Government & Politics

Richard Ben Cramer, foreign affairs journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, has spent extensive time traveling to and reporting on the Middle East. He has reported on Israel, Egypt, and Lebanon, and his stories often focus on individuals. He joins the show to discuss his work and the situation in the Middle East.

Ralph Flood speaks with two groups of protestors gathered at City Hall in Philadelphia. They oppose Jimmy Carter's 1979 budget proposal and the First Bank of Pennsylvania's support of Food Fair in spite of a strike, respectively.

Terry Gross speaks with four occupiers of an armory in New Hampshire protesting the construction of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant.

John Dean, former White House Counsel for Richard Nixon, discusses his new book "Blind Ambition" and the Watergate scandal.

Ralph Flood introduces a talk given by I. F. Stone at La Salle University on the intelligence network in the United States.

Ralph Flood introduces a talk given by I. F. Stone at La Salle University on the intelligence network in the United States.

Novelist Anthony Cave Brown discusses his latest novel and the role of the intelligence community in World War II.

Sandra Boston and Raymond Torres are members of the Christian and economic justice group Campaign for Global Justice. They join the show to discuss their work.

John Aiello, head of the Italian American Bicentennial, talks Italian Americans and their role in U. S. society.

John McAuliff and Sophie Quinn-Judge reflect on their time in Vietnam and discuss the current situation in the region.

Blanche Wiesen Cook is the author of the new biography "Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume 2 1933-1938. (Viking) This edition covers The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the build-up to World War II. Cook a professor of history at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is author of "Eleanor Roosevelt," "Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution," and "The Declassified Eisenhower."

Yugoslavian journalist, critic, and feminist Slavenka Drakulic (SLA-vinka DRA-coo-lich). Her new book of essays is "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed," (published by Norton & Co.)

Terry talks by phone to Nick Caramandi, a made man in the mafia who turned witness for the government, while in the studio, Philadelphia Inquirer organized crime reporter George Anastasia will join Terry to talk about the life of the Philadelphia mobster. Anastasia has just written a book about the Philadelphia Mafia called "Blood and Honor: Inside the Scarfo Mob - The Mafia's Most Violent Family" (Morrow). Caramandi was a major player in Scarfo's organization before going into hiding under the Federal Witness Protection Program.

Journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave co-wrote a spy-thriller novel called The Spike, which draws on his experience as a foreign correspondent. He talks about the role intelligence agencies often play in the world of journalism.

John Powers reviews "Kleo," the new Netflix series about a young woman who's an East German assassin as communism is collapsing in the late '80s.

In her new book, Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable, Joanna Schwartz examines the legal protections — including qualified immunity and no-knock warrants — that have protected officers from the repercussions of abuse.

Rolling Stone's Matthieu Aikins reported on this year's opium harvest — the biggest in Afghanistan's history. He also talks about traveling with a rescue crew in Syria and a Shia militia in Iraq.

Journalist Jesse Eisinger says a trove of IRS data acquired by ProPublica shows that many of America's billionaires avoid paying any taxes — sometimes by claiming big deductions from posh hobbies.

New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins says China has made it increasingly clear that it doesn't recognize Taiwanese sovereignty — leading to increased tensions between China and the U.S.

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Speechless," which stars Geena Davis and Michael Keaton in a story much like that of political commentators James Carville and Mary Matalin.