SEYMOUR HERSH reported the My Lai Massacre; now in The New Yorker he shows that the Bush administration has tolerated a nightmarish nuclear weapons black market in Pakistan in return for permission for US troops to hunt Osama inside that country.

Also: our report on HAITI: AMY WILENTZ wrote the book The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier — in The Nation she says the coup d’etat in Haiti is the biggest event there since the revolution 200 years ago.

Plus political commentary on Kerry v. Bush from JOHN NICHOLS — he writes “The Online Beat” at www.TheNation.com.

4:00: Political update from HAROLD MEYERSON — after Kerry’s latest primary victories, we ask again: Can he beat Bush in November? Read Harold in the LA Weekly and the Washington Post .

4:20: INCOHERENT EMPIRE: that’s the title of Michael Mann‘s new book, where the UCLA sociologist argues that the US is better at devastating than pacifying countries — and unable to rule over foreign lands or control its own supposed client states. www.versobooks.com/books/klm/m-titles/mann_m_empire.shtml

4:40: ROBERT SCHEER talks about The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq — read Bob in the LA Times: “War as an excuse for everything.”

WEB EXTRA: check out the Cost-of-War website: http://costofwar.com/

also : Bush’s Air National Guard records from 1972 show that he apparently blew off drills beginning in May 1972, failed to show up for his physical, and was then grounded and transferred as a disciplinary measure. www.calpundit.com/archives/003220.html

Nat Turner led the bloodiest slave rebellion in American history — now, award-winning L.A. filmmaker Charles Burnett has made a fascinating one-hour film about the meanings of the Nat Turner rebellion today — the film will be broadcast Tues., Feb. 10 at 10pm on KCET. www.pbs.org/natturner

Primary results: John Kerry beat the other Democrats on Tuesday; can he beat Bush in November? David Corn of The Nation comments — his new book is The Lies of George W. Bush. www.bushlies.com see also www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1233

Also: Those worried that America might be slinking towards imperialism miss the point: America already has an empire. Chalmers Johnson explains — his new book is The Sorrows of Empire, and he will be reading and signing it on Sunday (Feb 8) at 3pm at Midnight Special on 2nd St. in Santa Monica. www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/01/01_200.html

web extra: the CNN poll published Monday has Kerry beating Bush 53-46. The poll showed Bush’s job approval rating at 49 percent among all the adults surveyed, the first time since he became president that his job approval has dipped below 50 percent. www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/02/elec04.poll.prez/index.html

ELMORE LEONARD, the mystery writer whose books include Get Shorty, which was made into that great film with John Travolta as a mobster who wants to become a Hollywood producer, live in-studio, talks about his latest, Mr. Paradise.

Also: KATHA POLLITT, columnist for The Nation, talks about the Democrats after New Hampshire: Katha says “I still like Dean.” www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040202&s=pollitt

And: Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation is a gorgeous book that includes essays by Mike Davis, Viggo Mortensen of “Lord of the Rings,” and Jodie Evans of Code Pink. co-editor MARK LEVINE talks about the book — and what?s happening in Iraq today.

Web extra: Bush is down in the polls: Newsweek reports that “a 52-percent majority of registered voters says it would not like to see him re-elected to a second term. Only 44 percent say they would like to see him re-elected, a four-point drop from the last Newsweek Poll.” And “A Kerry-Bush match-up would have Kerry up by 49 percent to Bush’s 46 percent.”

7:00am: After Iowa: Can John Kerry beat George W. Bush in November? And is Howard Dean finished? Marc Cooper reports from Des Moines. (originally broadcast Jan. 21)

7:15: Nation film critic Stuart Klawans talks about two movies that indirectly illuminate the war in Iraq: “The Battle of Algiers” — Pontecorvo?s unforgettable 1966 epic of terrorism and counterterrorism — and “The Fog of War,” Errol Morris?s fascinating and controversial interview with Robert MacNamara. (originally broadcast Jan. 14)

7:30: war and masculinity — what does it mean to be a man? The answer to that question has changed over time, but it?s always involved warfare. — and it’s the subject of a new book by Leo Braudy of USC: From Chivalry to Terrorism. (originally broadcast Dec. 3.)

7:45: two days in October 1967: in Madison, Wisconsin, anti-war demonstrators were marching against Dow Chemical, maker of napalm; in Vietnam, the US army Black Lions battalion was about to lose 61 men in a V-C ambush; and in Washington, LBJ asked his advisers, “How are we ever going to win?” Pulitzer-prize winner David Maraniss tells the story in They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace: Vietnam and America: October 1967. Philip Caputo reviewed it for the New York Times. (originally broadcast Jan. 14).

Listen to this interview HERE
Joan Didion talks about her memoir Where I Was From.  It’s about California: Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, and explores California’s romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons—and about her family and their place in California history.
interview conducted at KPFK in LA Oct. 29, 2003.