Former Soviet KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died last November in a hospital in London. His organs failed because of exposure to lethal levels of polonium-210. In short, he was poisoned. His death received extensive news coverage, and the world waited expectantly for an explanation to emerge. The elements were certainly there: Litvinenko had left the Russian secret service in 2000 and had gone into hiding, knowing that he was a marked man for what he knew. Another Russian spy was charged, but he blames British intelligence for murdering Litvinenko to discredit Putin. The dying Litvinenko, in his final statement, actually blamed Putin for his death. In the end, though, answers were still few and far between…until now, of course.

Litvinenko’s wife, Marina, and close friend Alex Goldfarb, have recently published Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB, in which they elaborate on the ex-spy’s life, investigations and death. They even go so far as to name names they believe were involved in the murder, explain why he broke with Russia in 2000 and reveal some of the Russian secret service’s biggest, um, secrets—those they believe Litvinenko was killed for knowing.

Marina Litvinenko and Alex Goldfarb appeared on The Early Show yesterday to discuss the book. You may watch their interview here and read an excerpt here.

Tony Lagouranis, former U.S. interrogator, makes an appearance on Talk of the Nation to discuss Fear Up Harsh: An Army Interrogator’s Dark Journey Through Iraq, a memoir on the tactics he used at Abu Ghraib, including stress positions, environmental manipulation, military dogs, sleep deprivation and, in one case, a mock execution.

In the interview, Lagouranis talks about his training as an interrogator and the shock and confusion he endured when he realized that the U.S. military was deliberately going against certain aspects of the Geneva Convention laws. He admits that the techniques in question never actually worked. “People only tell you things when they want to tell you things, and causing somebody pain, duress, is only going to strengthen their resolve.” He also entertains callers’ questions, during which he discusses the gray areas and moral issues he had to endure throughout his tour in Iraq, and whether the military’s disregard for the Geneva Convention was the reason why the scandal at Abu Ghraib happened.

Listen to the interview here.

Lagouranis also appeared on Diane Rehm early last week. Listen to that interview here.

In his book, Are We Rome: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America, Vanity Fair Editor Cullen Murphy asks, well, are we Rome?

The comparison of the U.S. and the fallen empire is a popular one in modern times, especially since the onset of the Iraq war, when the country began to experience many of the issues that Rome did during its demise. In an interview with Colbert, who was channeling Russel Crowe, Murphy pointed to “the hollowing out” of government, the imminent corruption that makes citizens lose faith in their central institution. He also discussed our military problems, which echo Rome’s in that our forces are too small to do the jobs we need done, but still too large for us to adequately maintain, which will inevitably lead to a break down abroad. And like Rome, the U.S. has exacerbated the issue, Murphy says, by inviting in outsiders, “barbarians,” to do our dirty work, the most well known of these being Halliburton.

The similarities go on, but Murphy ends the interview on a good note saying he feels it will be largely impossible for Bush to get himself elected Emperor.

Colbert: “So he’s totally going to get stabbed, huh?”

Watch the interview.

This week’s G8 summit got President Bush to acknowledge climate change as a “real” concern and that ignoring international environmental agreements might be a bad thing. New York Times‘ environment reporter Andrew Revkin, author of The North Pole Was Here, talks to On The Media about how Al Gore’s environmental rhetoric is actually helping distract from the current administration’s Iraq quagmire.

Listen to the discussion here.

This is how life imitates art: During the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Catholic King James II was deposed, largely without blood, via an elaborate conspiracy that installed his protestant daughter, Mary, and her husband, William Henry of Orange.

As Jon Stewart points out, “That’s King Lear!”

That play was banned for several years after the revolution, and we know this because last night, Stewart sat down to talk to Michael Barone, author of Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Uprising That Inspired America’s Founding Fathers. The book argues that the American Revolution took most of its cues from the Glorious Revolution, some ninety years before. In the interview, Barone discusses the climate from which the Glorious Revolution sprung forth, the parallels in the United States, and how our War for Independence wasn’t such a revolutionary move after all.

Watch the whole interview here.

Tony Lagouranis joined the army just prior to 9/11 and was tapped to be an interrogator at among other places Abu Ghraib, the notorious prison where the United States’ current unorthodox interrogation methods were first uncovered.

While at first he was enthusiastic about his duties, he soon came to realize that when it came to the extraction of potentially important information pushing the legal envelope was accepted, even encouraged. His recount of the experience is Fear Up Harsh: An Army Interrogator’s Dark Journey Through Iraq. (The title, by the way, is the name of an official tactic designed to terrify prisoners into divulging information.)

Lagouranis talks to Diane Rehm about why he feels the moral and strategic aspects of U.S. interrogation methods have failed and what the ramifications of that might be. Listen to the interview.

And you thought a trip down the New Jersey Turnpike was scary….Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet travel series, has more balls than you or I. Over the course of just a few years, he made pilgrimages to most every country that has, in the past 20 years, threatened the United States in some way, real or imaginary. The resulting book, Lonely Planet: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil, acts as a short list for enemies of democracy: Afghanistan, Albania, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Saudi Arabia.

Wheeler writes with a first person wit foreign to most travel books and along the way takes into account each country’s position on things like human rights, terrorism and international diplomacy in hopes of figuring out what makes a country truly evil, or if such a thing can even be quantified.

Wheeler discusses the writing of Axis of Evil with Liane Hansen in an NPR interview that you may listen to here.

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Carl Bernstein—one half of the duo that broke Watergate—profiles perhaps the most controversial figure in the upcoming election, Hillary Clinton. As Matt Lauer points out, whether you love her or hate her, everyone has an opinion on America’s first female presidential candidate, and Bernstein addresses that in the interview.

His book, A Woman In Charge, does its best to sift through all of the hype and slander surrounding Clinton, and to offer up an honest portrayal of her life to this point.

Today has made both the first chapter of the book and video of the interview during which Bernstein discusses the difficulties of profiling such a contentious figure.
You may experience both here.