The Changing Threat of Terrorism & John Tibbetts

the terrorist threat to the united states is changing and so is the way we're fighting it i'm kate mcintyre and today on k pr presents jay johnson secretary of the us department of homeland security later this hour we'll also visit with kansas poet laureate derek mchenry and finally we'll hear about a new book that takes us behind the scenes of movies through the ages it's those that made it speaking with the legends of hollywood first jay johnson spoke a kansas state university on may twenty seven two thousand fifteen as part of this year is landon lecture series johnson is the fourth secretary of homeland security a position he has held since december two thousand thirteen his case stayed appearance coincided with a groundbreaking ceremony for and that the national bio and agro defense consulting his lecture was originally broadcast on kansas public radio

and made thirty first two thousand fifteen minute for the seat that was a really warm welcome i am impressed that you're a kansas state after the school year is out on a wednesday morning at ten o'clock you're able to fill this auditorium that's really remarkable thank you for the one limitation to be here ma'am i do want to acknowledge the distinguished visitor is a distinguished public officials here are most well senator pat roberts who has been a stalwart champion for the state of kansas and for national security and homeland security thank you for your service i also acknowledge the members of the united states army who are here from fort riley in other places i was chatting with a few of them for our marks are today members of the army

please stand and the armed forces please don't recommend it i'm proud of the fact that in the department of homeland security we've got so many have veterans of our armed forces two of whom are with me here today they are two of my public affairs officers retired lieutenant colonel tenure rancher and retired lieutenant colonel todd brazil please stand the piece of the pill i don't talk a little bit about how our daughters dressed in blue jeans that there is life after the united states army and civilian clothes daughters dressed in blue jeans the reason he was dressed in blue jeans today is because

he has a really nice suit that is somewhere in checked luggage which we'll hear again to say how he would want you to know that again thank you for the invitation to be here i am truly impressed with the list of those who preceded me in this lecture series to include presidents carter and reagan both presidents bush vice president mondale tom donilon nelson rockefeller i just finished reading richard norton smith spoke about nelson rockefeller my former boss and kansans are picture of defense bob gates colin powell lesley stahl bob dole barber ted kennedy pat moynihan and barry goldwater and shirley temple and often when i'm a ghetto story senator roberts to appreciate the story nineteen seventy eight i was a summer intern for the united states senate i was twenty years old

are rising senior in college i was working for senator daniel patrick moynihan my senator from new york and one day i was with his driver in the dirksen senate office building during the summer of nine i'm seventy eight and his driver said to me jay let's take a ride on the senators only older they're gone they're not around their recess and i said are you sure yes i'm positive they are gone when he is nowhere near so we walked into the elevator pushed the button and standing there the door is open and astronomy is barry goldwater nose to nose with barry goldwater i swear goodness he looked straight at me without batting and i answered hello senator just a ha anyways enough for me to join this long distinguished list the past lecturers

here i believe and the first director of homeland security to do so four by congress in two thousand to in the wake of nine eleven point one of homeland security is the third largest port for the united states government has a total annual spending authority of about sixty billion two and twenty five thousand people and twenty two components i find it interesting in my introductions around the country people find it more remarkable that it has to leave ten thousand lawyers as opposed to a twenty five thousand people now our responsibilities include counterterrorism border security port security aviation security maritime security cyber security the administration and enforcement of our immigration laws the detection of nuclear chemical and biological threats to our homeland the protection of our critical infrastructure protection of our national leaders in the response to natural disasters such as floods tornadoes hurricanes and earthquakes

dhs includes within a customs and border protection immigration and customs enforcement citizenship and immigration services tsa femur the federal protective service the secret service federal law enforcement training center and the united states coast guard in about two hours i will participate as you heard in the groundbreaking ceremony here for national bio and agro defense facility which will protect our nation's food supply and public health we have many missions in department of homeland security but they all fall within our broader over arching mission the protection of our homeland in my view counterterrorism must remain the cornerstone of our department's overall homeland security mission it's the reason the department was created by congress in the wake of nine eleven also i'm a new yorker and i was present on manhattan island on september eleven which happens to also be my birthday

i am therefore an eyewitness to an act of terrorism that can shatter a beautiful an ordinary workday in an instant and cause what was up till then unimaginable horror and tragedy out of that day the department of homeland security was born and my personal commitment to the mission of homeland security was born today almost fourteen years after nine eleven is still a dangerous world and there is a new reality to the global terrorist threat i like to discuss that new reality today and what we are doing about it not that long ago the terrorist threat to the united states from al qaeda was trained and directed overseas and exporting to our homeland the nine eleven hijackers were acting on orders from ohio those external operations chief

collegiate bombing who was interned carrying out the direction of osama bin laden likewise the attempted shoe bomber in december two thousand won the attempted underwear bomber in december two thousand nine the attempted times square car bombing in may two thousand ten and the attempted package bomb plot in october two thousand ten were all efforts to export terrorism to the united states and they all appear to have been directed by a terrorist organization overseas the response to these types of attacks and attempted attacks on when was and is to take the fight directly to the terrorist organizations at locations overseas and as a result of these operations many of the leaders of al qaeda are now dead or cap for osama bin ladin is that and we're locking one of the leaders of archive in the arabian peninsula is that a lead shaikh mohammad awaits trial before a military commission but

the new reality is that the global terrorist threat is more de centralized more complex and in many respects harder to detect the new reality involved a potential for smaller scale attacks by those who were either homegrown or home based not exporting and you are inspired by not necessarily directed by a terrorist organization today is no longer necessary for terrorist organizations to personally recruit train and direct operatives overseas and in secret and export them to the us to commit a terrorist attack today with new and skilled use of the internet terrorist organizations made publicly recruit and inspire individuals to conduct attacks within their own moments oh cried in the arabian peninsula and no longer build bombs in secret it publicize its instruction manual in its magazine and publicly

urges people to use it today we're also concerned about the so called foreign fighter those who were answering public calls to leave their home countries in europe and elsewhere to travel to iraq and syria and take up each famous fight there many of these individuals will seek to return to their own countries with the same extremist motive recent wave of terrorist attacks an attempted attacks here and in europe reflect this new reality the boston marathon bombing in april two thousand thirteen the attack on the war memorial and the parliament building in ottawa in october twenty fourteen the attack on the charlie had their headquarters in paris in january twenty fifteen and the attempted terrorist attack in karnes city texas in may two thousand fifteen what do these recent wave of attacks and attempted attacks have in common they were all conducted by homegrown or home based actors

and they all appear to have been inspired but not directed solely we doing about it first we continue to take the fight to terrorist organizations overseas eisele is the terrorist organization most prominent on the world stage now since last summer september are airstrikes and special operations have in fact led to the death of a number of isis leaders as president obama indicated the other day though there are tactical setbacks from time to time we know that through sustain continued support of the iraqi government and its security forces and with the international coalition we will degrade and ultimately destroy isis we also continue counterterrorism operations operations against al qaeda targets in yemen and elsewhere we will continue to hunt for and take the fight directly to the terrorist organizations who threaten the united states

at the places where they hide where they plan and where they train our intelligence community particularly since nine eleven will continue to detect terrorist plots overseas at the earliest stages much of the terrorist threat continues to evolve around aviation security we continuously about a way to modify and enhance our aviation security measures just a one step ahead of what we believe the bad guys maybe plotting last summer for example i directed enhanced screening at select overseas airports with direct flights to the united states' weeks later we had at other airports the united states united kingdom rather and other countries followed suit with similar enhancements in january yes they also increased random searches of passengers and carry on luggage at us airports last month i directed enhancements the clothes certain vulnerabilities

in airport security around the nation we're building more quickly or its operations at four airports would direct flights in the united states this means deploying our customs officials overseas to screen passengers bound for the us at the front man oh a flight before they arrive in the united states we now have fifty pre clearance operations and we're building more the most recent pre clearance operation was set up early last year in abu dhabi since that time in our dhabi allow we have already strained more than five hundred thousand passengers and crew bound for the united states and have denied boarding to seven hundred and eighty five individuals including a member or were found in the terror screening database since nine eleven the department of homeland security has become much more sophisticated at identifying individuals of suspicion who seek to travel to the united states we continue to strike in these systems

with our own law enforcement and intelligence community and with our friends and allies overseas at present there are thirty eight countries which we do not require a visa from its tourists travelers who seek to come to the united states are visa waiver program is a valuable tool for international commerce and trouble it must continue in a secure manner we have determined that there are security enhancements that can be made to that program last year dhs added more data appeals to the electronic system for travel authorization known is asked to learn more keyed by rapid information about travelers from visa waiver countries before they board an aircraft down for the united states already we have seen that these changes are providing added benefits to our security we have identified a number of other security enhancements i can be made to the visa waiver program which i expect to announce

soon the goal is to know more about those who traveled to the united states and to conduct even more effective security screening we are encouraging countries in the visa waiver program to engage in more effective security and law enforcement cooperation with the united states' dhs is sharing our aviation screening expertise with our allies to help them identify a list of travel while also protecting the privacy and civil liberties of all travelers two days from now i will represent the united states and unprecedented session of the united nations security council along with my foreign counterparts were presented on the security council to discuss the problem of foreign fighters we will track progress since the passage a un security council resolution twenty one seventy eight one foreign fighters last september and in general discuss how we can do

a better job individually and collectively to track and prevent foreign fighters the fbi continues to identify investigate interdict and health department of justice prosecution attempted terrorist plots to the homeland with the help of dhs the fbi has also made a number of arrests of those who weren't attempts to become foreign fighters before they can get on an airplane and leave our country in reaction to terrorist groups public calls for attacks on government installations in the west and following the attack last fall i directed that our federal protective service and hence its security and presence of federal office buildings around the country is enhanced security remains in place in reaction to terrorist public calls for attacks on us military installations a personnel department of defense has enhanced its security at bases in the united states

given the new reality of the global terrorist threat which involves the potential for small scale homegrown attacks by those who can strike with little or no notice we are working in closer collaboration with state and local law enforcement given the nature of the evolving threat the local cop on the beat may actually be the first to detect a terrorist attack on the homeland so as often as several times a week the department of homeland security and the fbi shared terrorist threat information and intelligence with joint terrorism task forces state fusion centers and local police chiefs and shirts several weeks ago fbi director called me and i personally participated in a conference call with over one thousand officers officials of federal state and local law enforcement to personally communicate what we are seeing with the uk the idea just routinely prepares and releases written joint intelligence bulletins or

jets that's yet to inform state and local more question about potential threats to the homeland part of the attempted attack although we issued a joke about the rest of an attack there given the nature of the exhibit fortunately federal and local law enforcement where they're alert and prepare last september dhs released a guy got retail businesses identify suspicious suspicious purchases of explosive precursors we're promoting mobile phone applications to support local law enforcement and first responders are dhs office of infrastructure protection together what the fbi and the national counterterrorism center are engaged in a multi city campaign with commercial businesses to review would enhance their security plans next given the appalling nature of the homegrown terrorist threat

it and other government officials have engaged in community outreach to counter violent extremism here at home in my view this is indispensable to our homeland security efforts we must reach communities that themselves have the ability to reach those individuals who may succumb to this like internet appeal of my soul and turned to violence so in two thousand fourteen alone dhs held over seventy meetings round tables and other events in fourteen cities i personally participate in these big meetings since becoming secretary i've met with community leaders in chicago columnist minneapolis los angeles boston new york in brooklyn in a few weeks on traveled to houston for the same purpose the new reality is that our homeland security efforts must involve the public at large to in government were often afraid

to ask the public for help but we do need your help at the super bowl earlier this year we re fashioned art if you see something say something campaign with a new look this must be more but a slogan we also the bill of congress we need a partner in congress three months ago actually it was counterproductive and are necessary for the congress to bring the two in twenty five thousand person department of homeland security to the brink of government shutdown we're failing to enact locally or corporation for homeland security until five months into the fiscal year it is alarming and i'm sure senator roberts would agree with me that just for half days from now the legal authorization for activities critical to national security law enforcement and public

safety will expire and congress has failed to enact anything in its place on may thirteenth the house passed the usa freedom act by a strong bipartisan margin of three thirty eight eighty eight the usa freedom act is a good bill it strikes the right balance between civil liberties and national security and it prohibits the controversial practice a bulk data collection and maintains authorities for more targeted collection activities but the senators failed to pass this reasonable compromise or any other legislation in place of the authorities that are about to expire at midnight on sunday the senate i hope will act soon doing nothing is unsure senator roberts would agree with me is not a responsible option finally it is distressing that congress has failed to repeal sea quest ration four years ago both republicans and democrats that they could force compromise on taxes

and spending by threatening themselves with a draconian slash and burn one point two trillion spending cuts that would automatically kick in over a decade if congress failed to act but congress failed to act and sea quest ration became the budget law of the land in two thousand eleven and twenty thirteen the murray ryan budget deal gave us a reprieve from sequestration for two years but it is scheduled to return again at the end of this fiscal year unless congress acts to repeal it and leslie west ration is repealed homeland security funding will return to its lowest level adjusted for inflation in a decade sea quest ration is not smarter government but budget making sea quest ration was meant to be draconian and so ugly that congress would do the right thing to prevent it the department of homeland security's proposed budget for fiscal year twenty sixteen

it's forty one point two billion which is one point five billion more than our current appropriation this is a good budget request which has been well received by members of congress on both sides of the aisle seat restoration would cut the department's spending power by nearly one point nine billion and could force department to cut frontline personnel technology grants to state and local governments and infrastructure investment sequester issue would mean holding our investment in new border security surveillance and equipment sequester asian could mean that the secret service will lose two hundred and thirty six million or twelve percent of its budget at a time when it needs to upgrade security at the whitehouse hire more agents and protect the twenty sixteen candidates for president sequester issue could mean that came up will see its pre disaster mitigation grants reduce by one hundred and seventy five million and eighty eight percent decrease

decreased to the program this is money used to support faster recovery time from disasters and build more debate and build more levee strength and weapons boardwalks hospitals and schools plain and simple sea quest ration weakens our homeland security and it makes no sense like president obama many of our democratic and republican congressional leaders are urging congress to repeal sequestration one last point which i repeat often we know that in a free society homeland security means striking a balance a balance between basic physical security and our values as a nation of people who enjoy the freedom to travel and associates church privacy celebrate our diversity and are not afraid

of terrorism cannot prevail if people refuse to be terrorized in the final analysis these are the things that constitute our greatest homeland security and our greatest strength as a nation thank you for listening to me you just heard jay johnson secretary of the department of homeland security secretary johnson now take a few questions from the audience a kansas state university thank you mr johnson for coming kansas state university in giving such an inspiring talk mine inspector paul i'm in the physics department hear a case they as you clearly understand the fight against terrorism and the security of the of the united states is more a more technological every year in and i'm sure the d the technology savvy folks and dhs are among the best in the world my question concern or is right there are the secretary of science and technology

that might have as i say the brains of the outfit that my question though concerns the many analysts you have who now standing analyst you have but who's training is not in technology i mean the folks who have degrees in specialties in political science and economics and sociology it's either that or so invaluable to us as analysts do you are they getting any kind of background information some technology training up just computers but the whole breadth of things in terms of technology training that is something like this available to these folks these outstanding that analysts who could maybe do even more if they were aware and understood some of the technology going on well speaking just in terms of within our homeland security community one of the brothers jobs is to make sure that our

personnel have available to them and are trained in the latest best science and technology are in general we are moving toward what we refer to as a risk based strategy to homeland security the most prominent example i love a risky strategy to homeland security is what you see every time you go to an airport and those of you who are signed up for tsa pre check i mean you're signed up for tsa pre check in as rob ok tsa pre check is a process by which he submitted to a background check you get any know something about you before you get on the plane before you get to the airport and then you get to go to the shorter lines so it enables us to focus our technology and resources on the larger population of people that we know less about that the airports and they're screened appropriately similar approach with border security our land

borders through the advances in science and technology surveillance equipment we are able to detect with eric the migration patterns are occurring and they do occur and they do have and flow and they do very often concentrated particular area is on the southern border in particular and so we're able to focus our resources on that are and that is considered a risk based approach which involve remote show the latest and best science and technology arm my predecessor used to say i can build a fifteen foot wall across the entire border but somebody will and build a sixteen foot ladder so through science and technology were able to focus our efforts where we see the threat resides and that's that's the direction we were moving yes sir good morning i am a petty

from saudi arabia donation put the science and economics to test the university arm well first of all thank you and for thank you for a the faces the people before you and your position for making all the progress i'm an end and homeland security ten years ago came to the united states those stuff for ten hours when i was drawn into the us from new york and today would take me listen in our home so thank you for that second of all i've been reading an album called and then there's an image in the aftermath of events off of the horrible tragic nine eleven event and then two thousand six a russian kgb former kgb fs be spying and london was killed by the russian us agency because he revealed a day secret information and i don't know how that plays into effect the relationship

between the united states and russia and today's place how does this changed the relationship or the intelligence that we have about the fight and about russia iran and those are complicated issues well let me answer the major question a swaying palm as i indicated in my prepared remarks it is becoming a more complicated world and the terrorist threat is becoming more decent was in my judgment our intelligence community has come a long way in its ability to design the gated detect terrorist plotting to our homeland from overseas we believe we have come a long way in that regard in connecting the law so to speak one of the challenges that we face is and i've said this before

this is not new coming from me is the challenge of the demands of the marketplace in general for more and more encryption and our communications deeper and deeper and corruption and how the average honest citizen communicates us demand of the marketplace we want more cybersecurity the problem with that is that it is also making it harder to detect crime and it's making it harder to detect potential terrorists planning and so i am the fbi director and others have been we've been trying to broach the subject yeah i'm in silicon valley with people in the internet world say you know you respond to the demands of the marketplace that's good ah but we need some sort of

appropriate balanced solution that also enables law enforcement national security to better detect and communications involve a crime that involve potential terrorist activity in this is not just a federal government issue i hear a lot from state and local law enforcement from district attorneys about the problems they are having with more and more encryption any community any crime that involves a communication requires the ability to monitor that communication in the appropriate circumstances when there is cause to believe that it reflects criminal activity and so that is a new dynamic also to this situation we we face in homeland security now and i'm hoping that working with people in the private sector we can find the appropriate balance solution that takes account of privacy civil

liberties of our citizens the cybersecurity of american businesses but also takes account of the law enforcement national security homeland security needs as mr mourning thank you good morning news jim weill and that you i'm not a question about what you just referenced there and you spoke a lot about the balance between the freedom and civil liberties as well as security and in your response the first question us and this is our border which is kind of pursell relevance to me just a product of the wireless department here kansas state and so there's also seemed to be a humanitarian ethical balance as well the question for use as a leader of the dhs are there guiding principles or is there one guiding principle the years to determine the right balance it's a question on one of the i still love based workman former defense least to be the general counsel for the parma

defense for years and one thing that is different about dhs that is unique to dhs i believe we have an office of civil rights civil liberties and we have an office of privacy of reports directly to me that an end those two senior officials very much eye to see that my table when we talk about homeland security national security issues to ensure that i and others are getting that perspective really consider robin hanson let's say to aviation security or or border security or homeland security in general and very often when we see the latest piece of intelligence of the latest threat stream the first reaction is likely to overreact so we've got a we've got to shut that down we've got a we've got a screen everybody for everything

and i want to tell audiences that i could achieve a perfectly safe commercial air flight but nobody be wearing any clothes have any food nobody that i get to go to the bathroom i you'd say shrapnel your seat and have a perfectly safe flight but i don't think many of you in this room would want would want experience the white night and from here to here to kansas city and so that's what i mean when i say homeland security is about psychic build a perfectly safe city but it's going to be a prison and so we have to balance aviation security homeland security for security with the things that in a free democratic society are people cherish and enjoy that make our country great and so that means the freedom to travel the freedom to associate

privacy free speech and other things and i don't want to be the homeland security official that presides over a country where everyone become suspicious of everybody else where everyone become suspicious suspicious of people don't look like them who are of a different religion half of a different skin color and that's not we are as americans and so i think it is not an accident that the year after the boston marathon bombing the number of runners who signed up one from twenty seven thousand to thirty six thousand more people signed up for the race the year after the bombing because we as americans would demonstrate that we're not afraid we're not been running high from things like this and so i've i want to preserve and

encourage that type of thing as much as possible in our in our country i really meant it when i said that terrorism cannot prevail if the people refuse to be terrorized and that's who we are in this country and i think that is part and parcel of our homeland security so thank you ever ever and much they keep listening to me i really awkward shimmy up to become kansas state and to speak you will jay johnson is secretary of the us department of homeland security johnson gave the landon lecture at kansas state university on may twenty seven two thousand fifteen just before the groundbreaking ceremony and bath the national bio and agro defense facility i'm kay mcintyre you're listening to k pr prisons and kansas public radio this year gehrke mchenry became the fifth poet laureate of

kansas he teaches english at washburn university in topeka he stopped by the akp our studios shortly after his appointment earlier this year i like definitions of poetry like wu jordan's definition memorable speech or samuel taylor coleridge is the best words in their best order if you just think about poetry his speeches communication and you can broaden your definition of poetry to include wonderful song lyrics that you love and every student beginning poetry and loves a song where it whether or not they know much poetry great line of dialogue from a movie a great joke jokes are terrific palms in their own right there a concise they are the best words and their best order for this city residents iran's there's a rhythm to the moment a kind of structure that softened somewhat musical they are the concerns of the joke teller are similar to the concerns of the poet you wanna take the most interesting were to make that the last word in the line quite often

so getting stevens i guessed expand their notion of poetry talking about the poetry that present in hip hop lyrics are in a really great country song by hank williams or are the poetry in its present him really sharply written a screenplay from a movie that they love talking more broadly about the buzzwords in their best order opens up conversations about poetry and then we can go from there do you have favorite type of poet tree structure of good question and i'm drawn again and to palms in traditional forms or what's sometimes called formal poetry although i think of the word on them because i think all poetry as formal it's just a matter of each pole vaulting its own form but i'm thinking specifically of meter and rhyme i don't know that madrigal i'm writing poetry is my favorite poem poetry to read always but the polls that i'm most

wish i had written or often madrigal and rhyming and so that's the type of writing that i tend to do but some of my very favorite poems on our in what's often called free verse or in a much more open forum or establish a different kind of music that's not so unethically regular difference or later committee chair reed upon for me assure a woman sure absolutely immediately two things one that a recently thing about poems that i wish i had written as a poem by yates and william butler yates called the song of wandering angus and other i was re reading it and i'd been reading it for years and just admiring it and editing it and really wishing that i were the author of the night and i think it well you know it's written in a version of english idiomatic english thats a different from line reads poems over a hundred years old now and a sense i could write that poem again at it go ahead and write it in my own language but

barring a lot of elements from the original structure and things like that and so all sort of with yeats poem this is the song of wondering angus i went out to his old wood because a fire was in my head and cut and peeled or his old wallander and hope to marry to a friend and when white moths were on the wing and loft like stars were flickering out i dropped the berry in a string him and caught a little silver crowd when i had laid it on the floor i went to blow the fire of flame but something rustled on the floor and someone called me by my name it had become a glimmering girl with apple blossom in her hair who called me by my name and ran and faded through the brightening air though i am old was wondering threw hollow lands

and hilly lands i will find out where she has gone and kiss your lips and take her hands and walk among long dappled grass and pluck till time and times are done the silver apples of the moon the golden apples of the sun so i wrote this poem the song of stationery made from i went out to the maple tree because our riot was in his head and flung a freeze be at the noise but brought a starling down instead and laid it in a shoe box nest and put some twigs and skittles in and struggled up and set it back where i imagined it had been as i was shining down i felt a skittle windfall my head a skinny girl in red capri's was

pelting me with green and red she swung her legs and left my name then disappeared into the crown i followed her until the swaying unbroken sunlight brought me down though i'm old with waiting here and she has grown up and away all watch the tossing of those bows and catcher silhouette sunday and we'll walk lightly up the bows and gather in eternal june the nola wafers of the psalm the necco wafers of the moon that's ruffling thank you thank you i don't know the miners flattered by the parallel or buy the comparison but i was out somewhere william butler yeats is gratified that as bomb was so moving that it moved someone to vote regular meditation and again that's kansas poet laureate eric mchenry his latest book of poetry is called mommy daddy have in st for a

list of upcoming poet laureate events go to kansas humanities dot org for the rest of this hour we'll visit with journalist author an associate professor of film studies at the university of kansas john tibbets he's been interviewing film stars and directors for four decades his latest book takes us behind the scenes of the golden age of filmmaking it's called those that made it speaking with the legends of hollywood well first of all as editor of the journal called american classics screen and as a reporter for cbs television i had many opportunities to meet lots of people in hollywood in other places to make great movies past and present so some of these interviews go clear back to the mid nineteen seventies and up closer to the press and going that far back into the miss saigon i interviewed a man well this guy was one of the original sound engineers for the jazz singer that's

a nineteen twenty seven movie she was just a teenager grappling with this new technology called the talking picture i was just enough at a time when our sound engineer was a brand new field so his name was bernard be brown he probably is better known to film buffs today is the man who did all of the sound recordings for the deanna durban musicals of the nineteen thirties and all of the sherlock holmes movies and the horror movies of universal in the thirties and forties but he got his start at warner brothers working on the jazz singer to talk with jim was a little bit like contacting got the past i mean and a glorious past to set period of the talking picture from twenty seven to thirty is amazing a whole industry was retooling overnight and in the movies like jazz singer you can truly see an art form come into being so bernie talked a lot about what they had to deal with with the microphones and the sound on a

disk technologies that they were using basically large lp record that would record the sound well the image was being shot a very cumbersome very awkward process to work with but because of the jazz singer in nineteen twenty seven and because of his work on it within three years the technology of the talking picture was full blown and we are with it today and then if i start in nineteen seventy six with bernard brown and jazz singer i realized i'm constructing this book of interviews that i could basically follow the course of hollywood history by means of a selection of these interviews i'd done so i interviewed a camera man by the name of glen mac williams got his start shooting films for douglas fir banks in the teens and ended up shooting films for alfred hitchcock in the forties on into the television days so there without another chapter in hollywood history and then i just juggle another memo ollie johnston who i met in hollywood like many of these folks who was one of the original animating producers for

walt disney and ollie johnston was one of a group called the nine old men they were waltz trusted animation directors producers and so to hear ali talk about work and snow white a nineteen thirty seven and eight saw an hour into the thirties and on beyond with all the films that you worked on fantasia pinocchio the peter pan in it fifty three it was a voice speaking of the past that was a living past for him little anecdote they're in his wastebasket by his desk were a number of drawings that he had thrown away and greed early on with the phillies say you got it can i have one of those are he says john my hand is trembling badly today i'd i'd rather not wait till maybe i have more steadiness of my hand and i thought awful of course two weeks later in the mail framed comes a drawing he didn't mickey mouse

with an inscription on it to me and on that cried when i saw it it's now one of my most treasured possessions so there we are with disney in the animated feature film and then the film and talk about today my film history class hollywood a war in the forties are the most famous bomber of the nineteen forties was the memphis belle a b seventeen bomber subject of a classic documentary by william wyler of that name meant a spell and it's a portrait of the airplane end of the crew that flew it for twenty five missions it came home a patriotic two are the first bomber to successfully complete it's run or there i am in memphis with an opportunity to interview the people who were in that documentary who flew the b seventeen bomber the memphis belle what a hoot to talk to the swashbuckling captains of the clouds and if i seem to be romanticizing it so be it these guys were a legend and so in approaching them out on

the airstrip where the memphis belle is up on blocks the original plane i saw a gentleman coming towards me who i recognized from the documentary in nineteen forty four a waist gunner named bill when show who when the airplane landed after its last mission leaned out the window and with his arm described spiral circling motion meaning he had downed a german plane i came up to him i did the same motion instead of shaking hands and you should have heard the burst of excitement from him as we then shook hands and i interviewed himself their interviews in my boat those who made it with people who flew the memphis belle and you meet in that documentary film and there's a whole story about these empty bombers a war were to and i just thought it would be a great topic for a lecture in a class instead of people shooting each other up show a team of flying a b seventeen bomber what that was all about and then related to the real life bomber the memphis belle so that case is in the

forties and then producer john houseman who worked with orson welles all throughout the thirties on war of the worlds and the voodoo macbeth than citizen kane later interviewing john houseman that goes clear back to about nineteen eighty two eighty three was another experience with a legend to hear him talk about orson welles and about the other work that you've done of course a lot of people know him now from the paper chase also in the forties then ray bradbury writer whose scripts for movies like it came from outer space ushered in the science fiction boom of the late forties into the fifties so talking with ray about those films brings us up into the television years and then i'm interviewing one of the greats live performers of early fifties children's television buffalo bob this was down a noun olds downtown right here in kansas city at an expo

he appeared and there he was with claribel and with howdy doody and soul how he didn't talk much just awful bob so the interview with him was fascinating because live television in the early fifties was like early sound films in the late twenties it was a mad scramble to try and put together a new technology and entertainment medium and then reach into the households of an america gearing up to buy television sets and to present the howdy doody show so buffalo bob was a true pioneer of early tv and then from there you get into the sixties seventies and eighties of interviews with people like steven spielberg on the color purple jim henson on a film called labyrinth and robert altman iran is still in kansas city which he shot right here and so forth and so i even interviewed a stunt man maybe one of the highlights of the experience and i hope of the book for readers his name was richard farnes were rigid farnsworth

had made a name for himself in the fifties and sixties as one of hollywood's great stunt men working on films for howard hawks john ford and others whether was busting horses falling off cliffs or believe it or not taking arrows into a chest protector in a movie like in robin hood people would shoot arrows and richer while and then on the other hand sometimes he'd be the one shooting arrows at another stat man real arrows while you trust the aim fight has barred sport what do you think about as you prepare for a shot there's an archer off camera amy a bolero actually a year says three says while job i think about it i feel like maybe from not quite ready for this all just walk away every day you can kind of weights matter of fact you know just another day at the office and he made a movie i'm recommending to all my friends and enemies both a movie called of the gray fox never seen it from the late eighties and it was a new career for this

now aging gentleman bristling white mustache retired bank robber just out of prison and now robbing trains and the great fox was a great hit it was shot in canada and he portrays this retired bank robber coming out of retirement now facing a new challenge of robbing trains its based on a real character sounds a long way teaching film doing lots of interviews writing books you're also an artist and you've brought along an item for sort of show and tell today it's come in handy for me over the years because from the get go i've done portraits of the people i interview and so these portraits have been signed over the years i've hundreds of them many of which were on display the kansas city public library last year literally a hundred of them or has another one i brought in today for your dining and dancing pleasure this is christopher reeve as superman had a chest interviewed him a number of times while he was making the superman movie is what a dear man he was and so i have in here of the bs on the chess an american flag

behind him and a nice sprawling signature underneath it brings back the wonderful memories of a very gallant gentleman who on the one hand to talk about glider pilot flying and on the other could talk about the importance of the superman character for his audiences i had half expected chris to be kind of cynical or even sarcastic about playing the spike on superman now he was quite serious superman as a friend he's the friend we'll need to have a mom he was not injured but chris was not interested in the muscles or even the flying so much as i'm portraying a character who you could trust as a friend and it's very moving to hear him talk about all this of course it wasn't so much later that he suffered that awful riding accident that paralyzed him so this was a moment like all of my autograph paintings are that has its own special memories for me and i hope fine for

viewers to remember chris riva superman still the best we've had in that role absolutely john tibbets is the author of those who made it speaking with the legends of hollywood john thank you so much for coming in today and pleasure thank you for joining me today forty pierre presents i'm kay met entire kbr prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas