Author Christopher Hitchens

this week on Q&A our guest is Christopher Hitchens contributing editor to the Atlantic Monthly and columnist for Vanity Fair mr. Hitchens is the author of over a dozen books his most recent is his memoir hitch 22 last summer mr. Hitchens was diagnosed with cancer he joins us from his home in Northwest Washington DC Christopher Hitchens I just checked in I've interviewed you 20 times since 1983 and I must say this is one of the hardest well because you haven't been well not very now what's the current status of your cancer I have a tumor in my esophagus which was some metastasized as they spread to my lymph nodes and I'm afraid they're not completely sure - part of my lung and it's at stage 4 and the the thing to note about stage 4 is that there is no stage 5 so it concentrates the mind a bit but I've I have some wonderful oncologists working with me and there are we're on the verge of a whole number of new treatments some which may apply to me the chemotherapy is holding it at bay I apologize that my voices have been husky today but that's the situation so I I have to practice staying alive and preparing to die at the same time which as my memoir says is actually what one has to do all the time as much a fact I mean you're never more than a breath away but it's a bit more vivid to me now sort of doctors in the morning and lawyers in the afternoon why did you decide to take us through that journey in your writing and Vanity Fair well I was wondering whether I wanted to or not and to make an order to make a parade of my condition but I was very intelligently pressed to do it but my editor Graydon Carter and I tried to do it in such a way as it wasn't the parade of my feelings aura so the yellow ribbon type journalism and I've been told that some people have been comforted by it a bit who identified with it to some degree if you have a lemon make lemonade would be the other explanation better than staring at the wall it is a great subject everyone has to do this at one point or another either survive or die off something like this that's one thing what is certainly born to do so as an extension of the memoir I published where I was hit with it I thought well I should keep up the narrative because this is very much a part of my life how's your life and I should add because of these experimental treatments I've had my genome sequenced for example I'm very unique in this way and very lucky I'm able to write about some really quite exciting new developments in the field of oncology which I hope will shortly become more available to more people it's a rather tantalizing time to have cancer it's time for me someone of my age because there are treatments that I can see that are just out of my reach probably which is both encouraging and annoying if you like and there are others that are probably just within it my Constitution is very good all my other vital signs are excellent everything from my liver to my blood pressure is excellent superb in fact under SLUSA a lot of my peers would say but if I can hang on there are quite a few experience I can and intend to try but you just had your gallbladder out and they had nothing to do with their I wouldn't know I had a very bad episode a couple of weeks ago I crashed as my dog sort of normally very admirably diffident guy said I mean I had a meltdown in my bone marrow that can happen with chemotherapy I've had a crisis with white hand blood cells at the same times my gall bladder went rancid and I was in terrible pain 400 burst appendix so I was really flattered but I've now lost the gallbladder and I've gained some blood so I'm back hanging on broad question but what is this done to the old head well the the worst of the initial treatments was what's called chemo brain in the trade where you feel fogged in the head and you'd barely even want to read little in right and that terrified me very much because I thought if I can't do that well I I raised on jetrel in a way have gone in the literal sense I I wouldn't have a very persuasive reason to live and I I didn't want to give in to despair but turns out the chemo brain is transitory I mean I still suffer from terribly exhaustion I've got it now physically but I'm I'm quite lucid at least in my own opinion I could write a column today if I was lucky I had some strong coffee I can certainly read and converse but if anything was to spread in that direction I mean then I probably would feel that was the end what has been a reaction from other people to your condition because you know a ton of people yeah and I've also known to quite a large number of people now and because I had to cancel a book tour just as it was beginning a rather lavish book tour back in the summer I couldn't just do a fade and go into treatment I had to make a statement as if I was some kind of public figure about why I couldn't keep these appointments and people would go into a lot of trouble I had to say something so it became overnight a sort of news item I guess it must have been a slow week and I imagine partly because of my opinions about the supernatural and the religious life I also got a lot of attention because people thought well surely now would be the time for me to make an reconsideration withdraw from the principles of a lifetime make my peace with some church or other and it was a lot of public talk about that there was a day of prayer for me a National Day of Prayer which I I took kindly I thought it was at least as a gesture of solidarity but that was by the way prayer in my favor there were other people who lobbied and devine in the opposite direction presuming to instruct him in either case seems to me a bit presumptuous but people can't seem to help that and I've had an amazing number of letters from people I still get them handwritten once to the house as well as emails to my office in New York saying really the nicest things most of them not all and trying to assure me that in their minds my life hasn't been a waste of time even if it ends prematurely I'm 62 and April if I make it that far and believe me that's been encouraging I've learned something from it which is some which I of course like most of the things one knows that are important already known to me but now I really know it now never put off writing a letter to someone who's in distress well it's always very much appreciated and I'm not asking for more people to write to me but if they have someone in mind or someone known to them they haven't quite got around to it yet I judged them to do it it's been a terrific help to me I must say and I'm not particularly what's the word vulnerable person in that way not that easily stirred but this has been very very moving for me a very confirming has any of your at least professional enemies come to you during this time if they have what would they say what professional enemies so I suppose rival so people who take the opposite view not all of them have been very nice and I've had I mean you know newspaper columns written about me in the New York Times in them by David Brooks very generous column and another one by Timothy Egan in The Times it was an editorial in The Times of London I began to feel as if I was reading my bit reason but but because I was still alive only the nice bits would be French say does it work and I thought it's nice but of course it gave me the slightly creepy feeling of it being premature as well I don't know how many personal enemies I have my people just don't like me in other words one whose nerves I get but the number of people who have written to me saying they hope I suffer now and then forever after I've died is I'd say heartening Li small go back for them a moment because it was quite a series of events I mean I'm I have your memoir in my hands and in which the first yes and the first seven pages are all about death did you have any premonition at all no but it is weird isn't it no I had a free gift from the National Portrait Gallery in London which publishes up a magazine for subscribers about its upcoming exhibitions and there was an exhibition of the Friends of Martian Amos who was a friend of mine photographs which included me and because one of the people featured had died while the catalog was going to press they put hastily in the words the late but they put next to my name so for the first time in my life as I saw the words the late Christopher Hitchens in print and it does so it so ever used the expression concentrate the mind they wrote me groveling I think they thought I was going to sue and said they've all be withdrawn will pulp them only a few got out since all right and I said no no I want you to send me as many as you've got because it makes a wonderful mini introduction to my memoir which I nearly finished them so I wrote a it's called a pro low with premonitions reminiscent the reminiscence sorry meditation on death but at that stage I had no idea who I was no none but you went on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart right around the time that you found out when not for the day I was diagnosed you know did you know it at the time yes I've been told in the mornings I'm working up in New York feeling very ill and had to be taken to hospital and they said I thought I had was having heart attack miss it's not your heart you can discharge yourself if you want though we recommend you stay in for observation but whatever you do the next stop must be with an oncologist that's clearly a tumor we probably in your esophagus but it's spread so I decided to discharge myself cuz I wanted to do the Stewart Show and also that evening a big event of the New York why HCA the 92nd Street Y circle big public of it would summon regime and I managed to do both of these without showing any ill effects but I just had the sentence read to me look let's watch just a little bit of the Stewart show so people can see and when they see this you know that you've got a real problem let's just watch yes I've never seen it this anyway used to read his obituaries every day with the Bloody Mary start the day to ward off depression it worked for ten years before he put the shotgun yes and it I'd say this it concentrated my mind I thought here's a sentence there were one day be unarguably true but for now screw you I'm not late mate so actually fire and that kind of unsealed the sounds of memory of it and also of course he dealt with use of argument you get from people will comment is a little bit soon I say well maybe but there's no choice of leaving it till too late now is there no I don't think people should be able to decide for you but when you said when you turn 60 I'm very impressed that someone who has clearly from from the stories in your book lived you've lived it you haven't taken it easy on this model body you have yet you don't look like like and you should you you actually look I don't know it's somewhat upsetting there's some cry inside a and B there's a oil pinching up in my acting this beginning to a distinctly CD I think so it's it's starting to get that actually as I saw you on the Jon Stewart Show you look like you get a sense of humor er fairly normal but what was your head telling you when you were walking out there well I I just buried the thought for what it took to do the show and then later this onstage event with someone which also went very well it was only of the dinner after that that I began to feel I couldn't carry on anymore like I should get through it I didn't anyone notice but I was at every opportunity between these events I was violently sick threw up very powerfully and you had any indication at all that something was going wrong no I had heard nothing but very very good annual checkup reports and my daughters on all fronts your father died of esophageal can he did at the age of 79 it had that penetrated I mean it was it I mentioned it in the book I mean I would have written that before I found out myself but no I suppose because I used to smoke very heavily I was afraid of whistle getting it in the lung I seemed to lead a charmed life but their thing about esophageal cancer is you can have it for quite a while it's very hard to detect unless you have an upper GI almost every month and you're looking for it you very likely to miss him and it doesn't usually present as they say til it's metastasized by the time I went to the doctor for a biopsy it was very easy to do because you could feel it in the lymph node on my neck which is not a good sign you began what kind of treatment I began a cisplatin it's cool treatment of chemotherapy which made me then lose all my hair it's growing back with the new chemical I'm trying slightly and maybe lose a lot of weight and made me very tired but knocked it back perceptibly I mean you could it was measurably reduced and where did you have this done in Bethesda and that started what month last year July and it ended when what's still going on still going on yes I'm hoping now you see because thanks to a wonderful American doctor Francis Collins who's the head of the National Institute of Health which includes the National Cancer Institute who did the Human Genome Project broader generous you know ahead of time and under budget Marvis scientific achievement you know I've met because we're opposite sides of the religion debate we Kame friends that way he's a very convinced Christian and we've become friendly debaters and he's taking it very kindly interest in my case and has helped me have my genome sequenced and try and look for a more perfect identifiable match for any mutation they can find this peculiar to me that could be targeted by a special drug so today is Friday the 14th I don't know when this will be shown on Monday I'm going in I hope to try that if I'm strong enough if my bone marrow is recovered enough and that involved 6 million no excuse me 6 billion DNA matches of my tumor set against six billion DNA matches of my blood to look for something that was individually mutated that wasn't in my genes absolutely extraordinary what can be done now I had to go to st. Louis to do it why st. Louis that seems to be where the project is for finding out how the genome can be applied to individuals predicaments in medicine it'll be commonplace soon there's a terrible lack of funding as you perhaps know I might just say a word about this now so people can write their congressman in the most recent budget are terrible collapsing funding to the NIH and of course there's this stupid attempt to limit the extent to which actually existing embryonic cells can be used for this kind of thing and I've become but I was anyway before this but I would like to become more than I am as an advocate for overcoming these pseudo scientific obstacles to medical research so where did you get you you get your chemo treatment at NIH no no I've had various tests there but I just go to my regular oncologist it's a very brilliant man called dr. Smith in Bethesda who's who consults over the internet with a panel of like-minded experts and they work out so in Kettering and elsewhere they work out a protocol for me and adjust it every few weeks in the vanity fair' December issue you wrote about a woman who came up to you at a when you were signing books yeah she starts off by saying tell it if you can tell I did it I've got it I've got it here in case yeah tell it what happened well this is my campaign to have a book of cancer as a cut published which I might do signing books in new after a debate with Shara cram it down about Islam it's a long line woman at the front comes towards me she doesn't even have a book for me to size hasn't bought one says I'm sorry here you're ill and I said well it's very nice for you to say so she said a cousin of mine had cancer and I said I'm really sorry you know and he said yes and in the liver I said well that's dreadful I'm I'm really that's awful and she said but he got better I said I'm good and then she said but he got much worse again and I said I'm sorry and he was sitting of course he was a homosexual and I thought I'm not gonna say of course how was I supposed to know and always friends and family abandoned him and he died alone and in great pain agony incontinence piercing pain humiliation indescribable horror and I said well I I was beginning to run out of things to say but I've expressed commiseration with that and then she said so I just wanted you to know I know exactly what you came through I thought and then left without having done by a bus I thought now would she have treated me like that if I was well of course not but people think they have they're all mr. right if not a duty to do it if you aren't so and I think we need patients also need to suffer to reciprocate by not sort of inflicting it on people I actually have a badge now I'm not wearing it a button as this don't ask and I won't tell and some people do make a huge parade if their their condition I've tried to write about it in other context exalt I wrote about the National Day of Prayer and why I wasn't joining it I've written about imaginative new gene based treatments things like that I don't just want to write my own tumor Diaries that would be a little sort of assisting you wrote and your prologue of your book as I said a lot about deficit which is cooled hich 22 I personally want to do death in the active and not the passive and to be there to look it in the eye and be doing something when it comes for me why what's that mean anyway what is part of life so I'd like to be conscious for it but this is what I thought then and I ideally I'd like to be making a speech perhaps or making love or I don't know sitting with friends or if I had more notice conceivably to try a sort of Socratic terminus where people gather around and you try and make the fist of a decent farewell I've have had cause to reconsider that now because if this cancer doesn't go into remission it's a very unpleasant way to die why well one quite probable way of doing it is to choke in your own puke for example not a very good thing and it can be preceded by all kinds of limitations so it's not that you're gonna die and you're resigned or reconciled to that as part of life is that the sentence includes that you'd be tortured for a bit before you die and so I now feel a slight bravado about what I wrote there I would still if it were possible like to be awake and looking at people and if I'm lucky talking to them but I'm not so sure I would insist on it it might be as well to sort of slip away you know in a narcotic stupor it might be but still there's something about that may sound very old-fashioned thing to say strikes me as a bit ignoble as I say it's part of life I want to I want to get as much doesn't account how much of during this period have you talked about this kind of thing with caribou your wife what a lot because she's been a great prop and stay for me she's she does things I don't like to do going on the internet looking up every conceivable ramification of treatment and possibility tirelessly looking for new doctors and new avenues and things of that so we talk a lot about it about losing about what would happen when I've gone we've actually barely have talked about that my determination is that I'm I'm not going to die of it I'm well I'm not going to die of it now I hope might die with it perhaps some years from now that is a possibility and I've certainly got to do everything I can to be an experimental subject for other treatments even if they don't work for me I feel that would be I say in the book I quit the great American scholar Horace Mann who said till you've done something for Humanity you should be ashamed to die so it's quite a high standard to reach well that would be doing something for you many had a face more cost to myself even if it involved protracting the treatment not necessarily I'd be willing to do it in the middle of all this a couple of weeks ago you debated Tony Blair yes Toronto well I've carried on debating on this and other questions but we have we covered it and I don't want to run just a clip of you making some points he's sitting on the stage there with you let's watch that and we'll come back and ask you pop it as long as you don't want your religion taught to my children in school given a government subsidy imposed on me by violence any of these things you are fine by me I would prefer I would prefer not even to know what it is that you do in that church of yours well I do in fact if you force it on my attention I will consider it a breach of that pact have your own bloody Christmas do your slot do your slaughtering if possible in an abattoir and don't mutilate the genitals of your children because then I'm afraid it gets within the ambit of law all right now so that's a judge you think that's reasonably pluralistic and communitarian off me I think it is why is it a vain hope on my part why is that has this pact ever been honored by the other cycle of course not and it's a mystery to me and I'll share it with you if I believe that there was a savior who'd been appointed or sent by or prophet said porthos sent by God who bore me in mind and loved me and what wanted the best for me if I believed that and that I possess the means of grace and the hope of glory to phrase it like that I think I don't know I think I might be happy they say it's the way to happiness why doesn't it make them happy but usually it's a perfectly decent question why doesn't it because they won't be happy so you believe it too and why is that because that's what their holy books tell them why did you do that debate when was it actually it was at Thanksgiving and what condition were you in then well I have timed my treatments so that it would come because I had a lot of notice of the event the surgery would come at the end of the tree when I'm much usually much stronger because it would have been very responsive it was a huge event a lot of trouble money went into fixing it up and getting better and getting security and all this enough so it wasn't what I never liked late to cancel anyway but I couldn't do that so I was feeling okay very tired but physically alright and mentally quite alert and it was the first time Blair had had a public debate since he stopped being prime minister on any subject and then you wrote about and raver yes and what was your take from all that I mean you were you were taking the position well you tell us that your position his position I mean I debate with religious people all the time mentioned teragrams and Rabbi Shmuley all kinds of people have debated since I became sick Blair is of course a new convert to Roman Catholicism so I wanted to question a bit about that and then one can only do one thing at a time usually in these debates and the point I wanted him to concede was that the evils that people like myself speak about when we talk about religion he will always and his Co thinkers will always acknowledge and they'll say this was done in the name of religion and I said no you must drop that there is scriptural warrant and authority very clearly in the holy books which are supposed to be the Word of God for these evils so it's a cop-out to use a vulgarity so say it's in the name of its you can't just say it's a parody of you have to face the responsibility well in fact when we were asked by one questioner to say what had been the strongest point made by the other he said that he agreed that I was right that the problem is that there is scriptural authority for a great deal of atrocity and cruelty and stupidity in the holy books so that's my best memory of the evening I suppose when I asked my open with a long quotation from Cardinal Newman whose beatification he'd just recommended to the Pope and supported a very wicked in my view quotation from Newman's apologia and then I wanted to know whether B thought the Pope was the Vicar of Christ on earth were the Catholic Church was the one true church shipping's it was quite strange he didn't come up to the scratch to fight me on that you could not have told him anything he said that he was a Roman Catholic at all he could have been a very weak sort of Christian socialist liberal who basically says that if Christianity is okay because it makes people do good works and give money to charity which no one denies is true but has nothing to do with the relevance or the truth of the matter so but he's a man with whom I sympathize in other ways and I've known a little bit for quite a long time so it was it was an unusually interesting debate excuse me sorry bro just a recipient my medicine you and I've I first interview I ever conducted with you was on November the 7th 1983 remember it was the winter callin show yes and I want to just run oh it's a minute 24 seconds and then we'll talk about this when when journalists lose their credibility I think in this country journalists have lost their credibility based upon their past performance the American people are speaking out now and I just feel that without no type of checks and balances on the journalists they're doing exactly what this gentleman is doing here just bring the foreign news over into the country okay reporter all the faults okay but don't take a deep enough look at the positive aspects of what a Free Press really is I'm getting fed up with this kind of questioning actually I mean thirty miles from north of Philadelphia as you are how do you presume to know that the American people are speaking out to the extent that you do know or to the extent that you can speak for them you can only know it through reading the reading a Free Press and watching a free TV the truth is that the papers are reporting the fact that they're unpopular with the administration and the column with which David began Lou cannons column today says he he admits it's true that public opinion is probably on Reagan's side on this one but if you want your press to be treated as the British treated their press in the Falklands you're gonna end up not knowing very much about what's going on if that's what you want don't read the papers but do not prevent me or anyone else from reading them well you can see how times have changed from that clip there you were on our set smoking yes I was doing that till quite late John I forget what it stormed I can't remember when we it's incredible now when I see as one often does that shot of Walter Cronkite announcing the president's death in Dallas and 63 the whole studio looks like Chernobyl so ashtray is stretching as far as the eye can see and I also appreciated you calling me David on that show it kind of was humbling what it's the name it was then the name with very distinguished Los Angeles Times Africa correspondent ah that was the reason yeah anyway sorry all the same I think it's very important to get people that was it was it's fun to see this for both of us go back at that time but you know in those days you were fairly there's a lot of bravado about smoking and drinking and I for the first book notes book we did I went with you to a bar I remember and you had your computer and a glass of something and a cigarette yeah I used to write my columns and tymberlee explode on Connecticut Avenue D do you ever think that this all this wouldn't have happened without that and did your father smoke is that where you my father was a pipe smoker and a reasonably consistent drinker - and I can't but think that that's what contributed to it we didn't learn much from his death my brother and I because he was diagnosed and died almost right away we didn't find out much about I know it was lower down than where mine is and probably an operable then but it wasn't a teaching moment by the way as your is inoperable well it couldn't yes you can't be cutting out don't spread cast aside yeah it's spread it can be cut out and it's too near my lungs in my heart to be properly radiated so it has to be chemo and/or targeted gene therapy but what over those years when you were smoking so to answer your question of course I always knew that there's a risk in the bohemian lifestyle and I decided to take it because whether it's an illusion or not I don't think it is it helped my concentration it stopped me being bored it stopped other people being boring to some extent it would keep me awake oh maybe more the evening to go on longer to prolong the conversation to enhance the moment if I was asked would I do it again the answer is probably yes I'd have quit earlier possibly hoping to get away with the whole thing easy for me to say of course not very nice to my children too yeah it sounds irresponsible if I say yeah I do all that again to you but the truth is it would be hypocritical for me to say no I'd never touched the stuff if I'd known because I did know everyone knows and I decided all of life is a wager I'm good wager on this bit and I can't make it come out any other way it's strange I almost don't even regret it though I should because it's just impossible for me to picture life without wine and other things fueling the company and and keeping me reading and some traveling and energizing me it worked for me it really did what over the years is bored you you use that word more than what's in your eyes well it's a vice of course acts IDIA I think it's actually one of the deadly sins boredom was the ante room to despair it's of the feeling that enemy that nothing's interesting I'm too prone to it I get easily tired of so I don't know committee meetings or not what I have to do many of those or waiting in line or a very very impatient person so and I'm very happy by myself I'm lucky in that way if I've got enough to read and something to write about and a bit of I'll called for me to add an edge not to dull it did it's been a formula during this time of your illness have you passed the time when and I have you had a lot of pain during this time yes well I especially before I found out it was the gallbladder not the site of things I was becoming worried that I was some overdoing the painkillers I I got she shouldn't be the other way around but I said the doctors look I'm living I'm dangerous moving from pill to pill I surely shouldn't be taking this much morphine or codeine based stuff I was beginning to feel woozy but I like to think that the gallbladder was the cause of that because before then the pain hadn't been all that occurred it was quite deal herbal with quite manageable you had became unbearable when we're talking how many days ago did you have your gallbladder 10 I think a so 10 and did you have the laparoscopic you was all over very quickly once they found it and do you feel better because of not yet because the general anaesthetic takes a long time to to wear off Leeson has with me given how weak I was already in how much weight I've lost and how little food I've been taking I couldn't have done this yesterday for example really no absolutely no I could hardly get out of bed about thirty some years ago thirty-six years ago or seven years ago a man named Stewart Alsop yes columnist for Newsweek right I had leukemia the AML acute difficult leukemia and wrote about it I don't know did you have you gone back and looked at any of his columns no any in he told the story he was at NIH and and I think he might have had bone marrow transplant remember for sure but I remember I was glued to it and he took us all the way through his process how much more are we gonna hear from you about your situation I hope a lot I mean I did say that just for my own sake okay and what kind of things are you thinking about telling us enough well I think the main thing is to emphasize the the extraordinary innovations in this kind of myths brought in medicine that are becoming available based on our new knowledge of our genetic makeup and so insofar as these treatments are applicable to me which they some of them are I'm hoping to write in some detail and alert people to possibilities that they may not yet know about that exists even for quite hard cases quite advanced cases any thought of writing a book I mean you mentioned earlier yes I thought I'd write a book that was both about facing death and about the struggle for life and how one motivation for the latter in my case apart from the obvious ones is precisely to see if I can participate in pushing those boundaries back and enlarging the area of scientific knowledge you have you lost interest in certain things in the world no not at all and as you sit here today what would be your number one interest that things going on in the world right now right now well looking at today's paper which is the first thing I do every day still um I suppose it would it would it would have to be one version or another of the confrontation with Islamic Jihad in particular the appalling ly serious news in Pakistan in the last few weeks where the whole the whole threat seems to me to be amped up noticeably and in a way we haven't quite internalized where a chief minister of them our country's most important state mr. Salman Taseer is murdered in cold blood by some pertaining to be his bodyguard on the grounds that he poses an existing blasphemy law not even that he's committed blasphemy and so there anyone claiming to be a Muslim is entitled to kill him and that this got the endorsement of all the religious authorities all the mullahs and Imams in Pakistan isn't it it used to be bad enough on conviction by a court of the charge of blasphemy you could face a death sentence but she'd have been through a jury an appeals process arrested bad enough in all conscience but warranted by the Quran if you care which I don't but now permission to anybody to appoint himself an executioner on the spot and be V agent of the religion in murdering anyone like this is fantastically dangerous and we decide to invest ourselves completely in the idea that there are moderates to be found if we can pay them who will fend this off I don't think there's a prayer to coin a phrase especially if we appear to be their patrons how do you I mean I think we're totally fooling us what about this process of having to face this illness are you surprised about and the reason I asked you but I mean you went off on some substance there and some people just give all that up when they are faced with this kind of situation I mean what what's changed what what about this process surprised you my internal process your process of becoming ill and they tell you've got Stage four yes Safa Geel cancer and all that I mean are you surprised about any of this the last six months because you've obviously thought about you wrote seven pages about death well yes well I think a memoir of a person who just passed sixty has to face that so I thought I heard that much to the readers no it hasn't been all that surprising actually no it's a commonplace thing I mean I don't I wrote this somewhere I mean no I didn't sit around asking myself why me and if I did the cosmos wouldn't bother to favor me with a reply I wouldn't even say why not it's a commonplace thing the son of my age in previous habits it's almost laughably predictable the only interesting thing about it is it's possible Amin ability to treatments that were unknown until very recently the the outcome of brilliant work by devoted people some of whom I'm very lucky to count as friends you know there there are many examples we hear from friends and people we've known over the years where a doctor will say some very straightforward and crude things yeah and make life very uncomfortable I members there was a reporter in this town worked to Washington Post he told me one day he's no longer with us the doctor called him after he'd had tests and he says guess what you got the big seat and you me I couldn't believe that he actually would you that happened but the reason I bring this up is that is a bit crass listen well what Marx would you give the medical profession and the way they've treated you and they give you hope that this thing can be licked they've given me more than a margin of hope it can be licked yes and they haven't pronounced on my chances unless I've asked them which I decided not to do it first until it occurred to me that it would be very useful for if you like the counting purposes to have a rough idea because one has to plan for once loved ones and descendants I thought so for actuarial reasons I'd like to have a guess they don't like being asked because they don't really know and the best answer I got was the following if if you took a thousand people who were myself in other words my age my state of health my gender I think a thousand of us today half of us would be dead linear over the remaining half others might hope to live more than a year and of that number question number two live for a considerable number of years they can't do better than that that was from a very senior person at the NIH who was expecting the question what is your reaction to people like me I mean we come to your apartment we want to sit down and talk to you you know why we're here we want to hear this story and you've had a bunch here you know are you surprised at that a little bit yes I was but a lot of it I I know it has been to do with my stance on religion I mean very large number of people have asked me doesn't it change your attitude to the infinite the eternal the supernatural and so forth and I I've said that I really don't see why it should I've never thought of it as a particularly searching question I mean if I I spent a lot of my life deciding that there isn't any redemption salvation that there's no afterlife there's no supervising boss - if I was to tell you well now I've got a malignancy in my esophagus that changes everything you would think I hope that the main effect had been on my IQ it's a complete logical non sequitur that's nothing to do with it so I've enjoyed taking part in that argument and there's a certain ghoulish element even about the nice people who've been praying for me because they all not just pray for my recovery they're praying for my reconciliation with religion and I I proposed a trade off the other day I said tell you what what if we secularists stop going to hospitals and walking around the wards and asking if people are religious when they're in extremis and then the last days and saying look you've still got a little time why don't you live the last few days of it as a free person you'll feel much better all that nonsense they taught you know you still you could still have every chance to give it up experience the life of a free-thinking autonomous person don't live in fear don't believe don't believe in mythology they'd welcome it and of course we don't do that but it seems to be considered the right of almost everybody to do it the other way around I don't resent it at all because I like every opportunity for the argument but it's a lot of it has been to do with that I don't flatter myself that as a public figure I I rate all that highly the book notes show we did in 93 it's a short clip I want to run this and get to reaction to it but a lot of people their first love is what they'll always remember for me it's so it's been the first hate and I think that hatred though it provides often rather junky energy is a terrific way of getting you out of bed in the morning keeping your going it can be if you don't let it get out of hand it can be canalized into writing and in this country where people like to be non-judgmental when they can be which translates us on the whole lenient there are an awful lot of bubble reputations floating around that you know one wouldn't be doing one's job if one - the [ __ ] - prick so is it still a good idea to hit people well since it's not really avoidable I think the question is how - if you like turn it to advantage one of the things I don't like about Christianity is the idea of compulsory love we're saying it's bound to lead to hypocracy people pretending to love more than they do and also since it's coupled with the injunction to love a god you're also supposed to fear there's every chance of that sort of curdling there's something fairly honest by contrast to finding someone completely unbearable there's someone like Henry Kissinger for example it's bad to let it it's a bit like alcohol if you like it's a it's a good servant but it's a bad master I mean I have a completely cold hatred and contempt for America it doesn't waste much of my time it's just that it enables me to penetrate I think the sort of fog of sentiment and bogus reputation in which he's shrouded and protected and it doesn't eat away at me it doesn't keep me awake at night doesn't poison me doesn't fill me with bile but I can't pretend that it's just a matter of political disagreement I mean I think there is such a thing as evil in the world and sometimes personified and I think was under no obligation to be ambivalent there Oh change your mind at all about mother Teresa what would change my mind about her I didn't never couldn't one couldn't exactly hate her because in a way she was a pathetic figure but I detested the influence that she had and I can tell you why no sentence if you want where the very reason that she so celebrated deeply at this apparent concern for the poor of the world or the poorest of the poorest she was always obliging us to say well as it happens we know what the cure for poverty is a what a certainty of poverty isn't it it's goes under the name the empowerment of women it works everywhere Bangladesh Bolivia name it give women some control over their reproductive cycle get them off the animal routine of breeding machine and the the level of poverty will will decline sharply it's never never known to films consistent finding just for an example this is my central point about mother tree to spend her entire life opposing the only thing that works opposing all forms of birth control comparing them to abortion which she called murder I mean directly in her Nobel Prize speech said that was the main threat to peace in the world was the fanatical stupid thing to say that's basically it that plus the reputation for sanctity that she got for preaching was nonsense but one could add her friendship with the worst the richest of the rich people like Charles Keating of the savings and loan he was a great friend of hers she took stolen money from him refused to win the courthouse trip to return it took money from the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti which treated the poor like pigs worse bless them in return gave them divine sanction it goes on her whole effect there was an entirely retrograde and no one ever wrote a but one story about her till I wrote my critique and in that book was very short I make five or six other direct accusations against uh backed up with fact and books being reviewed by every newspaper in the world including all the religious press no one's ever pointed out a mistake in it not one and if half of what I say is true about her then none of what is commonly believed about her is true but I'm used to this now white people need every nun then a complete illusion and this was one what would you do if Henry Kissinger decided to call you and try to bury the hatchet after all these years extremely interesting but one of the reasons I detest him is I sort of know that couldn't happen he wouldn't even agree when I was writing my book about him to have questions submitted in writing let alone to meet me he's made it a condition when he appears on television programs that he not be asked about the book I know this from the producers several of them he made a condition of his appearance to the National Press Club don't think should have agreed that he not be asked about the book never - attitude to me there's no reason to like me but I mean I would have pretended I was him I'd have pretended who's this guy Hitchens I don't care but I know i needled him but more important if you think of the things he's been found out as having done lying about Vietnam mmm lying about Chile Bangladesh East Timor the deaths of so many people needlessly for the vanity of himself and his criminal president we have other people from that period in our history Robert McNamara had the Bundy brothers others William Colby who in their books and their memoirs tried to make some kind of restitution they said actually this was pretty bad policy and we sort of suspected at the time that it was bad maybe worse and we're sort of sorry and actually we have some evidence we feel we should share with you some disclosures that you should have had at the time made some urgent kissing has never said a word of self-criticism normal one and he gets very petulant and angry and spoiled and ugly when he's criticized so that as chief says in another context Bertie the contingency sir is a remote one but if he was to try it I'd be fascinated to meet him of course we don't have much time Edie look don't say that I'll be the judge of that if you knew that there was a certain amount of time left I have no idea six months a year whatever things do you want to do I mean you've gone through that process yes but what they don't tell you you see is what kind of months these would be that's the other reason they don't like being asked what have you not done if I was in you probably remember Stephen so Louis the late congressman very very interesting man had the same thing as me died recently but he before he died he'd had about four or five counts of four years and you'd done a lot of traveling he kept up his interest in human rights and international policy and then he got word that it was back and probably that that was it he made fairly short work doing this was a few weeks ago that's what I need to know I mean the great loss to me in the last few months is the inability to travel I got to Toronto for Thanksgiving that wasn't that hard I've been to California I've been to with a private plane very kindly that was sent for me to do a speaking engagement in Montana I've finally got to see the Little Bighorn which I've always wanted to and the wonderful National Park so I know he got three American states unvisited - which one the Dakotas and Nebraska hey I've done all the others plus Puerto Rico any plan to go back to your home country or American citizen I worry I it's sentimental I know but someone said to me randomly the other day are you afraid you're not singing and again and I realized yes I was I I can't bear the idea of not going back at least once but I couldn't do it now I'd have to be told I was on what they call a chemo holiday we are out of time and I think the best way to end it is to say I'll see in a couple of years and I'm serious again you bet thank you very much my pleasure it is brightest for a DVD copy of this program call one eight seven seven six six to seven seven to six for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program visit us at QA or QA programs are also available as c-span podcasts coming up

Channel: C-SPAN

Views: 68,632

Rating: 4.8523808 out of 5

Keywords: C-SPAN, cspan, qa, christopher, hitchens, lamb, god, henry, kissinger, history

Id: ZGHIJT7ndaY

Length: 55min 27sec (3327 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 27 2011