situation that made

00:45:03.334 --> 00:45:05.875
you feel compelled to do
something that you had great

00:45:05.876 --> 00:45:08.998
resistance to.

00:45:08.999 --> 00:45:12.333
Agentic he called it, an agentic
state, like an agent.

00:45:12.334 --> 00:45:14.666
It was like hypnosis.

00:45:14.667 --> 00:45:16.500
You\'re under the spell.

00:45:16.501 --> 00:45:18.875
And the implication there, I
think, was that it was very

00:45:18.876 --> 00:45:21.041
hard to get people to do this.

00:45:21.042 --> 00:45:25.708
Something I\'ve concluded from
my own experience in Vietnam

00:45:25.709 --> 00:45:29.998
and bombing and everything else,
is we have something of

00:45:29.999 --> 00:45:35.458
a false image of ourselves
as a species of Humanity.

00:45:35.459 --> 00:45:40.500
It isn\'t that hard to get
people to do extremely

00:45:40.501 --> 00:45:44.998
harmful, injurious, damaging
acts to other people.

00:45:44.999 --> 00:45:48.833
It doesn\'t take a powerful
psychological

00:45:48.834 --> 00:45:50.625
overriding thing to do it.

00:45:50.626 --> 00:45:52.124
It doesn\'t take a whole lot.

00:45:52.125 --> 00:45:53.998
\"I promised to do it.

00:45:53.999 --> 00:45:57.166
My job depends on it.\" Well,
that\'s not unimportant, but,

00:45:57.167 --> 00:45:58.998
you know, this.

00:45:58.999 --> 00:46:02.998
And the contract idea,
conformity, \"I don\'t want to

00:46:02.999 --> 00:46:03.999
stick my head up.\"

00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:09.374
What it adds up to is that
people, humans, live with this

00:46:09.375 --> 00:46:10.998
pretty well.

00:46:10.999 --> 00:46:14.291
And every time, for example,
there\'s a genocide, as in

00:46:14.292 --> 00:46:17.998
Rwanda, and you say, \"How could
these people do this?\"

00:46:17.999 --> 00:46:20.500
We said, never again.

00:46:20.501 --> 00:46:22.833
How could they let a genocide
happen again?

00:46:22.834 --> 00:46:24.666
\"Well, they\'re Africans.

00:46:24.667 --> 00:46:26.500
They\'re savages over there.\"

00:46:26.501 --> 00:46:28.917
And you look at Bosnia and
Croatia, blue-eyed

00:46:28.918 --> 00:46:31.875
blond-haired people who had been
intermarrying up until

00:46:31.876 --> 00:46:35.917
that moment... as happened in
Rwanda before the massacre...

00:46:35.918 --> 00:46:40.833
And they do it too in Croatia,
the Bosnians and Croats.

00:46:40.834 --> 00:46:46.917
And what we\'re doing, what we\'ve
done in Iraq, actually,

00:46:46.918 --> 00:46:50.833
there\'s a disagreement as to
what the range of actual

00:46:50.834 --> 00:46:53.998
deaths from our operations
in Iraq is.

00:46:53.999 --> 00:46:58.998
Bush finally, after great
resistance, came up to the

00:46:58.999 --> 00:47:01.998
acknowledgment that
40,000 people...

00:47:01.999 --> 00:47:03.249
Civilians...

00:47:03.250 --> 00:47:04.833
Had been killed in Iraq.

00:47:04.834 --> 00:47:07.166
And you see that figure
quite a bit.

00:47:07.167 --> 00:47:12.041
Well, other studies
have said 400,000.

00:47:12.042 --> 00:47:15.917
That\'s a lot more.

00:47:15.918 --> 00:47:19.249
Or a million and a half.

00:47:19.250 --> 00:47:21.208
And by the way, the million
and a half are very good

00:47:21.209 --> 00:47:25.249
studies, peer-reviewed studies
that look very good.

00:47:25.250 --> 00:47:28.750
How much curiosity do you see
in the American public as to

00:47:28.751 --> 00:47:30.917
where in that range it falls?

00:47:30.918 --> 00:47:35.291
40,000 is already 10 times 9/11.

00:47:35.292 --> 00:47:38.082
How about 400,000, or 800,000?

00:47:38.083 --> 00:47:39.998
Should we be interested?

00:47:39.999 --> 00:47:41.998
There\'s no official
representation.

00:47:41.999 --> 00:47:44.166
These are research studies.

00:47:44.167 --> 00:47:45.583
Johns Hopkins did a study.

00:47:45.584 --> 00:47:47.344
There\'s been an English
study and so forth.

00:47:50.292 --> 00:47:53.583
Have you noticed any particular
curiosity about

00:47:53.584 --> 00:47:56.416
this or need to get it?

00:47:56.417 --> 00:47:59.998
We live with it, that
this is going on.

00:47:59.999 --> 00:48:06.041
So I think something we have to
address as something that

00:48:06.042 --> 00:48:09.999
has to change or we will die
of it, having killed each

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:10.999
other of it.

00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:14.791
In climate change, in the
possibility of nuclear war,

00:48:14.792 --> 00:48:19.291
which we may get to, poverty,
and all these other things...

00:48:19.292 --> 00:48:23.500
Humanity will not survive
this kind of behavior.

00:48:23.501 --> 00:48:26.625
And it is very common behavior.

00:48:26.626 --> 00:48:29.625
And so the question is
how do we change it?

00:48:29.626 --> 00:48:33.998
- I wanted to add a footnote
to the My Lai massacre.

00:48:33.999 --> 00:48:38.416
I think it was 1968?

00:48:38.417 --> 00:48:43.875
The evidence is that at least
540 civilians were massacred.

00:48:43.876 --> 00:48:46.249
Now, in addition to shooting
them, they

00:48:46.250 --> 00:48:48.625
also set them on fire.

00:48:48.626 --> 00:48:50.833
Most of the women were raped.

00:48:50.834 --> 00:48:53.041
And there\'s an amazing
documentary...

00:48:53.042 --> 00:48:54.750
I think they\'ve stopped
showing it.

00:48:54.751 --> 00:48:55.917
I used to show it in class...

00:48:55.918 --> 00:48:57.208
Interview with My Lai Veterans.

00:48:57.209 --> 00:49:01.333
There was four vets: African
American, a Caucasian,

00:49:01.334 --> 00:49:03.208
Hispanic, and maybe Filipino.

00:49:03.209 --> 00:49:06.583
And one of them said, \"We burned
them, we did...\" and

00:49:06.584 --> 00:49:09.791
then he said, \"...and then
we scalped them.\" And the

00:49:09.792 --> 00:49:13.833
offscreen interviewer said,
\"Scalped?\" He said, \"You know,

00:49:13.834 --> 00:49:14.958
like with the Indians...

00:49:14.959 --> 00:49:17.708
we scalped them.\" So here
is now behavior

00:49:17.709 --> 00:49:20.998
totally out of control.

00:49:20.999 --> 00:49:22.500
- They were under control,
by the way.

00:49:22.501 --> 00:49:23.875
They were under orders.

00:49:23.876 --> 00:49:25.500
They were doing what they
were ordered to.

00:49:25.501 --> 00:49:26.917
They weren\'t ordered
to scalp or rape.

00:49:26.918 --> 00:49:27.626
- No, no.

00:49:27.627 --> 00:49:31.249
So Captain Medina said \"We\'re
going to kill them all.\" Now,

00:49:31.250 --> 00:49:32.583
the one positive thing.

00:49:32.584 --> 00:49:36.750
So Ron Ridenhour was
the whistleblower.

00:49:36.751 --> 00:49:38.666
And I didn\'t meet him,
but I spoke to him.

00:49:38.667 --> 00:49:42.333
And he said, subsequently, he
was always an outcast whenever

00:49:42.334 --> 00:49:47.124
he was in any press corps.

00:49:47.125 --> 00:49:53.082
The other thing is there\'s
an incredible

00:49:53.083 --> 00:49:55.458
active hero, Hugh Johnson.

00:49:55.459 --> 00:49:58.333
So he was a helicopter pilot,
and he\'s flying over.

00:49:58.334 --> 00:49:59.541
- Thompson.

00:49:59.542 --> 00:50:00.417
- Hugh Thompson.

00:50:00.418 --> 00:50:02.791
He sees actually Captain Medina,
who\'s the head of

00:50:02.792 --> 00:50:05.458
Charlie Company, with
other soldiers,

00:50:05.459 --> 00:50:06.998
chasing a group of civilians.

00:50:06.999 --> 00:50:10.583
I mean, maybe a dozen,
women and children...

00:50:10.584 --> 00:50:11.292
shooting at them.

00:50:11.293 --> 00:50:15.416
And he lands his helicopter
between them, comes out, and

00:50:15.417 --> 00:50:19.708
he has a machine gun, and he
says, \"Stop firing.\" And then

00:50:19.709 --> 00:50:24.249
he takes some of the people
on his helicopter back to

00:50:24.250 --> 00:50:26.708
medevac, I guess.

00:50:26.709 --> 00:50:30.917
And so instead of being a hero,
they send him on one

00:50:30.918 --> 00:50:32.416
after another dangerous
missions.

00:50:32.417 --> 00:50:35.416
He ends up with a severely
damaged back.

00:50:35.417 --> 00:50:37.792
And he said, so that was their
retribution to him.

00:50:40.334 --> 00:50:40.999
Heroes suffer.

00:50:40.999 --> 00:50:41.999
- He told me that...

00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:45.998
well, it\'s a well-known
story, what he did.

00:50:45.999 --> 00:50:50.166
He goes out to save a girl and
a little baby, as I recall.

00:50:50.167 --> 00:50:51.917
And he\'s going to
carry them back.

00:50:51.918 --> 00:50:53.917
He tells his gunner
in the helicopter.

00:50:53.918 --> 00:50:56.249
The troops are over here
coming at them.

00:50:56.250 --> 00:51:00.917
He says, \"If they come
at us, shoot them.\"

00:51:00.918 --> 00:51:03.998
Now, that may have been the only
order like that in the

00:51:03.999 --> 00:51:07.833
history of the United
States military,

00:51:07.834 --> 00:51:09.998
or any other military.

00:51:09.999 --> 00:51:12.791
And there was a guy there,
of course, who

00:51:12.792 --> 00:51:14.875
felt this is wrong.

00:51:14.876 --> 00:51:15.626
What\'s his name?

00:51:15.627 --> 00:51:18.625
It starts with B. I
should know it.

00:51:18.626 --> 00:51:19.917
- His gunner?

00:51:19.918 --> 00:51:20.250
- No.

00:51:20.251 --> 00:51:22.998
There was a guy, you probably
remember this,

00:51:22.999 --> 00:51:25.166
who refused to fire.

00:51:25.167 --> 00:51:30.208
He conspicuously put his gun
barrel to the ground and

00:51:30.209 --> 00:51:33.998
refused orders to fire.

00:51:33.999 --> 00:51:36.124
His name will probably
come to me.

00:51:36.125 --> 00:51:39.998
And Ridenhour, actually, when he
interviewed him, after the

00:51:39.999 --> 00:51:44.750
war, I mean, after he was out,
he found this guy and he said

00:51:44.751 --> 00:51:48.291
and I\'ve talked to
him on the phone...

00:51:48.292 --> 00:51:50.958
He said, \"What do
you plan to do?

00:51:50.959 --> 00:51:53.208
What was your reaction to this?\"
He said, \"Well, I have

00:51:53.209 --> 00:51:57.082
a plan. \" He said, \" I had
a plan at the time.

00:51:57.083 --> 00:52:01.249
When I got out of the Army, I
was going to look up every one

00:52:01.250 --> 00:52:05.998
of the officers who had been
involved in this, and kill

00:52:05.999 --> 00:52:06.999
them.\"

00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:11.458
And Ridenhour says, \"I\'ve got
a better idea for you...\".

00:52:11.459 --> 00:52:12.500
Literally.

00:52:12.501 --> 00:52:14.998
And he said, \"Give me the story.

00:52:14.999 --> 00:52:15.999
Let\'s put it.

00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:20.291
We\'ll get the details down, and
we\'ll get the story out.\"

00:52:20.292 --> 00:52:23.998
And he was afraid for his life,
of course, because he

00:52:23.999 --> 00:52:27.625
was clearly saying to
the others, \"I\'m

00:52:27.626 --> 00:52:28.750
not going to do this.

00:52:28.751 --> 00:52:31.998
This is wrong.\" And
that made him a

00:52:31.999 --> 00:52:35.500
target for death, actually.

00:52:35.501 --> 00:52:37.082
- You mentioned the nuclear war.

00:52:37.083 --> 00:52:42.666
I know you\'re writing a book
about the US policy,

00:52:42.667 --> 00:52:45.625
war-making policy of nuclear
war, which seemingly hasn\'t

00:52:45.626 --> 00:52:47.583
changed since the Cold War.

00:52:47.584 --> 00:52:49.333
Can you tell us just
briefly about that?

00:52:49.334 --> 00:52:54.416
- Well, my book will tentatively
be called...

00:52:54.417 --> 00:52:57.875
What I proposed as the title...

00:52:57.876 --> 00:53:02.416
Is The American Doomsday
Machine: Confessions of a

00:53:02.417 --> 00:53:04.249
Nuclear War Planner.

00:53:04.250 --> 00:53:06.998
And I was involved in war
planning, in nuclear war

00:53:06.999 --> 00:53:09.958
planning, before I worked
on Vietnam.

00:53:09.959 --> 00:53:14.041
And when I say \"Doomsday
Machine\", which is of course a

00:53:14.042 --> 00:53:18.666
concept invented by my former
colleague, Herman Kahn at the

00:53:18.667 --> 00:53:21.998
RAND Corporation, the idea of
a system, a machine, that

00:53:21.999 --> 00:53:28.917
would automatically be preset
if certain events occurred,

00:53:28.918 --> 00:53:31.666
like a nuclear weapon on your
own capital or on your own

00:53:31.667 --> 00:53:35.917
cities, it would destroy
all life on Earth.

00:53:35.918 --> 00:53:40.500
And why would you have
a system like that?

00:53:40.501 --> 00:53:44.583
Well, as he pointed out, it
would be a lot cheaper...

00:53:44.584 --> 00:53:45.542
it could be designed.

00:53:45.543 --> 00:53:48.208
He felt he could design
this as a physicist.

00:53:48.209 --> 00:53:49.042
It would be a lot cheaper.

00:53:49.043 --> 00:53:51.166
You didn\'t have to transport
anything over anywhere.

00:53:51.167 --> 00:53:52.567
It would be on your
own territory.

00:53:54.999 --> 00:53:57.998
And it would be a very
imposing threat.

00:53:57.999 --> 00:54:01.541
And it would be automatic, so
you couldn\'t back off from it.

00:54:01.542 --> 00:54:07.291
Well, at the time he was writing
that, \'60, \'61, we had

00:54:07.292 --> 00:54:09.291
a Doomsday Machine.

00:54:09.292 --> 00:54:11.958
We didn\'t know it, actually.

00:54:11.959 --> 00:54:16.374
We thought that our system,
which was programmed to be

00:54:16.375 --> 00:54:20.666
used under a variety of
circumstances, but in

00:54:20.667 --> 00:54:23.791
particular if we felt there was
a Russian attack coming at

00:54:23.792 --> 00:54:27.750
us, before their weapons could
destroy ours, we would send

00:54:27.751 --> 00:54:30.999
ours off so they wouldn\'t be
destroyed and destroy them...

00:54:35.083 --> 00:54:37.998
missiles and bombers
and so forth.

00:54:37.999 --> 00:54:40.750
Now, at that time, they thought
that wouldn\'t kill

00:54:40.751 --> 00:54:41.334
everybody on Earth.

00:54:41.335 --> 00:54:43.708
It wouldn\'t even kill America.

00:54:43.709 --> 00:54:45.958
There would be a certain amount
of fallout, but it

00:54:45.959 --> 00:54:48.998
wouldn\'t destroy America
by any means.

00:54:48.999 --> 00:54:53.998
It would destroy Russia, East
Europe, West Europe, our

00:54:53.999 --> 00:54:59.583
allies, by fallout, our own
allies, and China by fallout

00:54:59.584 --> 00:55:00.998
and by direct targeting.

00:55:00.999 --> 00:55:02.124
And other allies...

00:55:02.125 --> 00:55:04.500
Not allies, but neutrals...

00:55:04.501 --> 00:55:06.082
Like Afghanistan,
I remember that.

00:55:06.083 --> 00:55:07.998
I hardly knew where it
was at that point.

00:55:07.999 --> 00:55:11.958
Finland, Austria, and Japan.

00:55:11.959 --> 00:55:13.458
- Quasi-allies.

00:55:13.459 --> 00:55:19.124
- A death toll, I found,
of 600 million people.

00:55:19.125 --> 00:55:20.750
But not America.

00:55:20.751 --> 00:55:22.291
So it\'s not a Doomsday Machine.

00:55:22.292 --> 00:55:24.998
It\'s just a halfway
Doomsday Machine.

00:55:24.999 --> 00:55:28.166
But what we didn\'t
know in 1960...

00:55:28.167 --> 00:55:32.541
We didn\'t learn it for another
20 years, till \'82, \'83...

00:55:32.542 --> 00:55:35.666
That those weapons exploding
near or on cities, as they

00:55:35.667 --> 00:55:40.625
were programmed, would cause
smoke from the fire storms

00:55:40.626 --> 00:55:46.291
that would coalesce, surround
the globe, and block sunlight

00:55:46.292 --> 00:55:51.666
from the planet, basically,
thus freezing...

00:55:51.667 --> 00:55:54.875
In an extreme case, if there
was enough of this...

00:55:54.876 --> 00:55:57.541
Freezing everything, if it was
in the summer, freezing the

00:55:57.542 --> 00:55:59.998
rivers, the lakes,
and everything.

00:55:59.999 --> 00:56:03.333
But even if it was much less
than that, destroying all the

00:56:03.334 --> 00:56:06.999
crops, freezing temperatures
at night, enough

00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:07.918
to destroy a crop.

00:56:07.919 --> 00:56:10.041
It didn\'t even have to
be during the day.

00:56:10.042 --> 00:56:12.917
And you destroy all the crops.

00:56:12.918 --> 00:56:14.998
And in the last couple years,
we\'ve discovered that that

00:56:14.999 --> 00:56:16.998
wouldn\'t be just for six
months or a year.

00:56:16.999 --> 00:56:19.416
It would be for 10 years,
which would

00:56:19.417 --> 00:56:23.833
mean everybody dies.

00:56:23.834 --> 00:56:28.166
And not only all humans, but all
the animals that rely on

00:56:28.167 --> 00:56:29.833
vegetation.

00:56:29.834 --> 00:56:31.082
Because the crops all go.

00:56:31.083 --> 00:56:32.999
The vegetation goes.

00:56:33.000 --> 00:56:37.583
You would still have a lot of
bacteria, a lot of viruses and

00:56:37.584 --> 00:56:39.374
some kinds of insects
and so forth.

00:56:39.375 --> 00:56:41.458
But really, everything goes.

00:56:41.459 --> 00:56:47.998
We have that system on alert
right now, 20 years

00:56:47.999 --> 00:56:49.541
after the Cold War.

00:56:49.542 --> 00:56:51.541
So does Russia.

00:56:51.542 --> 00:56:54.917
They\'re still both on hair
trigger alert, meaning that if

00:56:54.918 --> 00:56:58.750
a false alarm occurs... which
has occurred many times,

00:56:58.751 --> 00:57:02.750
dozens of times, serious false
alarms, at least a handful

00:57:02.751 --> 00:57:04.791
that went very far,
right almost to

00:57:04.792 --> 00:57:07.875
the point of launching.

00:57:07.876 --> 00:57:09.416
That is still the case.

00:57:09.417 --> 00:57:10.998
The mistakes still happen.

00:57:10.999 --> 00:57:13.625
They are still ready to go.

00:57:13.626 --> 00:57:16.998
And we\'ve known for 25 years
that the result of doing that

00:57:16.999 --> 00:57:18.998
will be to destroy
life on Earth.

00:57:18.999 --> 00:57:21.625
- And no whistleblowers have
come forward on this?

00:57:21.626 --> 00:57:22.998
- No one from inside.

00:57:22.999 --> 00:57:24.458
I was in that system.

00:57:24.459 --> 00:57:26.291
I\'m writing a memoir on this.

00:57:26.292 --> 00:57:28.998
And I have a huge library
on the subject.

00:57:28.999 --> 00:57:31.750
I don\'t have a single volume
from somebody...

00:57:31.751 --> 00:57:34.750
And we\'re talking thousands
of people now...

00:57:34.751 --> 00:57:37.249
Of somebody who was involved in
the planning process or who

00:57:37.250 --> 00:57:39.208
knows these results.

00:57:39.209 --> 00:57:40.167
They all have clearances.

00:57:40.168 --> 00:57:43.541
They\'ve all promised to
keep the secrets.

00:57:43.542 --> 00:57:45.583
They all have careers
ahead of them.

00:57:45.584 --> 00:57:48.917
But even after they retire,
you don\'t hear it.

00:57:48.918 --> 00:57:54.833
And I could think of a couple
near exceptions to that, of

00:57:54.834 --> 00:57:56.583
people who...

00:57:56.584 --> 00:57:58.374
they weren\'t involved in the
planning, but they sort of

00:57:58.375 --> 00:58:00.750
knew what the system was.

00:58:00.751 --> 00:58:02.625
They don\'t tell.

00:58:02.626 --> 00:58:08.124
So we have a situation now where
tonight or tomorrow a

00:58:08.125 --> 00:58:10.249
false alarm could end it.

00:58:10.250 --> 00:58:12.999
It wouldn\'t end it right away.

00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:15.998
It would end it within... even
if we weren\'t near an

00:58:15.999 --> 00:58:16.999
explosion...

00:58:17.000 --> 00:58:20.998
It would end it for us in six
months or a year from

00:58:20.999 --> 00:58:22.750
starvation...

00:58:22.751 --> 00:58:24.208
everybody.

00:58:24.209 --> 00:58:29.291
There isn\'t the slightest,
slightest strategic or any

00:58:29.292 --> 00:58:31.998
other kind of justification
for this.

00:58:31.999 --> 00:58:35.249
What actually keeps it going
on the land-based missile

00:58:35.250 --> 00:58:39.041
side, like our Minuteman
missiles, which are subject to

00:58:39.042 --> 00:58:43.416
being destroyed so they have
to get off the ground fast

00:58:43.417 --> 00:58:46.917
before the enemy warheads have
destroyed, if any...

00:58:46.918 --> 00:58:49.291
So they are on this
hair trigger...

00:58:49.292 --> 00:58:51.917
The reason it keeps them
deployed, which they\'ve been

00:58:51.918 --> 00:58:54.998
obsolete for 40 or 50 years
since we had nuclear

00:58:54.999 --> 00:58:55.918
submarines.

00:58:55.919 --> 00:58:59.998
They were at least invulnerable,
these aren\'t.

00:58:59.999 --> 00:59:01.998
There have been no rationale
for them, really.

00:59:01.999 --> 00:59:06.291
The reason they\'re kept is that
in four states, there\'s

00:59:06.292 --> 00:59:10.750
what is called an ICBM Caucus
in Congress, consisting of

00:59:10.751 --> 00:59:14.917
eight Senators from, I think,
it\'s Montana, North

00:59:14.918 --> 00:59:15.999
Dakota, Wyoming...

00:59:16.000 --> 00:59:18.500
I may have stated wrong here
and Utah, which services

00:59:18.501 --> 00:59:20.541
these missiles, the other three
states where they\'re

00:59:20.542 --> 00:59:24.500
deployed, where there
are jobs involved...

00:59:24.501 --> 00:59:25.167
Jobs...

00:59:25.168 --> 00:59:30.998
In barber shops, restaurants,
housing, real estate, that

00:59:30.999 --> 00:59:33.416
service the missiles.

00:59:33.417 --> 00:59:36.500
And they have sent a letter to
Obama and previous to Bush,

00:59:36.501 --> 00:59:40.416
\"Do not even think of getting
rid of these missiles.\"

00:59:40.417 --> 00:59:43.958
Eight Senators in the Senate.

00:59:43.959 --> 00:59:45.958
That\'s been enough.

00:59:45.959 --> 00:59:48.833
Because I come back to my
other point, I have to

00:59:48.834 --> 00:59:51.999
conclude that the other Senators
really don\'t care

00:59:52.000 --> 00:59:53.166
much about this.

00:59:53.167 --> 00:59:55.124
And of course they don\'t know
much about it, but they

00:59:55.125 --> 00:59:58.833
haven\'t chosen to inform
themselves if they could.

00:59:58.834 --> 01:00:01.998
And the rest of the country,
they don\'t care.

01:00:01.999 --> 01:00:03.249
We live with it.

01:00:03.250 --> 01:00:06.458
And that has to change.

01:00:06.459 --> 01:00:09.750
- But when your book comes out,
obviously that side is

01:00:09.751 --> 01:00:10.250
going to say...

01:00:10.251 --> 01:00:11.291
- It\'s not going to
change overnight.

01:00:11.292 --> 01:00:15.166
- No, it\'s going to say, this is
a super-fanatic reinvented.

01:00:15.167 --> 01:00:19.124
So don\'t you need support from
some of those retired people?

01:00:19.125 --> 01:00:20.208
- Yeah.

01:00:20.209 --> 01:00:24.666
- I mean, I think you\'d have
to have a support system to

01:00:24.667 --> 01:00:25.998
say, \"Yeah, he\'s right.

01:00:25.999 --> 01:00:29.208
He\'s right on.\"

01:00:29.209 --> 01:00:31.917
- In this case, a lot of people
who are still alive

01:00:31.918 --> 01:00:33.625
know what my background was.

01:00:33.626 --> 01:00:38.291
And they will know from this
that I\'m not making this up.

01:00:38.292 --> 01:00:42.124
People will say that, but others
will say, \"No, this is

01:00:42.125 --> 01:00:44.082
the way it is.\" And that
may have an effect.

01:00:44.083 --> 01:00:45.500
I would love to see
Congressional

01:00:45.501 --> 01:00:47.124
hearings on this subject.

01:00:47.125 --> 01:00:50.458
There has never been one, ever,
an open Congressional

01:00:50.459 --> 01:00:53.249
hearing, on what is the impact,
the environmental

01:00:53.250 --> 01:00:54.998
impact, of this stuff
coming out.

01:00:54.999 --> 01:00:57.998
And I hope, I do believe...
Now we get to the subject,

01:00:57.999 --> 01:01:00.541
everything all together...

01:01:00.542 --> 01:01:03.416
What they will say, and this I
can\'t refute so easily, \"He

01:01:03.417 --> 01:01:06.833
doesn\'t have direct knowledge of
the current situation.\" So

01:01:06.834 --> 01:01:11.249
that was all true way in the
past, but it\'s changed.

01:01:11.250 --> 01:01:13.249
Surely they\'ve fixed this up.

01:01:13.250 --> 01:01:17.833
Now, I know from people I know,
no, it hasn\'t changed.

01:01:17.834 --> 01:01:18.998
In fact, people from
the inside, they

01:01:18.999 --> 01:01:20.416
will just say that.

01:01:20.417 --> 01:01:21.292
It hasn\'t changed.

01:01:21.293 --> 01:01:23.416
It\'s essentially the
same as before.

01:01:23.417 --> 01:01:26.998
But they haven\'t put
out the details.

01:01:26.999 --> 01:01:32.917
To do that, I think that the
security of the world would be

01:01:32.918 --> 01:01:37.458
significantly improved if there
were people inside who

01:01:37.459 --> 01:01:41.998
would risk their career
individually putting out a

01:01:41.999 --> 01:01:45.998
drawer full of documents about
the current situation.

01:01:45.999 --> 01:01:50.500
And they will go, they will be
denounced, their clearances

01:01:50.501 --> 01:01:53.833
will be removed, which means
their career is over.

01:01:53.834 --> 01:01:56.998
They will almost certainly
be prosecuted.

01:01:56.999 --> 01:01:59.998
They will probably be convicted,
as I would have

01:01:59.999 --> 01:02:03.166
been, if I had done this at the
time, which I wish I had

01:02:03.167 --> 01:02:05.750
when I had the documents.

01:02:05.751 --> 01:02:07.875
And they may go to
prison for life.

01:02:07.876 --> 01:02:10.998
And even before that happens,
their marriage will be

01:02:10.999 --> 01:02:13.999
probably destroyed,
not certainly...

01:02:14.000 --> 01:02:18.998
heavy personal cost in order
to save humanity from

01:02:18.999 --> 01:02:19.999
destruction.

01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:24.249
Now, remember, as you know, as
we\'ve been saying, people risk

01:02:24.250 --> 01:02:28.833
their lives every hour of the
day not in good causes.

01:02:28.834 --> 01:02:33.998
Actually, Afghanistan is not a
good cause militarily in the

01:02:33.999 --> 01:02:36.917
sense, not that there aren\'t
abuses, terrible things on the

01:02:36.918 --> 01:02:40.875
other side, but they\'re not
going to be changed by the

01:02:40.876 --> 01:02:42.998
killing we\'re doing over there.

01:02:42.999 --> 01:02:45.166
So it\'s not a good
cause, actually.

01:02:45.167 --> 01:02:51.750
The soldiers who come back are
told, \"You are keeping us

01:02:51.751 --> 01:02:56.625
free.\" Well, actually not.

01:02:56.626 --> 01:02:59.458
And in fact, it\'s
worse than that.

01:02:59.459 --> 01:03:01.833
They are creating
more terrorists.

01:03:01.834 --> 01:03:03.082
They are endangering us.

01:03:03.083 --> 01:03:04.083
That\'s what they\'re doing.

01:03:04.084 --> 01:03:05.500
They don\'t know that,
and that\'s not what

01:03:05.501 --> 01:03:07.374
they choose to do.

01:03:07.375 --> 01:03:09.875
But the courage is there.

01:03:09.876 --> 01:03:14.041
We regard it as routine that
they risk their lives to these

01:03:14.042 --> 01:03:17.416
explosive devices every hour,
wherever they are in

01:03:17.417 --> 01:03:19.458
Afghanistan.

01:03:19.459 --> 01:03:20.958
And we expect it of them.

01:03:20.959 --> 01:03:21.459
We ask it of them.

01:03:21.460 --> 01:03:23.416
They don\'t even necessarily
get medals for it.

01:03:23.417 --> 01:03:25.998
It\'s expected.

01:03:25.999 --> 01:03:30.249
But who is showing comparable
courage like that in Congress

01:03:30.250 --> 01:03:32.333
or in the Pentagon?

01:03:32.334 --> 01:03:37.166
Or General Powell, who was once
a battalion commander in

01:03:37.167 --> 01:03:40.958
Vietnam, and I\'m sure his life
was at risk at that point,

01:03:40.959 --> 01:03:43.500
unwilling to risk his career
over here, his access to the

01:03:43.501 --> 01:03:46.833
President, by telling what he
knows, which is that our

01:03:46.834 --> 01:03:48.917
security will be endangered
by going into

01:03:48.918 --> 01:03:52.998
Iraq rather than not.

01:03:52.999 --> 01:03:55.208
We have to find a way... and
this is where your project

01:03:55.209 --> 01:03:59.998
comes in... of somehow eliciting
civil courage in the

01:03:59.999 --> 01:04:02.998
scale or of the kind
that we expect and

01:04:02.999 --> 01:04:06.625
do see in the military.

01:04:06.626 --> 01:04:09.416
- Before we close, I\'d like
to shift the tone a bit.

01:04:09.417 --> 01:04:12.875
You both have been involved in
long-term relationships with

01:04:12.876 --> 01:04:13.417
your wives...

01:04:13.418 --> 01:04:15.750
40 years, almost, in both cases.

01:04:15.751 --> 01:04:18.999
I wonder if you could say, Phil,
a little bit about how

01:04:19.000 --> 01:04:20.791
Christina has helped
to encourage

01:04:20.792 --> 01:04:22.416
your courageous actions.

01:04:22.417 --> 01:04:28.833
- Yeah, I was blessed by meeting
this young woman more

01:04:28.834 --> 01:04:31.998
than 40 years ago, Christina
Maslach.

01:04:31.999 --> 01:04:34.291
She was actually a graduate
student at Stanford when I

01:04:34.292 --> 01:04:37.998
first arrived, and we had done
some research together.

01:04:37.999 --> 01:04:42.750
And in June of \'71, she
got a job at Berkeley.

01:04:42.751 --> 01:04:46.208
And she was going to go start
her career in September.

01:04:46.209 --> 01:04:48.999
Parenthetically, she\'s been
there for 40 years and a

01:04:49.000 --> 01:04:52.291
distinguished professor
in Psychology.

01:04:52.292 --> 01:04:54.999
Well, during the summer when
I decided to do the Prison

01:04:55.000 --> 01:04:56.334
Experiment...

01:04:59.292 --> 01:05:00.998
the study was supposed
to go for two weeks.

01:05:00.999 --> 01:05:03.541
And I realized at the end of
the first week, I really

01:05:03.542 --> 01:05:06.958
needed outside evaluators,
people who knew nothing about

01:05:06.959 --> 01:05:09.124
the study to come in and
interview the prisoners, the

01:05:09.125 --> 01:05:12.541
guards, and the staff before I
made a decision about what to

01:05:12.542 --> 01:05:14.208
do the second week.

01:05:14.209 --> 01:05:17.998
And so she was going to be one
of those young professors,

01:05:17.999 --> 01:05:21.208
graduate students, who was
going to come in halfway

01:05:21.209 --> 01:05:22.999
through to give an evaluation.

01:05:23.000 --> 01:05:24.998
- And what was your relationship
with her then?

01:05:24.999 --> 01:05:27.583
- Oh, we had just
started dating.

01:05:27.584 --> 01:05:30.833
Obviously I had to wait till she
graduated, so we had just

01:05:30.834 --> 01:05:32.998
started dating that summer.

01:05:32.999 --> 01:05:36.291
And again, planning to marry,
which we did the next year.

01:05:36.292 --> 01:05:38.998
- You were already planning
to marry, though?

01:05:38.999 --> 01:05:39.751
- Well, I was.

01:05:39.752 --> 01:05:41.166
I don\'t know if she was.

01:05:41.167 --> 01:05:44.416
I mean, she was really hot.

01:05:44.417 --> 01:05:46.249
So I knew I was going
to marry her.

01:05:46.250 --> 01:05:49.124
I don\'t know if she had the
same feeling about me.

01:05:49.125 --> 01:05:50.998
There was an age gap
of 13 years.

01:05:50.999 --> 01:05:53.998
So I\'m not sure she thought
about the future.

01:05:53.999 --> 01:05:56.958
But in any event, to make a long
story short, I ask her to

01:05:56.959 --> 01:06:02.917
come down on Thursday night to
interview some of the early...

01:06:02.918 --> 01:06:03.998
all the interviews are
going to be Friday.

01:06:03.999 --> 01:06:06.583
I said, \"You come down, get a
sense of what the place looks

01:06:06.584 --> 01:06:11.998
like.\" And then she was in the
library studying, \"Come down

01:06:11.999 --> 01:06:17.998
at 10 o\'clock, which is when
the night shift comes on.

01:06:17.999 --> 01:06:21.750
And then after that, we can go
and have dinner.\" And I was

01:06:21.751 --> 01:06:24.998
living in my office there,
and she would go home.

01:06:24.999 --> 01:06:28.875
And she comes down and
she looks in...

01:06:28.876 --> 01:06:33.082
no, first she gets there early
and is talking to some of the

01:06:33.083 --> 01:06:37.998
guards who are coming in, the
students coming in to be the

01:06:37.999 --> 01:06:39.416
night shift.

01:06:39.417 --> 01:06:40.500
And so she sees them.

01:06:40.501 --> 01:06:43.458
- Now, make plain... so
these are mock guards.

01:06:43.459 --> 01:06:46.708
- Yes, these are students
randomly assigned to be guards

01:06:46.709 --> 01:06:50.249
and the other half randomly
assigned to be prisoners.

01:06:50.250 --> 01:06:52.583
75 people answered an ad.

01:06:52.584 --> 01:06:55.291
We want college students to be
in a study of prison life.

01:06:55.292 --> 01:06:58.374
We interviewed all of them and
selected 24 who were the most

01:06:58.375 --> 01:07:00.124
normal, most healthy, meaning
we gave a battery of

01:07:00.125 --> 01:07:02.875
psychological tests, clinical
interviews.

01:07:02.876 --> 01:07:06.500
So really the question is, what
happens when you put good

01:07:06.501 --> 01:07:07.998
people in a bad place?

01:07:07.999 --> 01:07:11.082
So on day one, we had only good
apples, and I\'m going to

01:07:11.083 --> 01:07:14.708
put them in a really bad barrel,
meaning a prison that

01:07:14.709 --> 01:07:17.998
I constructed which really
mirrored the

01:07:17.999 --> 01:07:19.998
worst in American prisons.

01:07:19.999 --> 01:07:23.041
That is, it\'s all about power
and dehumanization.

01:07:23.042 --> 01:07:25.374
And guards have total power
and prisoners have none.

01:07:25.375 --> 01:07:28.333
So that was the premise
of the whole thing.

01:07:28.334 --> 01:07:31.998
It differed from the Milgram
study in that no one said to

01:07:31.999 --> 01:07:33.998
do anything bad.

01:07:33.999 --> 01:07:38.041
Your job was to be a guard,
and in that job you had to

01:07:38.042 --> 01:07:40.583
demonstrate that prisoners
had no power

01:07:40.584 --> 01:07:41.998
and you had all power.

01:07:41.999 --> 01:07:44.082
And if prisoners escape,
the studies over.

01:07:44.083 --> 01:07:47.541
So that\'s essentially it.

01:07:47.542 --> 01:07:50.998
But everybody knew it was an
experiment on day one.

01:07:50.999 --> 01:07:54.291
Now again it\'s 1971, so
these are hippies.

01:07:54.292 --> 01:07:56.166
Everybody\'s got hair
down to here.

01:07:56.167 --> 01:07:57.750
They\'re anti-war activists,
they\'re

01:07:57.751 --> 01:07:59.998
civil rights activists.

01:07:59.999 --> 01:08:02.750
Some of them are even involved
in the feminist movement.

01:08:02.751 --> 01:08:04.291
So no one wanted to be a guard.

01:08:04.292 --> 01:08:05.998
We said, if you had a
preference, they said, \"No,

01:08:05.999 --> 01:08:06.999
guards are pigs.

01:08:07.000 --> 01:08:08.998
I don\'t want to be...

01:08:08.999 --> 01:08:10.998
I didn\'t go to college to become
a guard, and I could

01:08:10.999 --> 01:08:12.541
imagine being a prisoner.

01:08:12.542 --> 01:08:17.291
I could get arrested for DUI,
draft evasion\", whatever.

01:08:17.292 --> 01:08:21.791
So again, it\'s not that anybody
had an inner tendency,

01:08:21.792 --> 01:08:24.958
sadistic need to do this.

01:08:24.959 --> 01:08:25.667
But it didn\'t matter.

01:08:25.668 --> 01:08:28.750
Once they put on the uniform, it
took a day before they got

01:08:28.751 --> 01:08:30.500
into the role...

01:08:30.501 --> 01:08:33.249
It\'s what Ted Sarbin would
call \"role absorption\"...

01:08:33.250 --> 01:08:34.998
They became guards.

01:08:34.999 --> 01:08:36.998
And the others became prisoners.

01:08:36.999 --> 01:08:38.625
And it became a prison run by

01:08:38.626 --> 01:08:40.583
psychologists not by the state.

01:08:40.584 --> 01:08:43.750
After day one, no one used
the word \"experiment\".

01:08:43.751 --> 01:08:46.833
No one said, \"I quit the
experiment\", which in fact is

01:08:46.834 --> 01:08:48.833
all they have to do
to be released.

01:08:48.834 --> 01:08:51.917
They\'d say, \"I want to be
paroled.\" Because if you think

01:08:51.918 --> 01:08:53.541
prisoner, that\'s the way you
get out of a prison.

01:08:53.542 --> 01:08:56.998
You don\'t get out of prison by
saying \"I quit the prison.\" So

01:08:56.999 --> 01:08:58.166
we had a parole board.

01:08:58.167 --> 01:09:01.998
And of course the parole board
turns everybody down, at least

01:09:01.999 --> 01:09:03.333
the first time.

01:09:03.334 --> 01:09:07.416
So she comes down and she talks
to some of these guys

01:09:07.417 --> 01:09:08.998
before they go in.

01:09:08.999 --> 01:09:12.166
And then she sees them come
out in the uniform.

01:09:12.167 --> 01:09:16.998
And the night shift was the
worst shift of abuse...

01:09:16.999 --> 01:09:17.999
as in Abu Ghraib.

01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:20.416
All the abuses were on
the night shift.

01:09:20.417 --> 01:09:22.833
And what she sees is this
really sweet guy...

01:09:22.834 --> 01:09:25.041
He is the worst guard.

01:09:25.042 --> 01:09:27.998
He\'s the one that the prisoners
call John Wayne...

01:09:27.999 --> 01:09:28.999
abusive.

01:09:29.000 --> 01:09:35.082
And he says later, he said, \"I
decide to be the most cruel,

01:09:35.083 --> 01:09:39.416
brutal guard imaginable, because
I wanted to push them

01:09:39.417 --> 01:09:40.708
so they\'d rebel.

01:09:40.709 --> 01:09:43.166
And they never rebelled, so I
kept pushing them.\" And then

01:09:43.167 --> 01:09:45.541
he later said, \"I was like a
puppeteer and they were my

01:09:45.542 --> 01:09:49.833
puppets.\" And she was stunned
at this transformation.

01:09:49.834 --> 01:09:52.998
She would have told me, \"He was
such a sweet guy\" and five

01:09:52.999 --> 01:09:56.458
minutes later, he walks out in
the uniform, but again, in the

01:09:56.459 --> 01:09:59.124
social setting where that
uniform made sense.

01:09:59.125 --> 01:10:00.666
He was a guard.

01:10:00.667 --> 01:10:03.666
And then it\'s the 10
o\'clock toilet run.

01:10:03.667 --> 01:10:06.416
What that means is, at 10
o\'clock was the last time

01:10:06.417 --> 01:10:07.998
prisoners could go
to a real toilet.

01:10:07.999 --> 01:10:09.917
After that, they had to urinate,
defecate in the

01:10:09.918 --> 01:10:11.708
bucket, which they hated to do.

01:10:11.709 --> 01:10:14.833
So the guards would use this
as a last opportunity for

01:10:14.834 --> 01:10:15.998
humiliation.

01:10:15.999 --> 01:10:18.458
They\'d line up all the
prisoners, put bags over their

01:10:18.459 --> 01:10:21.666
heads, chain their feet
together, put their hands on

01:10:21.667 --> 01:10:24.416
each other, and push them
and curse them and yell.

01:10:24.417 --> 01:10:27.998
And I look up, and
essentially...

01:10:27.999 --> 01:10:30.541
I have my day\'s agenda,
breakfast, lunch,

01:10:30.542 --> 01:10:32.166
parole board...

01:10:32.167 --> 01:10:33.083
It\'s the 10 o\'clock toilet.

01:10:33.083 --> 01:10:34.000
I put a check mark.

01:10:34.001 --> 01:10:35.082
It\'s the 10 o\'clock.

01:10:35.083 --> 01:10:36.083
I put it down.

01:10:36.084 --> 01:10:37.625
I say, \"Hey, Chris, look
at this.\" And she

01:10:37.626 --> 01:10:38.250
starts tearing up.

01:10:38.251 --> 01:10:39.833
I said, \"What\'s wrong?\"

01:10:39.834 --> 01:10:41.998
She said, \"I can\'t look
at that.\" I said,

01:10:41.999 --> 01:10:43.041
\"What do you mean?

01:10:43.042 --> 01:10:45.583
She said, \"It\'s terrible what\'s
happening here.\" I

01:10:45.584 --> 01:10:46.998
said, \"No, this is human nature.

01:10:46.999 --> 01:10:48.666
This is the dynamics
of human nature.

01:10:48.667 --> 01:10:51.208
This is the power of the
situation.\" I\'m giving her all

01:10:51.209 --> 01:10:53.666
the psychological...
and she runs out.

01:10:53.667 --> 01:10:54.375
And I run after her.

01:10:54.375 --> 01:10:54.999
I\'m furious.

01:10:55.000 --> 01:10:56.541
I\'m not understanding.

01:10:56.542 --> 01:11:02.458
And then she says, \"How could
you see what I saw and not be

01:11:02.459 --> 01:11:05.998
upset?\" She said, \"There\'s a
chasm between us.\" She said,

01:11:05.999 --> 01:11:07.917
\"What I saw was terrible.

01:11:07.918 --> 01:11:09.333
What\'s happened in that prison,
they\'re not guards,

01:11:09.334 --> 01:11:11.374
they\'re boys, and you are
responsible for what\'s

01:11:11.375 --> 01:11:12.292
happening.\"

01:11:12.293 --> 01:11:13.998
And I\'m not even hearing that.

01:11:13.999 --> 01:11:16.998
I\'m saying, \"No, it\'s just a
10 o\'clock toilet run.\" And

01:11:16.999 --> 01:11:20.166
then she says, \"Wait a minute.\'
She says, \"I don\'t

01:11:20.167 --> 01:11:21.875
know who you are.

01:11:21.876 --> 01:11:25.082
How could you see this world
so differently than me?

01:11:25.083 --> 01:11:28.249
And if this is the real you,
I thought you were...

01:11:28.250 --> 01:11:31.458
I thought you were a caring and
loving person... \"Or\" I

01:11:31.459 --> 01:11:32.917
know you as a caring...

01:11:32.918 --> 01:11:35.333
if this is the real you, I don\'t
want to have any further

01:11:35.334 --> 01:11:36.998
relationship with you.\"

01:11:36.999 --> 01:11:39.998
And that was the slap
in the face.

01:11:39.999 --> 01:11:42.998
And literally I think it\'s
because we were physically

01:11:42.999 --> 01:11:44.416
outside of the setting.

01:11:44.417 --> 01:11:47.458
We were standing in front of
Jordan Hall... by now, it\'s

01:11:47.459 --> 01:11:49.333
about 11, 11:30.

01:11:49.334 --> 01:11:54.124
I said, \"Oh my god, you\'re
right!\" How could I be seduced

01:11:54.125 --> 01:11:56.708
by the power of the situation?

01:11:56.709 --> 01:11:59.666
I\'m not only an adult, I
designed the whole thing.

01:11:59.667 --> 01:12:03.082
But essentially, I became the
prison Superintendent.

01:12:03.083 --> 01:12:04.917
That was my role.

01:12:04.918 --> 01:12:06.998
It said on the door, \"Prison
Superintendent.\" When parents

01:12:06.999 --> 01:12:09.291
came in, they had to see me.

01:12:09.292 --> 01:12:12.416
And when I dealt with
the campus police...

01:12:12.417 --> 01:12:14.416
so I was the Superintendent
of this prison.

01:12:14.417 --> 01:12:18.998
And in that role, whatever I
saw was part of the agenda.

01:12:18.999 --> 01:12:22.416
It was nothing more than a
check mark on the scale.

01:12:22.417 --> 01:12:24.998
And so I came to my senses,
and I said.

01:12:24.999 --> 01:12:27.500
She never said, \"You have to end
the study.\" She just said,

01:12:27.501 --> 01:12:29.998
realize you are responsible
for what\'s happening.

01:12:29.999 --> 01:12:33.374
And you\'re seeing the world
in a wrong light.

01:12:33.375 --> 01:12:35.416
- Accountability.

01:12:35.417 --> 01:12:37.500
- Yeah, she said \"You\'re
accountable.\" And so I said,

01:12:37.501 --> 01:12:39.875
\"Yeah, I\'ll end the study the
next day\", which was very

01:12:39.876 --> 01:12:41.875
complicated to do.

01:12:41.876 --> 01:12:44.998
And then we did, we ended
it the next morning.

01:12:44.999 --> 01:12:46.666
- Very direct example.

01:12:46.667 --> 01:12:48.875
- So again, this is
a classic heroine.

01:12:48.876 --> 01:12:51.541
She was willing to risk
our relationship.

01:12:51.542 --> 01:12:55.958
Also, I was her main
academic reference.

01:12:55.959 --> 01:12:59.541
And so if she had really done
that, she knows I could\'ve

01:12:59.542 --> 01:13:02.626
then never given her the
A-plus recommendation.

01:13:05.999 --> 01:13:10.166
But what she says is, \"It wasn\'t
heroic, it was lonely,

01:13:10.167 --> 01:13:14.998
because the other people...\"
it was not just me.

01:13:14.999 --> 01:13:18.583
Everybody was telling her,
\"Hey, no, this is social

01:13:18.584 --> 01:13:21.833
psychology in action.\" She knew
the graduate students and

01:13:21.834 --> 01:13:23.998
the undergraduates who
were working with me.

01:13:23.999 --> 01:13:25.998
So she said, it felt lonely.

01:13:25.999 --> 01:13:26.999
It didn\'t feel heroic.

01:13:27.000 --> 01:13:28.666
It just felt lonely.

01:13:28.667 --> 01:13:32.791
And then she said, in her mind,
\"Would I have acted that

01:13:32.792 --> 01:13:36.917
way if I had been part of the
research team that gradually,

01:13:36.918 --> 01:13:41.958
day by day, I got involved and
that what I saw that night was

01:13:41.959 --> 01:13:45.541
just the end of five days of
this.\" And she says, to be

01:13:45.542 --> 01:13:47.999
honest, she\'d like to believe
she would have

01:13:48.000 --> 01:13:49.541
challenged it earlier.

01:13:49.542 --> 01:13:52.958
But she says she doesn\'t know.

01:13:52.959 --> 01:13:55.082
And maybe this is the other
aspect of being a hero.

01:13:55.083 --> 01:13:57.666
She said, it was being
an outsider that

01:13:57.667 --> 01:13:58.791
she had fresh eyes.

01:13:58.792 --> 01:14:02.666
She could come in and say, \"The
Emperor has no clothes.\"

01:14:02.667 --> 01:14:06.458
- Reading your book, you\'ll
see there\'s an amazing

01:14:06.459 --> 01:14:10.999
resonance here, but I was very
struck too by her insight.

01:14:11.000 --> 01:14:12.875
Very good psychologist.

01:14:12.876 --> 01:14:14.917
- Yeah, pretty good lady.

01:14:14.918 --> 01:14:21.999
- But she also raised the point
that she said, \'What if

01:14:22.000 --> 01:14:26.998
Phil had refused what I said?\"
And I thought she was going to

01:14:26.999 --> 01:14:28.998
say, \"Would I have kept up with
him?\" Well, no, she had

01:14:28.999 --> 01:14:31.124
already told you she wouldn\'t.

01:14:31.125 --> 01:14:35.333
But she said, \"Would I have gone
to superiors?\" She raised

01:14:35.334 --> 01:14:36.000
this question.

01:14:36.001 --> 01:14:37.708
\"Would I have tried to stop it?

01:14:37.709 --> 01:14:40.998
Would I have gone to superiors
if he had refused...

01:14:40.999 --> 01:14:43.833
blew the whistle on this, rung
the bell \", and so forth,\" and

01:14:43.834 --> 01:14:44.917
really tried to stop it?\"

01:14:44.918 --> 01:14:47.998
And she said, \"If I didn\'t do
that, it doesn\'t amount to

01:14:47.999 --> 01:14:51.249
anything.\" Now, she\'s the
only psychologist...

01:14:51.250 --> 01:14:53.958
Unless you have it somewhere
in the book I haven\'t read,

01:14:53.959 --> 01:14:55.291
part of the book...

01:14:55.292 --> 01:14:57.917
I read an enormous literature
on the Milgram experiments

01:14:57.918 --> 01:15:03.166
where people did these shocks,
essentially torture of people.

01:15:03.167 --> 01:15:06.708
And as I say, 2/3 of them
went all the way.

01:15:06.709 --> 01:15:09.708
A third refused at some point.

01:15:09.709 --> 01:15:11.082
I\'ve never seen a comment...

01:15:11.083 --> 01:15:14.875
Except this comes the closest
to it by Christine.

01:15:14.876 --> 01:15:16.291
No one has ever commented
on it...

01:15:16.292 --> 01:15:18.166
I mean, a vast literature...

01:15:18.167 --> 01:15:21.998
On the fact that not one person
ever tried to stop the

01:15:21.999 --> 01:15:23.583
experiment.

01:15:23.584 --> 01:15:25.166
Not one person said...

01:15:25.167 --> 01:15:29.082
what they did say is \"I won\'t
go on.\" It\'s like resigning.

01:15:29.083 --> 01:15:32.166
\"I\'m out of the experiment\"...
had no cost for them.

01:15:32.167 --> 01:15:35.708
Not one said, \"I demand to see
the person in the other room.

01:15:35.709 --> 01:15:36.998
Is he dead?

01:15:36.999 --> 01:15:37.999
He\'s been screaming.

01:15:38.000 --> 01:15:40.998
He\'s been hitting the wall.\"
It was an actor.

01:15:40.999 --> 01:15:44.291
\"I want to see what shape he\'s
in.\" And if they wouldn\'t let

01:15:44.292 --> 01:15:47.750
him do that, they said, \"No,
you can\'t do that.\" Not one

01:15:47.751 --> 01:15:49.583
said, \"Who\'s your boss?

01:15:49.584 --> 01:15:50.666
Who\'s running this?

01:15:50.667 --> 01:15:53.750
Who\'s in charge here\", and tried
to get this process of

01:15:53.751 --> 01:15:55.500
torture stopped.

01:15:55.501 --> 01:15:56.875
No one.

01:15:56.876 --> 01:15:58.791
And so she makes that point.

01:15:58.792 --> 01:16:00.416
She\'s the only one.

01:16:00.417 --> 01:16:02.998
And she did say, by the way,
when she saw these people with

01:16:02.999 --> 01:16:05.998
bags over their heads, didn\'t
she say in the book, as I read

01:16:05.999 --> 01:16:08.998
it, \"This is torture, what
you\'re doing to these people\"?

01:16:08.999 --> 01:16:09.792
- Yeah, I think.

01:16:09.793 --> 01:16:13.249
- By the way, I\'m really
struck, this is 1971...

01:16:13.250 --> 01:16:17.999
bags over their head, that\'s
what we do now.

01:16:18.000 --> 01:16:19.082
Where\'d they get that idea?

01:16:19.083 --> 01:16:21.124
- I think they learned
it from us.

01:16:21.125 --> 01:16:24.833
- You invented the bag
over the head?

01:16:24.834 --> 01:16:29.583
- We donated to Abu Ghraib
and Guantanamo.

01:16:29.584 --> 01:16:30.625
- So it was torture.

01:16:30.626 --> 01:16:32.998
It\'s what they do now.

01:16:32.999 --> 01:16:33.459
- Daniel...

01:16:33.459 --> 01:16:33.999
- My wife.

01:16:33.999 --> 01:16:34.709
- Patricia...

01:16:34.710 --> 01:16:36.917
- So the parallel with
your wife...

01:16:36.918 --> 01:16:37.751
- Well, the parallel...

01:16:37.752 --> 01:16:42.666
it\'s quite remarkable, really,
I had started copying the

01:16:42.667 --> 01:16:46.708
Pentagon Papers just before I
got back together with the

01:16:46.709 --> 01:16:48.958
woman who became my wife,
Patricia, who I\'ve been

01:16:48.959 --> 01:16:51.833
married to now for 41 years.

01:16:51.834 --> 01:16:54.500
But we\'d been apart
for three years.

01:16:54.501 --> 01:16:56.998
And we got together just after
I\'d started copying the

01:16:56.999 --> 01:17:00.583
Pentagon Papers, which I did
not tell her because I

01:17:00.584 --> 01:17:02.998
couldn\'t tell anyone, see,
what I was doing.

01:17:02.999 --> 01:17:04.998
I knew I was going to go to
prison for life, and I

01:17:04.999 --> 01:17:06.500
couldn\'t enlist...

01:17:06.501 --> 01:17:08.541
your experience was trying to
get people to go together.

01:17:08.542 --> 01:17:12.458
But when you\'re in a situation
like this, I couldn\'t ask

01:17:12.459 --> 01:17:15.625
anybody to help me who had a
clearance, or who would be

01:17:15.626 --> 01:17:18.333
implicated and go to
prison with me.

01:17:18.334 --> 01:17:19.998
So I couldn\'t tell her.

01:17:19.999 --> 01:17:23.666
And then eventually as
time went on she

01:17:23.667 --> 01:17:24.998
knew what I was doing.

01:17:24.999 --> 01:17:27.500
But I didn\'t let her touch any
of the papers, I didn\'t let

01:17:27.501 --> 01:17:29.541
her get her fingerprints
on any of it.

01:17:29.542 --> 01:17:33.291
And I didn\'t let her read any of
it, so that she wouldn\'t be

01:17:33.292 --> 01:17:36.291
prosecuted with me.

01:17:36.292 --> 01:17:40.583
So that was... we got married in
the middle of 1970, a year

01:17:40.584 --> 01:17:43.998
after I started copying
the papers.

01:17:43.999 --> 01:17:46.208
And months went on.

01:17:46.209 --> 01:17:47.458
Fulbright wasn\'t putting
them out.

01:17:47.459 --> 01:17:49.791
Nobody was putting them
out, and so forth.

01:17:49.792 --> 01:17:52.917
And I hadn\'t yet given them
to the New York Times.

01:17:52.918 --> 01:17:58.041
Well, she said to me once in
\'71, six months after we

01:17:58.042 --> 01:18:00.041
were married...

01:18:00.042 --> 01:18:05.875
And this incident occurred some
six months or so before

01:18:05.876 --> 01:18:07.998
your fiance...

01:18:07.999 --> 01:18:09.917
This is now my wife.

01:18:09.918 --> 01:18:13.374
And so she said, \"How can
you be so sure that

01:18:13.375 --> 01:18:14.292
this is worth doing?

01:18:14.293 --> 01:18:17.583
You\'re talking about going
to prison for life.

01:18:17.584 --> 01:18:19.666
And Fulbright doesn\'t think it\'s

01:18:19.667 --> 01:18:20.998
worthwhile, getting it out.

01:18:20.999 --> 01:18:24.416
Too much risky for him.\"
Senator Mathias

01:18:24.417 --> 01:18:25.833
didn\'t want to do it.

01:18:25.834 --> 01:18:28.998
Senator Gaylord Nelson
didn\'t want to do it.

01:18:28.999 --> 01:18:31.041
\"What makes you sure that
it\'s worth doing?\"

01:18:31.042 --> 01:18:34.958
I said, \"Well, I can\'t be sure,
but I\'m the only one

01:18:34.959 --> 01:18:36.541
who\'s read this stuff.

01:18:36.542 --> 01:18:40.998
I can\'t trust their judgment
because they haven\'t read it.\"

01:18:40.999 --> 01:18:44.082
And I said, you know, \"I think
the time has come when you\'ve

01:18:44.083 --> 01:18:48.208
got to read this after all.\" So
I gave her a bunch of stuff

01:18:48.209 --> 01:18:49.791
from the period when
I\'d been in the

01:18:49.792 --> 01:18:50.998
Pentagon, it so happened.

01:18:50.999 --> 01:18:54.875
This covered a long
period, from \'45,

01:18:54.876 --> 01:18:56.958
really, to \'68, 23 years.

01:18:56.959 --> 01:18:59.833
But I gave her the period when
I was in the Pentagon, which

01:18:59.834 --> 01:19:01.374
was the period when
the planning was

01:19:01.375 --> 01:19:02.667
going on for the bombing.

01:19:06.375 --> 01:19:08.708
The planning was going on, and
then the bombing itself

01:19:08.709 --> 01:19:10.416
actually got started.

01:19:10.417 --> 01:19:11.998
So I gave her that period
to look at.

01:19:11.999 --> 01:19:12.999
- In Vietnam or Laos?

01:19:12.999 --> 01:19:13.417
- In Vietnam.

01:19:13.418 --> 01:19:15.833
This is \'64, \'65.

01:19:15.834 --> 01:19:16.417
- The first bombing.

01:19:16.418 --> 01:19:18.166
- So I gave her that, and she
went into a bedroom, and she

01:19:18.167 --> 01:19:20.583
was reading it.

01:19:20.584 --> 01:19:23.249
And of course, I, it so happens,
had been against the

01:19:23.250 --> 01:19:24.750
bombing from the beginning.

01:19:24.751 --> 01:19:27.833
I thought it was wrong-headed,
would only serve to

01:19:27.834 --> 01:19:28.626
kill a lot of people.

01:19:28.627 --> 01:19:30.124
It would not win the war.

01:19:30.125 --> 01:19:32.416
I was supporting the
war at that point.

01:19:32.417 --> 01:19:32.999
I was part of it.

01:19:33.000 --> 01:19:36.958
But I was against the bombing,
as was my boss.

01:19:36.959 --> 01:19:39.875
But we both were working for
McNamara, and he was for it,

01:19:39.876 --> 01:19:42.875
so we helped it along.

01:19:42.876 --> 01:19:45.998
She reads this stuff,
and she comes out.

01:19:45.999 --> 01:19:47.998
And there were tears
in her eyes.

01:19:47.999 --> 01:19:51.041
And she says, \"Listen
to this\"...

01:19:51.042 --> 01:19:54.917
now, she started reading
parts of it.

01:19:54.918 --> 01:19:55.375
And it said...

01:19:55.375 --> 01:19:56.250
- Reading it aloud?

01:19:56.251 --> 01:19:59.666
- From the top-secret documents
that I\'m giving her,

01:19:59.667 --> 01:20:01.998
stuff that had been across
my desk when I was in the

01:20:01.999 --> 01:20:04.541
Pentagon personally.

01:20:04.542 --> 01:20:08.541
So she says, \'Water drip
technique.\" Does that have a

01:20:08.542 --> 01:20:09.625
little ring?

01:20:09.626 --> 01:20:12.583
That was the idea of we\'ll bomb
them for a while and then

01:20:12.584 --> 01:20:15.249
we\'ll stop and then
we\'ll start again.

01:20:15.250 --> 01:20:17.750
And they said, it\'s like
Chinese water torture.

01:20:17.751 --> 01:20:19.391
That\'s otherwise known
as waterboarding.

01:20:22.209 --> 01:20:24.625
And it\'ll be harder on them,
because stopping and then

01:20:24.626 --> 01:20:28.583
starting again will drive
them nuts and so forth.

01:20:28.584 --> 01:20:32.082
\"Another turn of the screw\",
changing the thing up,

01:20:32.083 --> 01:20:35.791
escalating, another turn of the
screw... ratcheting up the

01:20:35.792 --> 01:20:39.958
violence, causing pain.

01:20:39.959 --> 01:20:47.959
And she said, \"This is the
language of torturers.\" Now, I

01:20:48.375 --> 01:20:51.998
happen to have had a particular
commitment in my

01:20:51.999 --> 01:20:55.416
mind as a Marine officer
that I would never

01:20:55.417 --> 01:20:57.998
be involved in torture.

01:20:57.999 --> 01:20:58.501
Out.

01:20:58.502 --> 01:21:01.708
It was against the law, of
course, but that wasn\'t what

01:21:01.709 --> 01:21:02.626
military men did.

01:21:02.627 --> 01:21:04.998
It was against the code of honor
and so forth and against

01:21:04.999 --> 01:21:06.583
the laws of war.

01:21:06.584 --> 01:21:08.998
Torture, I would never
be part of.

01:21:08.999 --> 01:21:12.291
And I had read this stuff, and
I\'d never thought of it as

01:21:12.292 --> 01:21:15.082
torture of a population,
which it was.

01:21:15.083 --> 01:21:20.998
So to be told that I was
participating in torture was

01:21:20.999 --> 01:21:21.542
particularly...

01:21:21.543 --> 01:21:25.416
- Not a person, a population.

01:21:25.417 --> 01:21:28.666
Probing, problematic,
tortured me you might say.

01:21:28.667 --> 01:21:30.958
And the fact that I had
never noticed it

01:21:30.959 --> 01:21:33.208
before in those terms.

01:21:33.209 --> 01:21:37.249
She was the first woman
to read this stuff.

01:21:37.250 --> 01:21:41.750
Like Christina, she was coming
in not at the beginning, late

01:21:41.751 --> 01:21:42.917
in the thing.

01:21:42.918 --> 01:21:45.333
And I think the gender aspect
is, in fact, quite

01:21:45.334 --> 01:21:46.625
significant.

01:21:46.626 --> 01:21:48.541
And she looked at it.

01:21:48.542 --> 01:21:52.249
Secretaries had typed it, but
no woman had ever read this

01:21:52.250 --> 01:21:54.708
stuff, looked at it.

01:21:54.709 --> 01:21:56.998
And so she saw it
in these terms.

01:21:56.999 --> 01:22:00.583
So what she said was, \"You\'ve
got to do it.

01:22:00.584 --> 01:22:05.917
You\'ve got to put it out.\" Now,
what would I have done if

01:22:05.918 --> 01:22:08.998
she said, like Christina
here, \"You can\'t\"?

01:22:08.999 --> 01:22:10.541
I was married to her now, see.

01:22:10.542 --> 01:22:13.998
Well, in this case,
I was into this.

01:22:13.999 --> 01:22:17.416
I would have said, \"I
have to do it.\"

01:22:17.417 --> 01:22:21.082
And what would she have done
if I had said that?

01:22:21.083 --> 01:22:22.166
I don\'t know.

01:22:22.167 --> 01:22:23.958
Like Christina, I don\'t know.

01:22:23.959 --> 01:22:24.999
What would she have done?

01:22:25.000 --> 01:22:28.583
But we weren\'t tested that way.

01:22:28.584 --> 01:22:32.291
Because she was in at that point
and from then on was

01:22:32.292 --> 01:22:35.333
very involved, got her
fingerprints all over this

01:22:35.334 --> 01:22:37.625
stuff, helping copy it...

01:22:37.626 --> 01:22:39.625
- But that\'s the moral support
you needed at that moment.

01:22:39.626 --> 01:22:43.998
- And so ours was a very rare
case where our marriage was

01:22:43.999 --> 01:22:46.998
strengthened by this process,
and we got through this

01:22:46.999 --> 01:22:48.291
two-year trial.

01:22:48.292 --> 01:22:50.791
Almost no marriages...

01:22:50.792 --> 01:22:53.917
I don\'t know of another one in
the anti-war movement where a

01:22:53.918 --> 01:22:57.458
marriage survived the
prison or the trial.

01:22:57.459 --> 01:22:59.333
The pressures are
just too great.

01:22:59.334 --> 01:23:00.292
And that remains true.

01:23:00.293 --> 01:23:04.541
A whistleblower\'s marriage lasts
statistically about a

01:23:04.542 --> 01:23:07.208
year and a half after
the whistleblowing.

01:23:07.209 --> 01:23:10.958
And I just talked to a
whistleblower, John Kiriakou,

01:23:10.959 --> 01:23:15.500
who\'s looking for 30 months now
rather than 16 years for

01:23:15.501 --> 01:23:19.958
revealing the names
of torturers.

01:23:19.959 --> 01:23:23.998
No one has been prosecuted for
the torture, but he is going

01:23:23.999 --> 01:23:26.998
to prison for revealing the
names of the torturers... like

01:23:26.999 --> 01:23:29.998
Bradley Manning, who revealed
the process of torture.

01:23:29.999 --> 01:23:31.208
- Which tortures?

01:23:31.209 --> 01:23:33.082
- In his case, the
waterboarding.

01:23:33.083 --> 01:23:34.917
He revealed the names of people
who are doing the

01:23:34.918 --> 01:23:35.834
waterboarding.

01:23:35.835 --> 01:23:38.998
And I asked him, because
of this, how is this...

01:23:38.999 --> 01:23:39.918
- In Iraq?

01:23:39.918 --> 01:23:40.083
- What?

01:23:40.083 --> 01:23:40.751
- In Iraq?

01:23:40.752 --> 01:23:42.583
- In Iraq.

01:23:42.584 --> 01:23:44.833
Well, it was down here.

01:23:44.834 --> 01:23:48.291
And I asked him, \"How is your
marriage surviving?\" He said,

01:23:48.292 --> 01:23:52.541
\"Totally supportive.\" I said,
\"I know you appreciate that

01:23:52.542 --> 01:23:56.998
with your wife, but I doubt if
you know how statistically

01:23:56.999 --> 01:24:00.291
lucky you are that she was
totally supportive in this

01:24:00.292 --> 01:24:04.416
process\", because he\'s the
only one I\'ve heard whose

01:24:04.417 --> 01:24:05.375
marriage...

01:24:05.376 --> 01:24:06.917
except for me.

01:24:06.918 --> 01:24:09.333
So that\'s a little...

01:24:09.334 --> 01:24:11.998
Getting the spouse, and some of
these people are women...

01:24:11.999 --> 01:24:14.833
Getting the spouse involved so
they don\'t think it\'s been

01:24:14.834 --> 01:24:18.208
sprung on them at the last
moment, that they didn\'t ask

01:24:18.209 --> 01:24:20.998
for, is very helpful.

01:24:20.999 --> 01:24:23.998
But that\'s one of the costs
that you have to face.

01:24:23.999 --> 01:24:29.875
And it means it\'s not worth
doing it if the evil you\'re

01:24:29.876 --> 01:24:31.708
trying to prevent
or the wrong...

01:24:31.709 --> 01:24:33.998
It\'s not very important.

01:24:33.999 --> 01:24:37.998
If it\'s a matter of money of
embezzlement or cost overruns

01:24:37.999 --> 01:24:39.833
or something like that...

01:24:39.834 --> 01:24:42.500
As you say, some people get
some money back from that.

01:24:42.501 --> 01:24:45.998
But just to reveal
minor things...

01:24:45.999 --> 01:24:46.667
- It\'s not worth your marriage.

01:24:46.668 --> 01:24:49.750
It wouldn\'t be worth doing,
because the price

01:24:49.751 --> 01:24:51.416
can be just as high.

01:24:51.417 --> 01:24:55.998
But there are stakes for which
it\'s worth risking.

01:24:55.999 --> 01:24:58.291
Of course, obviously, when
you think of it.

01:24:58.292 --> 01:25:04.998
So I think your project, with
the ability to tell people

01:25:04.999 --> 01:25:07.166
there are examples of people
who have done this, it\'s

01:25:07.167 --> 01:25:10.541
something you can do,
ordinary people.

01:25:10.542 --> 01:25:12.541
It can be done.

01:25:12.542 --> 01:25:15.998
The stakes can be very, very
high... worth doing.

01:25:15.999 --> 01:25:18.291
Humanity, I\'m saying, actually,
the nuclear and the

01:25:18.292 --> 01:25:21.750
climate change are both two
subjects that were never

01:25:21.751 --> 01:25:24.998
mentioned in the Presidential
debates we\'ve just

01:25:24.999 --> 01:25:25.918
gone through...

01:25:25.919 --> 01:25:30.876
The fate of humanity from
nuclear war or climate change.

01:25:33.501 --> 01:25:35.708
The stakes can be very high.

01:25:35.709 --> 01:25:37.208
It can make a difference.

01:25:37.209 --> 01:25:41.750
It can work when you bring this
out, because those are

01:25:41.751 --> 01:25:44.998
things that you just don\'t
ordinarily hear.

01:25:44.999 --> 01:25:48.833
And if you do, it changes
your life.

01:25:48.834 --> 01:25:51.541
- Dan Ellsberg, Phil Zimbardo,
thank you for

01:25:51.542 --> 01:25:53.458
sharing this evening.

01:25:53.459 --> 01:26:01.459
(APPLAUSE)