American Politics

Journalist Paul Eisenstein covers the automotive industry and is publisher and editorial director of TheCarConnection.com, a site of news, opinions and reviews about cars. He'll talk about the latest car trends and the economic outlook for automakers. The North American International Auto Show — where most manufacturers unveil their new products — takes place in Detroit Jan. 11-20, 2003.

Political commentator David Frum. From January 2001 to February 2002 he was a special assistant to President Bush for economic speech-writing. He held the position during the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and he's the man who put the axis in the oft-repeated Bush term "axis of evil." Frum is the author of the new book, The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush, an inside account of the White House.

A talk about the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness Program, and other post-Sept. 11 security measures. The Total Information Awareness Program would allow federal agencies to share information about American citizens and aliens through the mining of databases from driver's licenses, bank statements, telephone records and more. Lawyer David Cole thinks such measures violate the American tradition of civil liberties.

In his new book, The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-First Century, Kupchan argues that the era of American dominance may be coming to an end. This demise will not be brought on by the Islamic world or China, but from an integrated Europe. He says that as Europe's political and strategic goals continue to diverge from those of the United States, Europe will rise as a new rival. Kupchan served on the National Security Council during the first Clinton administration.

Journalist Bill Keller is a columnist for The New York Times and senior writer for the magazine section. He just returned from a trip to Russia. Hell discuss Russias position on Iraq

The Cuban Missile Crisis took place 40 years ago this week. We talk with historian and former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Peter Kornbluh who directs the National Security Archive's Cuba Project. The organization obtained newly declassified documents about the Crisis. They've published the information in the new book The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. The National Security Archive also helped organize the historic 40th anniversary conference held in Cuba last week.

Former White House Director of Counterterrorism Daniel Benjamin has co-authored the book The Age of Sacred Terror with Steven Simon, the former Senior Director of Counterterrorism. Benjamin and Simon began writing the book more than a year before Sept. 11, 2001. As director and co-director at the National Security Council, they saw the rise of al Qaeda. In the book, they warn about the new generation of terrorists and set out to understand the enemy. Additionally, the authors wish to explain how we let our defenses down and what to expect in the future.

Iraq expert Kenneth Pollack's new book is The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq. He has studied Iraq and Saddam Hussein for 15 years. During the Clinton administration, Pollack served as director for Gulf affairs at the National Security Council, where he was one of the people responsible for implementing U.S. policy toward Iraq. Before that, he was a Persian Gulf military analyst in the CIA. In 1990, Pollack was among the very few analysts to predict the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He is also the author of Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991.

Foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, Thomas Friedman. He's just won his third Pulitzer Prize, this time for his "clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat." Friedman was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for his international reporting from Lebanon and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting from Isreal. He's also the author of From Beirut to Jerusalem, and The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization.

Journalist Jeffrey Rosen's article in this coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine is about the CIA's effort to partner with Silicon Valley to develop new anti-terrorist technologies. The CIA has founded a venture-capital firm that funds the development of cutting-edge technologies that may be useful for national security, in particular new techniques for finding terrorists. Rosen will talk about some of these technologies — and what civil libertarians think of them.