HOUR ONE
- Retired Marine General James L. Jones is the new National Security Advisor. Mac Destler is here to discuss the history and responsibilities of the job. Destler is a professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and the author of numerous books on American foreign policy. His newest is In the Shadow of the Oval Office.
- In February 2003, a plane crashed in the mountainous jungle of southern Colombia. Among others aboard the plane were three American contractors working to gather counter-narcotic intelligence for the US Department of Defense. Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Tom Howes were captured by the FARC (the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), leftist guerillas who have led a rebellion in Colombia since the 1960s. The three men are now free after being held hostage for more than five years. They’ve co-written a new book called Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle that tells their story.
HOUR TWO
- Most people have no idea that New York City has its own spy agency with twice as many Arabic speakers as the FBI. Christopher Dickey has covered international terrorism for more than twenty-five years and writes about the NYPD’s counterterrorism force in Securing the City.
- Joel Berger was stealthily watching one morning as a pack of wolves approached a herd of elk at Yellowstone National Park. The elk had enjoyed 60 years of predator-free living at the park, but in 1995 wolves were controversially reintroduced. What Berger discovered was that those six decades was enough time for the elk to totally loose their fear of their natural predator. Dr. Berger studies animal behavior for the Wildlife Conservation Society and based on his extensive field research, he’s written a book called The Better to Eat You With: Fear in the Animal World.
- As a struggling Hollywood actor, Chazz Palminteri wrote himself a good part. “A Bronx Tale” is based on his life — growing up in New York caught between the worlds of his family and the guys in the neighborhood mafia. Palminteri performed his one-man show on Broadway, where Robert DeNiro saw it and offered Palminteri a role in his own story. The two made a movie of “A Bronx Tale” in 1993. Now Palminteri is touring it as a one-man show again, currently at the Oriental Theater in Chicago.