Main content

Hay Festival: Spooks, war and genocide

Tom Sutcliffe at Hay Festival with Michael Hayden, Philippe Sands, Janine di Giovanni and Harry Parker.

Start the Week is at Hay Literary Festival this week discussing war and intelligence. Michael Hayden is a former Air Force four-star general who became director of the US National Security Agency and then the CIA. He talks to Tom Sutcliffe about the decisions made during America's war on terror: from rendition and interrogation to widespread surveillance. Harry Parker was in his twenties when he signed up to join the British Army - he uses the paraphernalia and weaponry of war to tell the story of conflict; while the journalist Janine di Giovanni reports on ordinary people caught up in the fighting in Syria. The human rights lawyer Philippe Sands looks back at his own family's history to make sense of crimes against humanity.
Producer: Katy Hickman.

Available now

43 minutes

Harry Parker

is a former soldier and now a writer and artist.

Anatomy of a Soldier is published by Faber & Faber.

Janine di Giovanni

is a foreign correspondent, Middle East Editor of Newsweek and a contributing editor of Vanity Fair.

The Morning They Came For Us: Dispatches from Syria is published by Bloomsbury.

Philippe Sands

is Professor of Law at University College London and a practising barrister.

East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Michael Hayden

is a retired United States Air Force four-star general and the former Director of the National Security Agency and the CIA.

Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror is published by Penguin Press.

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Tom Sutcliffe
Interviewed Guest Michael Hayden
Interviewed Guest Philippe Sands
Interviewed Guest Janine di Giovanni
Interviewed Guest Harry Parker
Producer Katy Hickman

Broadcasts

  • Mon 30 May 2016 09:00
  • Mon 30 May 2016 21:30

Podcast