>> John Haskell: Hello. I'm John Haskell, Director of the John W. Kluge. Center at the Library of Congress. Welcome to Kluge Book Conversations, and thank you for joining us. We're here today with Dr. Charlie Laderman to discuss his recent book, Sharing the Burden, The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo American Visions of Global Order. Dr. Laderman is a lecturer in international history and part of the core team responsible for directing the Centre for Grand Strategy at King's College London. Oxford University Press published his first book, which is the subject of our conversation today. It was awarded the Arthur Miller Institute prize from the British Association of American Studies as the first best book on any American Studies topic in 2019, and it has been shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society's Whitfield prize in British history. He did much of his research for the book at the Library of Congress when he was a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellow in 2010 and then again in 2015. Welcome to Kluge Book Conversations, Charlie. >> Charlie Laderman: Thank you, John. It's a pleasure to be here. I had a wonderful time at the Kluge Center, so much so that I came back -- I think came back three times. So I'm delighted to be here again, even if only remotely. >> John Haskell: Tell us a little bit about your time at the Library as you researched this book, you know, what collections you might have accessed, that kind of thing. >> Charlie Laderman: It was -- it was a wonderful place to be a scholar. And I had such a wonderful time there. I mean, for any scholar of American politics to be in Washington, DC in the heart of these discussions about US politics is always a privilege. But the Library is just a remarkable place to do research. Both the Kluge Center itself and its staff were extremely helpful. But, actually, I didn't spend that much time in the Center itself. I was mainly in the manuscript room, digging through and communing with Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson through their papers and those of their advisors. So I was digging into those papers, in particular, but also a number of their advisors like Oscar Strauss, who was the first Jewish cabinet member who also served as an ambassador in the Ottoman Empire; and, John, Robert Lansing, Wilson's Secretary of State. But pretty much any major figure of the Gilded Age and progressive era, so many of them, their papers are at the Library of Congress. So it's really an ideal place for anyone interested in that period to do research. >> John Haskell: So let's talk a little bit about you, Charlie. How did you get interested in the Armenian question? As I understand it, your heritage is not Armenian; is that right? >> Charlie Laderman: No. I think sometimes when people see my name they think perhaps I might be. But, no, I don't have any Armenian connection. And, really, I came to it as someone who was interested in big questions of intervention, human rights and questions of global order. And I actually started when I was a student at the University of Cambridge. I helped organize a conference on the history of humanitarian intervention. And while I was organizing that for the professor who was my supervisor for my master's thesis, I started to think, well, if I was going to be doing a paper on this, what would I do my paper on? What do I think is a big question of humanitarian intervention? And the more I dug into it, and I was interested in American politics, I started to look at the period around the First World War. And two big books had come out around this time. I was interested in the debates of the 1990s over intervention in Rwanda, in Bosnia, in Kosovo. That's where I came of age politically. And two scholars who were also interested in that period had written about the history of humanitarian intervention, Samantha Power, who famously would go into both the Obama administration and now into the Biden administration would write a book on America and the Age of Genocide, a Problem From Hell. And Gary J. Bass of Princeton also wrote a book on the history of humanitarian intervention. And both of those books coincided. So the Power book ended with -- the Power book started with the Armenian Genocide, and the Bass book ended with it. And it came clear to me that this was a really critical moment in the origins of responding to crimes against humanity, but it hadn't really been seen as such in American foreign policy. You could read books on American foreign policy around the First World War, and there would be barely a footnote to the Armenian genocide and the American response. I became really interested in why this was the case, why this had been neglected and how I could use that into a window to these larger debates over America's rise to become a world power, its relationship with Great Britain and really the origins of what came to be known as the responsibility to protect doctrine humanitarian intervention [phonetic]. >> John Haskell: Let's take a step back, Charlie, and talk about the Armenians themselves. What's distinctive about them? >> Charlie Laderman: Yes. I mean that -- this is one of those things is that for us today, looking back, they might seem sort of a very sort of niche interest. But if you were alive in the late 19th century, early 20th century in Britain, the United States, across the British Empire, you would have somewhat of a sense of the history of the Armenians and their place within the Ottoman Empire. Winston Churchill would write about how the Armenians attracted the attention of simple and chivalrous people all across the English speaking world. And this was really the case. The Armenian issue became a humanitarian cause celebre at this period. Now, it wasn't the first. They weren't the first of the minority Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire to attract that interest. The Bulgarians, the Greeks had also risen up in opposition to the Ottoman Empire and attracted support in the United States and the British Empire and, indeed, across Europe. But one of the things which the Armenians had is that they had this long-standing Christianity. They claim to be the oldest Christian nation in the world, that they could look to see their lineage going back to Noah's Ark; in Armenian heritage, that they are -- that Mount Ararat to the heart of the Armenian homeland, mentioned in the book of Genesis. So they have this really special connection on the mindset of Christians in this era. But also they were seen as sort of racially kindred. They were seen as sort of the Anglo Saxons of the Middle East. And from the American perspective, they also had a long-standing missionary connection. The United States had sent missionaries to the Ottoman Empire for really since the early 19th century and had established this really remarkable missionary community, the largest in the Ottoman Empire. And it was predominantly among Armenians. So there's all these different connections that drew the Armenians into the public mindset in the English-speaking world at this time. >> John Haskell: So their situation, then, when they were -- when the Ottoman Empire still existed, it deteriorated, right, at some point? Was it late 19th century and especially as you get toward World War I. Tell us a little bit about how their situation deteriorated. >> Charlie Laderman: Yes. So as you say, The other reason why the Armenians have this hold on the public imagination is that they're a Christian population in the largest Islamic empire of the time. And the Ottoman Empire had been a remarkable institution and had flourished really over a number of centuries. But as you say, by the 19th century, they had become what was referred to at the time as the sick man of Europe. They were struggling under the challenge from the European powers who were wealthier and were expanding across the world. They were also struggling against national rebellions within their own territory. I mentioned the Greek Civil War of the 1820s, the Bulgarians at the 1870s. And the Armenians were just the latest in this litany of national independence movements. So the Ottoman Empire was sort of -- it was being challenged for without and from within. And at this time, they were trying to reform themselves, and they were looking to establish a constitution. But, ultimately, by the end of the 19th century, the Empire had become increasingly repressive. There was a sense to which these national independence struggles were being used by outside powers to undermine them. And there was a sense to which these communities, particularly the Armenians, because of their strategic locus in the sort of central heartland of the Ottoman Empire, in Anatolia and modern-day Turkey, that this was a particularly precarious position and that, ultimately, this was undermining the Ottoman Empire. And it was also undermining the commitment of Sultan Abdul Hamid to sort of reform to an empire on a more Islamic basis, rather than necessarily as a multi-confessional Empire. It was one where the Islamic identity was going to be really centralized and consolidated, and there was a sense to which the Armenians were a barrier to that. >> John Haskell: So you talked a little bit about how missionaries and that whole movement, the missionary movement brought the Armenian situation to the attention of the US and US policymakers. Did it make it all the way to the top? I mean, you know, you know a lot about Teddy Roosevelt and then Woodrow Wilson. Why were they interested? Was it because of the missionary movement, or were there other factors? >> Charlie Laderman: Yes. It's a really good question. I mean, at that time, at the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, we do see this sort of resurgence of Protestantism across the English speaking world. And the missionary movements already, they're not just important for their influence overseas. They're also important for their influence back home, in the United States and in Great Britain. But in the United States, in particular, they are the most international of constituencies, that they explain the rest of the world to Americans at a time during the Gilded Age in the late 19th century where the United States is not really particularly active in global affairs. The missionaries are the Americans who have the greatest connection to what's going on in the outside world. In their messages back, they're often writing articles in major newspapers, and they're helping to explain the way in which the world works to American leaders and to the American populace. And as you say, for people like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, they grew up around these missionary leaders. People like Cleveland Dodge, who is one of the leading missionary figures, he was a childhood friend of Theodore Roosevelt. But at the same time, he also bankrolled Woodrow Wilson when he was president of Princeton and then when Wilson ran for president. So the missionaries were extremely influential. They had strong connections with the leaders of the time, and they really have this very important role in American society. >> John Haskell: Uh-huh. So let's get to the -- to some of the real meat and themes of your book. When we think of foreign powers in the larger region, including the Middle East during the First World War and the and the aftermath of the First World War, as well, we tend to think of Britain and France. But what was the American role, and why was it so important as we, you know, we're in the process of making the contemporary Middle East? >> Charlie Laderman: Yes. That's a really interesting question. And, again, it was one of those issues that first brought me to the topic. You can find lots of books on France and Britain in the Middle East [inaudible] period. But you can't find that many on the United States and its role in the Middle East. And there's a good reason for that. As I mentioned, the United States at the end of 19th century is not a major player in the Middle East, at least geopolitically. Even as it starts to emerge in the 1890s and early 20th century as a power in the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific, it still doesn't tend to have a major role in the Middle East. And during the First World War, even when the United States intervenes in that war against Germany and Austria, Hungary, what I thought was fascinating, I had no idea until I came to this topic was the United States does not declare war on the Ottoman Empire in 1917 when it enters the war. It's very explicit about that and remains out of the First World War. I think that's a really important question. Why does it do that? And that was one of the things I was trying to answer because those who were concerned about what was going on to the Armenians after the massacres initially broke out in 1915 were really pressing for intervention, but the United States declined to do so. And I'd be happy to talk a bit more about why that's the case. >> John Haskell: Yeah. Why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit more about that. >> Charlie Laderman: Yeah. So, I mean, partly it's because of the missionary community. They are lobbying against this, which is ironic because they're at the head of the relief movement [phonetic] for the Armenians. So the missionaries want to see Americans provide a huge amount of philanthropic giving to the Armenians to help succor them during this time of hardship. But at the same time, they don't want to see the United States intervene. They're playing this very balanced double game because their main concern is that the Ottoman Empire will requisition their property and that they will no longer be able to act and be able to proselytize in the Ottoman Empire. So they're trying to ensure interest in the Armenians for giving; but they don't want a military intervention, which they think will rebound against them. Partly they also think they are the people providing relief to the Armenians. If they can no longer do that because the United States is obliterated in the war, then that will be bad for the Armenians as well. So that's one part of it. But the other part, which I think is fascinating, I don't think has really been bought out in other studies of this is the way in which Woodrow Wilson perceives the Middle East as basically this area which is going to be carved up by the British and the French, this traditional area of European imperialism. And he doesn't want the United States to be caught up in an Imperial carve-up of the Middle East. He wants to keep the United States separate from that. And that's because, after the war, Wilson wants to see the United States take the lead in creating a whole new international system. And within that international system, alongside those things which we know so well, the League of Nations and ultimately an American membership in that to sort of lead on things like self-determination and disarmament, what Wilson wants to see the United States do is take on a larger role in the Middle East. He wants to see the United States take a mandate, which was essentially a protector over parts of the former Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire and provide really a model to the other imperial power, to the European imperial powers about how you could nation build, how you could essentially provide governance and rule for people without doing so in an exploitative sense. And what Wilson wanted to see United States do is have this presence in the Ottoman Empire, to build up the Armenians and give them an independent state. And that is a really critical part of the whole debate over the League of Nations, over America as a major power after the First World War but one which has largely been neglected in the past. >> John Haskell: And this all went by the wayside since we didn't end up -- the Senate didn't end up approving the treaty for the League of Nations. Right? >> Charlie Laderman: Exactly. So it's a fascinating counterfactual. It's really a central question of the post First World War period. When we're looking at the debates over the League of Nations, people understood it within the context of this mandate, as well, because the mandate in the Middle East was this tangible commitment that the United States would take on. The membership of the League of Nations was slightly an abstract idea joining this new international organization. But to send American troops to police the Middle East, that was actually a tangible sense. And Wilson felt that American sympathy for the Armenians might encourage them to do this, but his opponents saw this is just an example of the unrewarding and open-ended commitments that an American membership of the League of Nations would involve. It goes on, this debate, all the way through the League of Nations to be and actually outlasts it. So the debate over a mandate finishes in June 1920 when Wilson puts this to the United States Senate after the League has been rejected. And it's very much seen by those who opposed the League as Wilson's attempt to have a backdoor to the League of Nations. But it's fascinating. And the Library has remarkable material on this, these maps have been drawn up by Wilson and his advisors on what an American presence in the Middle East would have looked like. And when we tend to think of Armenia, we think of this small state today in the caucuses. That's not the way in which it was conceived of at this time. The Armenian provinces stretched from the Black Sea all the way to the Mediterranean. It's really at the heart, the crossroads of the Middle East. And that is a really fascinating strategic sort of nexus, and Wilson believed that if the United States was there then it could help ensure that European powers didn't just carve up the Middle East and take new Imperial territories. >> John Haskell: So what we haven't talked about is what did the Armenians think of this? So they -- and maybe you can speak a little bit about what they've been through, what's called the genocide in the decades before, during this time and before and how they perceive what was going on with Britain and France and the United States and then the eventual, you know, carving up of the Middle East. What do they think about all that? >> Charlie Laderman: Yeah. I think that that is -- that is obviously a central question but is often left out of these stories about the carving up of the Middle East, not just the Armenians but other communities and nations, what was going on in terms of their perspective on this. And the Armenians I think are very interesting within this, and I did quite a lot of digging into Armenian archives, particularly I went to Yerevan to do some archival research in the Armenian National Archives. But one of the areas where I got some of my richest research was in Paris with an Armenian archive. And that was -- what was particularly interesting to me is to watch the way in which the Armenians tried to influence the debate as it's going on in the United States over accepting a mandate. So as you mentioned, they had been the victims of not just the genocide of 1915, but also the massacres of the 1890s, where hundreds of thousands of Armenians are killed. And so in the aftermath of that there's growing pressure within the Armenian community over creating a new sort of -- looking for security and potential independence within the Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. This becomes the heart of what is known as the Armenian question. And then, during the First World War, after the massacres initially break out, the Armenians are lobbying in the United States first for a military intervention on their behalf against the Ottoman Empire and then on the possibility of a mandate, writing articles in the American press, lobbying leaders. And really, for the Armenians, the sense is that this is going to be the only way that they can secure their independence. They want to see an American intervention. They use arguments like, Well, look. The United States had intervened in Cuba and in the Philippines. They were saying, well, this could be sort of an extension of America's global role. And you're seeing this not just among the Armenians. There's also other groups within the Ottoman Empire as well who see the United States as a useful counterpoint to the British and the French. If the British and the French are sort of seen as the devil you know, the American sense is essentially, Well, look what they've done in Cuba and the Philippines. They haven't -- they -- the argument's being made and partly this is not -- this is based on not necessarily having sort of full information on what's going on in those territories. But at least on a more superficial level, they look at what's happened in Cuba and the Philippines, they look at, say, the British presence in Egypt and say the United States will intervene but will ultimately withdraw. And that was their sense, whereas the French and the British are more traditional imperial powers. And if they come in, we have no hope in the future of getting our independence. So this, it's fascinating in this sense, the way in which, particularly the Armenians are looking to influence that debate in the United States. And they're aware that they have less material resources than, say, the provinces of modern day Iraq, Mesopotamia, which has oil. The Armenians don't have that. So the question is, how do they encourage the Americans to come and take on a role in their territory? >> John Haskell: So in the -- you mentioned the genocide in 1915. What was the scale of that, just to give people a sense? >> Charlie Laderman: Yes. So as I said, the first massacre is the 1890s. >> John Haskell: Right. >> Charlie Laderman: The scale was probably between about 100 to 300,000. The numbers are -- it's hard to know exactly in that case. In 1915, this is a slightly different situation. This obviously is occurring amidst warfare, and it's even more difficult to know the exact details of this. But most scholars would estimate that it's around a million Armenians who were massacred at that time. >> John Haskell: Which is about what percentage of the population? >> Charlie Laderman: Well, it's -- yeah. That's a good question. And the Armenians themselves say in the debates that they -- in the debates over their contribution, essentially, to the Allied cause, that they say that they had lost a greater proportion of their population than any of the belligerent nations during the war. So, again, the numbers are difficult to know exactly because around this time of the 1890s, afterwards, the population of that territory in the Ottoman Empire, it's unclear because there's so much movement that occurs throughout this period exactly the numbers of Armenians, exactly what the population figures are. And so some of these ideas that we talked about previously about national self-determination, they really are in their sort of naughtiest [phonetic], most difficult when trying to work out the national self-determination amongst this intermixed population in the Ottoman Empire where the numbers and the statistics are not clear. And particularly after the genocide of 1915 where huge numbers of Armenians are ethnically cleansed into the deserts, it becomes even more difficult to work out how do you establish no national self-determination in that area. >> John Haskell: Yeah. Things were so much in flux, it's hard to say. But the impact was tremendous. So you started by talking about when you were a student at Cambridge, you came to see how this was kind of a pivot point for the United States. The Armenian question was kind of a pivot point in terms of our role as a world power that was beginning to develop at that time. Develop that idea. >> Charlie Laderman: That was something which really struck me right from the beginning is that the first debates over an intervention from the -- for the Armenians occurred in the mid-1890s just as the United States is starting to emerge as a power interested in the world. We see that in terms of the Spanish-American War, the intervention over Cuba in 1898. And the debates over the Armenians become very much intersected with what's going on in Cuba. So as the United States is starting to get a growing internationalist consciousness in the mid-1890s, there's huge debates around the time of the first Armenia massacres, between 1894 and 1896, about whether the United States should do something about what's going on in the Ottoman Empire. Obviously, this is far away. This is not an area where the United States has clear national interest other than the missionaries and doesn't have a long-standing political connection. But, ultimately, when the Spanish maltreatment of Cuba becomes big, public, a big public interest, the connection is drawn between those who are advocating intervention in Cuba. They say that, basically, Cuba is America's Armenia. That term is used again and again. It's at our door. Ultimately, we need to do in Cuba what the European powers didn't do for the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. These two things are constantly being drawn. The analogy is being made again and again. So that to me was fascinating about the way in which these things intersected. And it becomes increasingly interesting as Theodore Roosevelt emerges as a leader in the United States and ultimately the President because he had been a major advocate of intervention, obviously in Cuba; but he's also been one of the most outspoken proponents of the United States acting for the Armenians. Now, he's -- when he's talking about action for the Armenians, he's quite vague and quite general about this. But he has a long-standing commitment to the Armenian cause, and you see that continue when he becomes president. He puts together a set of principles on the United States' responsibility to intervene from against what he describes as crimes against civilization. That is the first use of that expression by a United States president. And what Roosevelt is talking about there, in particular, and the example that he draws are both what's going on to Russian Jews in the -- in the Russian Empire where pogroms are occurring but also what's going on with the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. And he says the United States can no longer remain separate in its own continent. It has a responsibility in the wider world. And this is at a time where most Americans are not interested in taking on this larger role. They're interested in philanthropy. They're not necessarily interested in military intervention. So Roosevelt is really pushing a position that -- that's quite far ahead of its time but is not something which the majority the Americans believe in at that time. But then, ultimately, when the genocide occurs in 1915, Roosevelt's out of office. He becomes the most outspoken advocate of intervention for the Armenians. So the First World War, that debate between Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, there -- as John Milton Cooper has termed them in a really appropriate phrase, the warrior and the priest, this great clash between these two Titanic figures in American political history over America's role in the world. And they had sort of diverse positions on the Armenians. During the First World War, Roosevelt believes the US should intervene. Wilson believes the United States should keep its eye on the larger picture, which first is to stay out of the war and then, once in, to focus on Germany and not to get sidetracked by the Middle East. But as I mentioned, Wilson ultimately comes to see an American role in the Ottoman Empire for the Armenians and this mandate as central to America's World War. So, really, from the 1890s to the aftermath of the First World War, in all these big debates about what role the United States will take in global affairs, the Armenians are there front and center. >> John Haskell: And that's -- you know, what you're talking about when we track it forward in time to today is really the relevance of your book, right, that presidents have -- you know, once you establish the idea that maybe we will consider intervening in a humanitarian crisis, but we can't do everything. The choices have to be made. And so is that -- so when a president looks at it today or when President Clinton, when -- you know, you talked about how you got first got interested in the '90s when President Clinton looked at it, what should they consider? What should presidents consider, what mistakes have been made, when do you intervene and when do you not? Are these -- these are difficult questions to answer, of course. >> Charlie Laderman: Exactly. And I think that's something which I was very conscious of. This was a very different time. The United States was not the great power in the world at that time that it would come to be. It was rising, but it wasn't in the position that it would occupy at the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century. But what was striking to me is that some of the dilemmas that the US faced at that time were very similar to the ones that we face today. So one in particular, I'd say there's five main dilemmas in terms of dealing with atrocities like this and which are comparable during this period and today. Firstly is this idea of how you stop your rhetoric over intervention and the practice and how you allow those things to come together. And Theodore Roosevelt was hugely conscious of this. He had a wonderful aphorism that he learned when he was a rancher in the Midwest. He said, You should never draw unless you mean to shoot. And this came -- because when he was president, people were advocating to him, You need to speak out against these issues. And Roosevelt said, I will not do it unless I can actually act on it. And this is something which we know is a dilemma which comes right down to the present day. How do you ensure that you don't encourage people to get unrealistic expectations about what you can do and ultimately doing a disservice and putting them in grave danger? So that was one dilemma. But at the same time, Roosevelt was a large advocate. He was a believer in America's role in the world. He was an advocate the United States should intervene when it was possible to do so. And so, ultimately, the dilemma that he faced was how do you look at your own personal ideals and the public's conception of the nation's interests? Because Roosevelt, as I mentioned, believed the United States should act. He knew that most Americans didn't share that position when he was president. And Wilson would face a similar debate over whether the United States should take a mandate in the Middle East after the First World War. And so what we see there is a sense to which do these utopian ideals both Roosevelt and Wilson believed in this large American goal, how does that ultimately impact on the public's conception of the broader purpose of American power and its role in the world? So private ideals and public interests is another dilemma. And a third dilemma, I would say, is ultimately do you intervene yourself? Do you assume the burden for this territory? Or do you basically pressure the sovereign to mend their ways and to do better? And, ultimately, what is your responsibility? Do you put pressure from the outside, or do you intervene and take on that responsibility yourself. And then the other dilemma, which Roosevelt and Wilson at the heart of their debate -- and I think this is a critical one that we see right up to the present day. Roosevelt didn't believe that America should do this -- should take on this role of intervening as part of an international organization in the way that Wilson did. He believed in what a later generation would come to call a coalition of the willing, that the US should act with Great Britain, who shared its ideals in the world. But Wilson, as I mentioned previously, didn't think that Britain had America's ideals, that it was an empire and the United States should stay separate from it. And so Wilson wanted to see the United States do this as part of an international organization. So in his day, the League of Nations; today, the example would be the United Nations. But at the heart of this really is this -- is the fifth and final dilemma, which is, ultimately, when you're faced with atrocities like this, sometimes you just can't find a good solution. As much as you want to, as much as you come up with different conceptions, essentially, it is very difficult to achieve a good solution in such torturous and horrendous circumstances. And this is something which, again, we see to the present day, that good intentions don't always lead to good outcomes. >> John Haskell: Uh-huh. So last question, Charlie. What is the significance of President Biden's recognition of the Armenian Genocide after all these years? >> Charlie Laderman: Yes. This is something which I think is obviously fundamental and I think is really central to the questions that we're looking at here, that to act on this history. And there's been obviously large-scale pressure on US administrations going back. Particularly I think one Reagan was one of the first to claim that the United States would recognize this but then walk this back once he came into office. And pretty much every US president since then during their campaign for the presidency had committed to this but then, once in office, had decided that the costs were too high, the geopolitical costs of angering Turkey. I think what we see today is a sense to which the global order is changing, that an American president does feel comfortable doing this. Partly it's because of a declining relationship with Turkey. And that's obviously a major part of why President Biden has looked to do this. But it's also, I suppose, removed this millstone around the American government's actions on this, that this is something which has just come up again and again. And now that issue has been settled, essentially. The United States has acted on this. But also I think what's fascinating about this is where the pressure came from, is that this is something which didn't start in the White House. It's something that started in Congress a couple of years ago with the House of Representatives and then the Senate moving to act on this. So it also shows that during a time where presidents have such a large and overarching role in US foreign policy, that the role of Congress to help shape presidential decision-making can still be quite decisive. And so this is something that I think is an important consideration as well. >> John Haskell: Well, Charlie, thank you for joining us for Kluge Book Conversations, and we look forward hopefully before too long to seeing you at the Library of Congress. >> Charlie Laderman: Thank you. It's been a pleasure to be here.