Fred Kaplan on Reality & Satire in DC

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Fred Kaplan is with us. He's usually here as Slate's War Stories columnist covering military affairs and national security. He's an author many times over for deeply reported journalistic books like The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War, and Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War, but now this master of nonfiction has written a novel, which explores some of the same issues he covers as a journalist, but through the vehicle of satire. It's called A Capital Calamity. We'll talk about some of his recent columns on Slate as well. A promo wrapped in full disclosure; Fred will be doing a launch event tonight at Community Bookstore on 7th Avenue in Brooklyn, interviewed by the journalist who happens to be his wife, our On the Media co-host and managing editor, Brooke Gladstone.

Hi, Fred. Congratulations on the novel, and welcome back to WNYC.

Fred Kaplan: Thanks. Always good to be here.

Brian Lehrer: For you who write about very serious things like nuclear war and cyber war, why a novel and why a work of satire?

Fred Kaplan: Well, there's two answers. One very prosaic. My last book, The Bomb, came out just a couple weeks before the lockdown. A few months into the lockdown, I felt like writing another book, but the way I write books generally is to go do a lot of face-to-face interviews and go to archival libraries because not everything is online. I couldn't do that. I'd had an idea for a novel many, many years ago, so I just started doing that.

The other reason is that I'd been sort of an insider-outsider in the national security community for about 40 years. I've seen a lot of characters, funny anecdotes, made observations about the whole milieu. Not enough to write a memoir or a coherent history, but I thought that maybe I could stick a lot of these characters and plot lines and so forth into a novel, and so here it is.

Brian Lehrer: So you did. I see from the press materials that your main character is described as a cynical defense consultant. Who's this person you created?

Fred Kaplan: Right. His name is Serge Willoughby, and he's a cynical defense consultant in that he'll do a pro bomber study for the Air Force because the Air Force makes bombers, and then he'll do an anti-bomber study for the Navy because the Navy just makes submarines and doesn't like bombers, in order to double his fees. He calls his think tank the Janus Corporation, the Two Face Corporation.

What happens is that he-- The opening line of the book is, "Serge Willoughby just wanted to make money and have fun. He didn't mean to start World War Three." He pulls some prank at a party, and without going into the detail, it winds up triggering a war with China, and he has to help stop the war. Here's the guy who has never believed in anything, has never taken a stance on much of anything, and he discovers, over the course of the novel, what it means to be a responsible citizen, what it means to act with a purpose in life. Like a lot of satirical books, for example, Graham Greene; it's an exaggerated view of reality, but it also has a moral arc to it.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. You're getting some nice blurbs from well-known people like the great journalist James Fallows, who says this is like Veep in a Tom Clancy novel. Ian Bremmer, frequent guest on the show from the Eurasia Group and PBS, compares it to a modern-day Dr. Strangelove with the combination of biting humor and existential dread. Are any of those people or things influences on you? Veep, Tom Clancy, the film Dr. Strangelove?

Fred Kaplan: Not so much Tom Clancy, I have to say, but certainly Dr. Strangelove. Somebody also called it a Catch-22 for our day. I think shortly before I started writing, I reread Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana. I'm not likening. I'm not saying my book is as good as all those other things, but certainly, yes, those works-- Somebody called it Dr. Strangelove meets Thank You for Smoking. Yes, all those things have certainly had an influence and certainly in the sensibility that I'm trying to bring into it.

Brian Lehrer: Fred, what's the serious takeaway from this story? You said a minute ago, it's a moral story. It's not just to get yucks. If you can do it without spoilers, what are you really getting at?

Fred Kaplan: Well, it's about, in some ways, the world of the national security community, especially these people who are consultants who work for clients, who pretty much come up with the conclusions that the client wants them to come up with, pasting some mathematical precision on what's essentially a partisan conclusion.

One thing that the main character realizes later on in the book is that he's been a cop out, that he's wasted his education, his knowledge, the kind of unique understanding of things that he has on this game of sort of intellectually prostituting himself. There's one scene later where one of his mentors says that I've taken you down the wrong path. There are these two horrible wars. While we did some useful things in helping with tactics, we didn't address the issue of whether these wars were in our interest, whether they improved our security. We've copped out.

It's a book about someone coming to grips with what his purpose is in life, and coming to grips with the fact that people do have a purpose and that some things-- and a lot of what's in politics is a joke and run by people who are very cynical, but sometimes when the chips are down, it goes beyond that. It's not completely cynical. You can actually use your analytical talents to try to change things.

Brian Lehrer: Are any of the characters based on real-world figures who an informed reader might recognize?

Fred Kaplan: Almost all of them. [chuckles] My epigraph says, "Much of what follows is true, except for the plot." Yes, there are people in the field, and maybe someday I'll do an annotated edition or something, but these characters will be recognized.

Brian Lehrer: You do have a journalist character in an important role in this story. Given your career, is the journalist a hero in this story?

Fred Kaplan: Well, you mean the hero Natalie Gold? Yes, somebody pointed this out to me, and I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's true. There are three very strong women in this novel, and they serve as the conscience of the story. They're not protagonists, but they're very important not just supporting characters, but galvanizing characters. Yes, I guess in some ways, some of them are based to some extent on some women that I've known. I'm a little bit more shy to reveal who they are. Somebody asked if Natalie Gold is based a little bit on Brooke, my wife, and I say, well, no. Natalie Gold, her glasses have red stems on it, and Brooke's has blue. Brooke's has blue. It couldn't possibly be her.

Brian Lehrer: Well, the book is called Capital Calamity. While you're here, let's get to some of your recent columns in Slate for a few minutes.

Fred Kaplan: Sure.

Brian Lehrer: After Israel killed the head of Hamas and the head of Hezbollah in recent weeks, you explored whether these killings could reinvigorate a peace process or contribute to the end of the awful war going on there, which of course has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, still has Israeli hostages in captivity, and more. Do you see it setting the stage for any progress?

Fred Kaplan: Well, possibly. All the columns over the months where I've talked about how something sets the stage or opens the door for a possible solution, I always somewhere in there italicize the word may or might or could. All along, yes, could, but I've said from the very beginning that everybody wants to see a ceasefire and an exchange of hostages for prisoners, except for Israel and Hamas, whose conditions for such things are diametrically opposed to each other. Whereas in past wars, outside powers have had a lot of leverage to clamp down and get a war stopped, the nature of the international system is such now that these outside powers, meaning the US, or Russia, or the UN, don't have the kind of leverage that they once did.

What's happened with the recent events, Hamas-- Bob [unintelligible 00:09:58] reported in his new book that there were a few occasions where the supposed leadership of Hamas in Doha and Cairo agreed at the negotiating tables to certain terms for a ceasefire, but they had to send it down to Yahya Sinwar in the tunnels, and he always rejected them. Well, now he's gone. The question is, and I don't know the answer, and I don't know if anybody knows the answer, is whether these people basking in luxury in Cairo or Doha can step to the fore and act like real leaders.

The Saudi media reported over the weekend that Hamas is about to come up with a comprehensive solution, which would involve freeing all of the hostages all at once in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the territory. The question is, can the new leadership of Hamas really enforce that deal, and does Netanyahu want it? The answer to both of those questions is I don't know. We'll see.

Look, there's a good possibility and a bad-- Israel is kind of on a roll. They've decimated Hezbollah as a military force. They've decimated Hamas. The leaders are gone. Iran, especially after this last weekend, clearly does not want a widened war with Israel. They know that they would get crushed. This creates a possibility for coming up with some kind of deal, but Netanyahu, because he thinks he's on a roll, thinks that he might be able to achieve total victory, which even a lot of his own generals think is an illusion.

Meanwhile, Hamas has not abrogated its charter purpose, which is destroy Israel as a Jewish state. Meanwhile, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which despise Hamas, and really, secretly, the leaders have never really cared that much about the Palestinians, but their people do, and so they can't pressure things too much. The US is kind of in a holding pattern with waiting for what happens in the next election.

We're in a transitional point, and nobody really quite knows which way this is going to go. I'm afraid that the world is short on really strategically minded leaders who also have the power and leverage to get things done that are actually in everybody's interest.

Brian Lehrer: Well, as it relates to the election in this country, you had a piece on Slate last week called, Why Trump's Phone Call with Netanyahu is so Alarming. What was that phone call?

Fred Kaplan: Well, he said, and the Israelis have confirmed, that he talks with Netanyahu quite regularly. There is something called the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from talking with foreign leaders. Now it's never been enforced because there are all kinds of problems with free speech and so forth, but it certainly makes a lot of sense for someone who is running for president but is not president to be barred from acting as if he is president.

It is quite-- You could bet your house on the proposition that Trump has probably said to Netanyahu, listen, don't make a peace deal now. You'll get a lot more leeway if I win. In fact, he said that if he wins, he would just let Israel do what it wants, do whatever it takes, just get this thing over quickly. He's talked about if that means occupying all of Gaza again, go ahead and do it. If it means attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, go ahead and do it. At the same time, Biden and Harris have talked about, no, you should impose limits on civilian damage and so forth. If you're Netanyahu and you think that you might really be able to pull off total victory, you might want to wait and see what happens. If Trump wins, he's going to get a lot more leverage.

If I could just intrude myself in political discussions for a minute. It puzzles me that so many leftists or Arab Americans, who are understandably upset with the way that Biden and Harris have handled the war, aren't going to vote or will vote for Trump instead. I think you can make a case-- Biden could have pressured more, but without Biden's pressure, there would never have been any humanitarian corridor. There never would have been any release of hostages or prisoners. Netanyahu would have attacked Iran with much greater force, which would have almost certainly provoked Iran to fire back, both by themselves and through Hezbollah. It's not a perfect thing, but if you're interested in defending Palestinian rights or reducing casualties, I don't see how you could look at Trump as an improvement.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I guess the pushback from those who want to remain in the uncommitted movement, in the uncommitted column would be that there's been little enough difference with Biden supporting Israel to the extent that he has, that better to let them lose an election, by losing Michigan or something like that, and make sure they're more responsive to that community's interests in the future.

Fred Kaplan: Well, it's a little naive. Because the fact is if you look at polls in the United States-- Let's say Harris decided to be just politically opportunistic and say, "Okay, I'm going to go all in with the Palestinians so that I can win Michigan." Well, then she would probably lose Pennsylvania and some other states too. The fact is if you look at polls, like it or not, the notion of defending Israel, not necessarily supporting everything Israel does, but defending Israel still gets heavy, heavy majority support.

Yes, this is a typical leftist probe, "Oh, well, I'll vote for Jill Stein who only gets 2% of the vote. Because then in the next election, the Democrats will have to reach out to Jill Stein people." Well, the fact is America is not as leftist a country as you would like to believe, as you would like to think. In most places in the country, the more that a Democratic candidate reaches out to a Jill Stein supporter, the more she would lose from other people. We live in a two-party system and yes, it's upsetting, "Oh, I just hate to keep voting for the lesser of two evils." Well, that's the system we have. I'm sorry. Voting is not some psychological release. It's a political decision on which way you would like the country to go, even if it's just a little bit closer in your direction than the opposite way.

Brian Lehrer: Fred Kaplan, using his prerogative as a columnist to insert himself into the political campaigns. He's the War Stories columnist for Slate, and he has this new satirical novel called A Capital Calamity. Fred will be doing a launch event tonight at Community Bookstore at 7th Avenue in Brooklyn, interviewed by none other than the journalist who happens to be his wife, our On the Media co-host and managing editor Brooke Gladstone. I don't have the time for that. I know it's tonight [crosstalk]--

Fred Kaplan: Seven o'clock.

Brian Lehrer: Seven o'clock at Community Bookstore. Thank you, Fred.

Fred Kaplan: Thank you.

 

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