>> Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour and Company."

Here is what is coming up.

>> We have to do this.

The stakes for Ukraine's much anticipated counteroffensive.

The former NATO deputy supreme allied commander.

What I had to do is be on where all this is headed.

And then, the killing of the Palestinian-American journalist.

We examined that dark moment on this World Press Freedom Day.

Also ahead... >> The reason I am here in North London today is because some white dudes came to India in the 17th century.

>> The author of "Empireland."

With King Charles' coronation just days away, digging into the complex legacy of the British Empire and how that shaped modern Britain.

>> Amanpour and Company is made possible by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III.

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>> Welcome to the program.

Russia is claiming that Ukraine attempted to assassinate President Putin in a targeted drone attack on the Kremlin.

It says two drones were flown toward the sea by the Russian president and that Putin was not in the building at the time.

CNN analysis of video showing the incident does support claims that the drones were flown above the Kremlin but there is no evidence of Ukrainian involvement.

Here is President Zelenskyy speaking about it in Helsinki today.

>> We don't attack Putin or Moscow.

We are defending our cities.

We don't have enough weapons for this.

That is why.

We don't use it anywhere.

We can't spend it.

We did not attack Putin.

We leave it to the tribunal.

>> Here is the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressing the same matter.

>> I can't in any way validate them, we simply don't know.

Second, I would take anything coming out of the Kremlin with a very large shaker of salt.

Let's see.

We will see what the facts are.

>> It comes as many believe Ukraine's counteroffensive could be imminent.

The country's defense minister says reparations are almost complete.

In the past few days, Russia has also stepped up his attacks including on the capital of Kyiv.

It seems this is a critical point in this war and our guest is joining me now in the studio.

Your visit to us could not be better timed given the breaking news.

What is your immediate reaction?

>> I completely agree with what Mr. Blinken has said.

Nothing is what it seems with Russia.

Of course, Russia would like to portray that it is an attack on President Putin.

I think it is a way of separating and causing division between those supporting Russia and Ukraine.

Ukraine has always said it will not attack Russian territory.

And by portraying some evidence of them doing so, I think they will sew division and potentially unwind the local support.

>> I should ask you what you think sent those drones there.

Is it even possible to send them that distance from Ukraine to the Kremlin?

>> I think you would have to ask a real expert in drone technology.

It doesn't say a great deal about it if it is bridged.

I think it is highly unlikely it was.

I think this was a put up job by the Russians.

>> To split the forces on the Ukrainians side but what about what Zelensky's highest advisor says, This is a false flag to blame the Ukrainians for something that might proceed a planned massive strike by Russia?

>> Anything is possible.

False flag, yes but we have seen massive strikes by Russia.

I spent most of the night in a bomb shelter in Kyiv last week because of the attacks on the capital.

Anything is possible with Russia.

>> What did you learn about the Ukrainian side?

There has been so much talk about a counteroffensive that it is beginning to sound just like noise now.

May risks are putting Ukraine in a bad light.

>> The first thing is the absolute unshakable termination of the Ukrainians to achieve victory.

They know unless they do, this war will go on.

They are committed to fighting to achieve victory without the support of the West.

The second is the imperative of the offensive.

>> Where do you think this counteroffensive would come?

Document an ongoing war of attrition.

What do you think?

We are hearing a lot of reports from the Zaporizhzhia region.

What in your mind would be the most advantageous way for Ukraine to break out?

>> I will not speculate on the way or the when.

I have no inside knowledge at all.

From a purely professional military perspective, where do you want to attack?

Where you can amass most drink and where you reckon the enemy is weakest.

>> Where do you think that is now?

>> I will not speculate.

To achieve that, you need surprise, deception, security and concentration.

>> Do you think there is too much talk about this?

The Ukrainians are not shy about talking about it.

>> The expectations are being built up.

We have to be very careful of that.

I think we have to prepare ourselves for a series of counteroffensives.

Each requiring a buildup of troops, training, logistics and each over time.

I think this will be a long haul.

>> It is going to be a long haul and it is not entirely clear.

This really ticked off the Ukrainians that they can make any serious games now or what the people in Ukraine did.

>> There has been too much... Look at the issue.

Ukrainians need F-16s and ammunition.

There has been so much handwringing about sending F-16s to support the Ukrainians.

Ukraine would be in a much better place.

It would only be the result of the counteroffensive that would prompt allies to send them the plans.

>> The quicker the West can deliver what is needed, the better.

The picture that a series of counteroffensives can be mounted in the quicker the Ukrainians will achieve that military objective.

My concern is the longer we delay, the more we barricade in the West, the less we care ourselves up to provide the tools to do the job.

That means mobilizing her economies to produce the ammunition, the tanks, all the capabilities required.

If Ukrainians cannot achieve success on their own because the West has delayed, it might just be that we have to provide some form of direct support.

>> The way to avoid that is to give Ukraine the tools to do the job now.

>> That is the one thing they said they did not want to do, particularly President Biden does not want to get into the direct war with Russia.

Right now they can do -- they are not on the ground.

>> We have to recognize this is a war by Russia against not just Ukraine but it is a war to prevent Ukraine becoming a part of the West.

>> You have been there.

You have also seen and you are very knowledgeable about all the weapon systems they have been getting, there is a report from the New York Times.

It has been exceptionally rainy.

Much more than last year.

The mud over there is really difficult.

What does that mean?

Does that mean they have to wait until the sun breaks the ground?

How good are all of these Western and Allied systems?

>> I will not get into the detail of what is good and bad and the technical detail.

That is not for me to comment on.

When you are factoring in the planning for any form of military operation, you have to take account of every single factor.

You have to look at whether, ground, the enemy.

You put all that through the system and work it through.

You work out your courses of action and then you decide which is the best course of action to execute.

I am sure all of that will be factored in.

>> You have just been in Kyiv.

The United States says in the last five months, the Russians have lost something in the region of 100,000 troops.

What is the morale amongst the leaders who you met and amongst the troops on the ground?

Unshakable determination.

>> Inspirational approach.

They are tired.

Of course they are tired.

Those young soldiers fighting in the backwoods have lived there and all these other places where the fighting is.

They are tired and find been motivated and they will continue to fight the Russians.

Come what may, they will continue to fight.

They will operate.

>> The Russians have spent many months digging in.

They really dug in there.

That is what the Ukrainians report and what intelligence could see.

What does that mean for the counteroffensive?

>> This goes back to my earlier point.

Do not assume that one counteroffensive will be enough.

This will require a series of offensives.

To break into well-planned, well cited defensive positions with extensive minefields that require real capability, artillery, mine clearing capabilities, that is why I say this is a major challenge for the Ukrainians.

They have the morale, the spirit, the leadership.

I have no doubt they will prevail.

>> What do you think?

Others have said it is a very important symbolic anyway.

>> We have designed a very effective meatgrinder in Bakhmut.

What they are doing is they are sucking in the Russians.

They are fixing the Russians which in military terms could allow them to strike somewhere else.

>> President Zelenskyy was in Finland and Finland has been approved to join NATO.

When we spoke very early on in this work, you said that NATO had to do much more deterrence in the future.

It had to put tens if not hundreds of thousands of native troops all along the eastern flank to send a message once and for all that this will not stand, this kind of aggression.

Is NATO doing it?

>> It is not.

We have the summit coming up.

I would expect to see a much more tangible sign of that deterrence.

But I would also expect to see clear signals from NATO that Ukraine would be a full member of NATO.

I would add Moldova and Georgia.

NATO...at security, the under the unconditional guarantee of mutual defense, security blanket across Ukraine.

Once again we have a bloodstained dictator causing mayhem inflicting unspeakable damage.

They are extending that route by bringing Ukraine to NATO.

>> Do you see how this ends?

>> I see this -- I think that Ukraine can with the right support achieve victory and by victory I mean defeating the Russians, inflicting a sufficient defeat on pressure that Putin recognizes.

He will never achieve his aims by military means.

Even then, there will not be peace.

It will be a standoff.

The way this ends thereafter is through that bent up steel including Ukraine by NATO across Eastern Europe.

And a long-term generational challenge until and unless Russia changes its approach.

We have to recognize that long-term, Europe is going to have on its eastern border a dangerous, angry, humiliated, defeated Russia with leaders still hell-bent on rebuilding a new Russian Empire.

>> Does the West have the stomach to grit it out until that end?

>> On the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, we are reminded that there can be no free society.

Misinformation amplified by social media and the threat of artificial intelligence.

The committee to protect journalists which was recognized at the NASDAQ opening today, says a record 363 journalists were behind bars in 2022.

We have seen evidence of that most recently in Russia's arrest of Evan Gershkovich.

This is a time to remember the courageous journalists who lost their lives in pursuit of the truth, facts and evidence.

This marks nearly a year since the renowned Al Jazeera correspondent was shot dead while covering an Israeli rate in the occupied West Bank.

CNN's investigation revealed evidence suggesting Abu Akleh was killed in a targeted attack by Israeli forces which Israel denies.

Al Jazeera's documentary won an award earlier this year and here is part of that film.

That is the question.

The Al Jazeera correspondent who reported this documentary joins me now from New York.

Congratulations for winning the prestigious award.

It is a real recognition of the quality of your work.

The gentleman we saw in that clip talking was serving as producer who himself was wounded.

He took a bullet to the shoulder.

Doing this documentary, I guess my first question is what do you hope to achieve with this documentary one year later?

>> We are hoping to achieve accountability in the case.

This was one of the most prominent journalists of her generation, a faith that was recognizable by people across the Arab world and internationally.

Who was killed in broad daylight.

They were wearing a flak jacket.

There was no crossfire in the minutes leading up to and the time she was killed.

If we can't get accountability in her case, what chance does anyone in Palestine have?

>> It is a very good question.

We all know how very difficult it is to cover the occupied West Bank which Al Jazeera always has the illegally occupied West Bank.

That is what you say in your narration.

I want to play a series of clips from your documentary.

First, a clip because you said and you show in the thing that there was no crossfire at any time.

Here is a guy who tries to head to her rescue after she has been...and tries to pull her away.

I just need to say that perhaps some people watching this will find it disturbing because it is.

>> A young man jumped over the wall to try to help.

But he was also fired at.

>> Why did you think that part of the story was important?

Explain to our viewers.

We hear a burst of gunfire.

That is when the producer was shot in the shoulder.

We see the last shot of them alive crouching by the tree.

He is targeted.

This shows this was not an errant gunfire.

This was deliberate targeting.

The Palestinian human rights group show that all the shots were fired above shoulder level.

They were fired in very close proximity to each other.

Quickly, Israeli government issued a statement, they started by saying it was not them at all.

It was probably Palestinian militants.

This is the very prominent Israeli human rights organization.

They developed their own government and their own militaries.

I want to play this piece of your documentary where you're interviewing the director.

>> In terms of trying to control the narrative, you can see how this changed.

>> Here are the bullet holes from where he was shooting from.

We will take a left.

We are not sure who did it.

Then we will say it might be us.

Another left to it was probably us.

Each change in that narrative was not volunteered by Israel.

>> That is really interesting.

CNN's own investigation found evidence suggesting that the fatal shot likely came from a position where IDS were likely to have been.

The pattern of gunfire suggests that they were and rather than spread indiscriminately.

How important was that investigation?

Has the Israeli government and also the idea -- have they done a transparent and independent investigation?

>> No.

None of the eyewitnesses have been interviewed in the case.

The investigation has not been transparent.

As we saw in that clip, it is really the military's narrative changed several times.

In the beginning, they are trying to blame the Palestinian government.

That claim is quite ridiculous with the video they put out.

It was quiet easily debunked.

We show that as well in our piece and then they claimed there was inconclusive evidence and then following reports by CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press and under a lot of pressure, in September, they issued their final reports that said that she was likely killed by an Israeli soldier but that she was caught in crossfire.

They don't explain how they came to the determination of crossfire.

That claim is contradicted by video evidence, by eyewitness testimony.

To be honest, this is part of a long-standing pattern by the Israeli military.

The committee to protect journalists is releasing a report next week on the killings of journalists by the Israeli military going back over two decades.

They look at 20 separate cases.

They find a pattern of Israeli response that is designed to evade responsibility.

The fact that Israel's responsibility resulted in zero accountability is not surprising.

It is part of a pattern of impunity.

>> In that documentary, you say none of the main eyewitnesses were interviewed... and none who were actually at the scene.

Today, one year later, there has been a meeting at the Israeli Foreign Press Association.

And the prime minister at the time was asked about it by CNN.

This is what he says today one year later.

>> Bad things happen, civilians die, sometimes deliberately in which case you need prosecution and sometimes not deliberately.

If there is a battle going on and there is collateral damage that is not deliberate, no.

What you would do is shackle the hands of fighters.

>> What is your reaction to that?

>> We can just take him at his word.

There wasn't a battle going on.

There is 16 minutes of video by a resident that streamed it on TikTok.

It shows all those minutes leading up to the shooting.

There is the Al Jazeera footage as well.

There was no battle going on.

The reporters were standing around in clear sight of the Israeli convoy.

As he said, if it was deliberate which in this case, many organizations and findings found it was, there should be prosecution.

>> Next, to the fact that she was not just Palestinian but American, she is an American citizen, and you take your investigation to the White House you enter the State Department and you ask specifically about their investigations to find out exactly what happened.

I want to play this which shows you speaking to the State Department spokesman, Ned Price, when you took your evidence to him and you also talk in this clip to Chris Van Hollen who believes there should be an investigation.

Listen to this.

>> Let me ask you about the central claim in the Israeli military's report that if she was killed, is because she was caught in an exchange of fire or the Palestinian government.

That claim is completely disputed by eyewitness testimony and footage leading up to the shooting.

>> We are concerned when there are allegations that a civilian was intentionally targeted.

What the Israelis found and what a security court later found was that there appears to have been no intentionality.

Our security court later found no reason to believe that she was intentionally targeted.

Click-save using the footage?

>> Of course.

I looked at everything in the public domain that is available.

>> Clearly they have not done what they said themselves they would do.

The Secretary said there would be an independent investigation.

There has not been one.

Backing off sends the wrong message around the world.

>> I want to ask you because yesterday, that senator said he sent a letter to the Secretary of State pressing for the release of a new report compiled by the U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

What do you think this development could mean?

>> We don't know what is in that report yet.

In the letter from Senator Van Hollen, he says his office was informed that the for State Department releases this new report for congressional review, the administration plans to make unspecified changes to its content, a move that he says would violate the integrity of the process.

We have to question whether there will be anything new in this report.

They said there would be no new findings or conclusions.

This relied heavily on the Israeli investigation.

This came to the same conclusion.

An Israeli soldier likely killed her.

They don't specify how they determined that.

This contradicts the video footage in the eyewitness testimony.

The FBI informed the Israeli government they were going to conduct investigation.

They said they would not cooperate with the investigation.

We have to see where that is going.

The Biden administration has not stepped up.

Let me just add, as we're talking, on World Press Freedom Day, President Biden rightly raised the cases of the Wall Street Journal reporter who is imprisoned on trumped up charges in Moscow.

They disappeared in a checkpoint in Syria days ago.

Does your family not deserve the same support from President Biden?

The same call for justice?

>> Let's not forget she is an American citizen.

I think the whole world realized who she was in her funeral.

It was unbelievable.

We have pictures of that.

Not just the thousands and thousands of people who came out to mourn her and say for a while but the fact that even there, the event was disrupted and attacked.

You can see the Israeli forces there attacking the procession.

The coffin almost falls to the ground.

It is really shocking to watch that.

My question to you is why do you think this journalist was killed deliberately and even her funeral was disrupted?

Why would they do that?

>> I can't speak to why.

This is part of why we needed an independent investigation.

Israeli soldiers had body cameras.

That bodycam footage has not been made available.

Was this a rash decision by the Israeli sniper?

We don't know.

This is why the independent investigation is so important.

The attack on the funeral -- they said this was an attempt to silence her again.

There was a massive display of unity.

They really brought people together.

Palestinians are cross class, gender, religious affiliation.

There was a massive turnout in Jerusalem for her funeral.

She meant so much to Palestinians.

Her family is holding a memorial to mark the one-year anniversary of her death.

Inviting people to the memorial.

They included a quote of hers.

She said, "Maybe I wasn't able to change the reality.

At least I was able to bring people's voices to the world."

She was killed as she was doing that.

As she was working to bring the voices of Palestinians to the world.

No one has been held accountable.

>> Thank you so much.

This has been a very powerful documentary.

Congratulations on winning a prestigious award for it.

This killing -- the documentary on this killing is available to stream on YouTube and Al Jazeera website.

The eyes of the world will be on Westminster Abbey for the coronation of Britain's new king.

In a ceremony meant to reflect to reflect the country's modern multicultural society.

Behind the pomp and pageantry, a reminder of Britain's colonial legacy and questions about ushering in a new era of accountability.

A new book, "Empireland" examines Britain's complicated past.

The author, Sathnam Sanghera, joins us.

Thank you for talking with us.

>> Thank you for having me on.

>> I got to my mid 40s and realized I knew nothing about the Empire.

The reason I am here is because some white dudes invaded India in the 17th century.

The importance of the City of London.

It turns out lots of other people felt the same.

I thought I would try to plug in the gaps in my knowledge.

There are some bad debates going on in the United States about slavery and our history but at least it is a debate.

You describe kind of a collective silence about this.

Does that sound right?

It was the biggest empire in human history.

My theory is that the British Empire happened abroad.

We did not have a dark night of the soul when we confronted our history.

It all happened abroad.

It continues and now we are talking about it.

The road is talking about the legacy of slavery and so on.

>> How do you think all this is playing out in the events that are about to unfold with the coronation of King Charles?

Do you feel this kind of reckoning is bubbling under the surface?

>> Yes, the main difference between the coronation is they talked exclusively about the Empire.

The Queen talked about the Country.

She had addressed, but now, all the things to do with Empire, the fact that some of the jewels and crown jewels were looted.

People don't connect it with the fact that we run the biggest Empire in human history.

If we acknowledge that fact, we have to talk about legacies of slavery and reparations.

That is a very difficult conversation.

>> Right from the beginning, one of the first things the royal household did is they said they were not going to use the diamond in the crown jewels.

That is the diamond Indians want back.

I think people always understood that.

It was involved in the early slave trading journeys.

187,000 Africans were shipped across the Atlantic.

When the slaves arrived in places like Barbados, they had them branded there.

I think the British public has been quiet shocked by the details.

It is just one of those things.

>> How are they doing with it in the run up to the coronation?

Are they dealing with this legacy in a meaningful way?

>> King Charles did say something new and unexpected when he said he approved the research being done into how the royal family were involved in slavery.

He also said he wants to learn about slavery.

It feels a bit late given he is 70 years old.

The research he has allowed is not much.

He is going to report in 2026.

Compared to what they are doing, it is not much.

It took an entire committee to look into this history.

They might reveal things about the royal household before the British do.

William III was both a British monarch and a Dutch prince.

It is pretty embarrassing that another country will make revelations about this before we do.

>> It's impressive that your book does not try to wash away the history.

It doesn't try to exonerate people for their behavior but it does not condemn them either.

It describes the facts of life as they were.

What are some of those facts?

>> Too often this is seen through the prism of pride and shame.

We should just try to understand it.

The Empire was so influential.

One of the main reasons we are speaking to each other today is because of the British Empire.

The popularity of cricket, this is largely the result of doing the job tomorrow.

The existence of countries like India, Pakistan and Nigeria is all down to the British Empire.

The chaos in place -- even Palestine can be explained by the British Empire.

If you want to understand the world and world history, you have to understand the British Empire.

It happened over 400 years as well.

>> Why do you think it is that we romanticize this institution?

Particularly the royal family to the point that we do?

Didn't we fight a war over here so we could not care about these people?

We are still obsessed with them.

I am just like, why is that?

Why do you think that is?

>> It is a very complicated history.

It is but hard to get your head around.

It is easier to tell very simplified stories.

It is very contradictory.

At one point, the British were heavily into slavery.

They dominated the slave trade.

Another time, it was OK.

It is a very complicated history.

Much easier to tell some stories, much easier to focus on World War I or World War II.

They have clear narratives, clear beginnings, clear end.

Academics can't agree on when the British Empire began.

Clicks in addition published this year a... specifically for American readers.

Could you just describe the interplay between those two?

Or some of the ways they affected the shaping of the American story?

>> Americans like to see themselves as anti-imperialist.

America itself is a creation of the British Empire.

The way America then expanded to go to the way British colonies like Australia and South Africa expanded with the residential school system, the reserve confinement, the settler colonialism.

Then they are talking about how they admired the way the British Empire dealt with India and how that was a model for the way America could deal with the Philippines and the West Indies.

I think the British Empire and America are intricately linked.

>> Do you think the countries of the United Kingdom are ready to face this history?

>> I think so.

Mainly because of multiculturalism.

The real reason we are a multicultural nation today is because we have a multicultural Empire.

One of the main reasons we have an Asian prime minister is because of them.

This is history we have always struggled to explain.

I grew up with a narrative that brought people came here uninvited and took advantage of British hospitality.

What I did not know is that in the 1940s and '50s, brown people and black people came to Britain as citizens.

As British citizens.

It led to a whole bunch of racist policies.

That is the level of the agreement.

I think people have had enough.

I think young people are going to school and saying to their teachers, Teach me about colonialism and about how it shapes our modern world.

Regardless of what is allowed in the national curriculum.

>> Is there the same resentment we are seeing in the United States?

As you probably know, there has been this tremendous backlash against teaching African-American history, against the accurate teaching of the horrors of slavery, is there a similar backlash?

>> I am afraid the exact same thing is happening in Britain.

We are even having book burning.

People going there saying why are you stocking this workbook.

It is reflected in government policy.

You had the politicians getting involved in this and you have a culture war where our leading politicians have got involved in Imperial history and say things like if you are proud of being British, you should be proud of their history.

It is such an inane thing to say.

History is long and complicated.

Yet politicians are putting forward berries and plastic views.

We even had Rishi Sunak say that he was going to report people who did Britain down in history to prevent the antiterrorism agency.

We have the unhappy scene where imperial immigrants themselves are getting involved in this culture war.

What happens in America eventually happens over and vice versa.

>> How do you understand Rishi's view of this?

How he is playing this?

>> He is a conservative Prime Minister.

Conservative politicians have to say certain things.

The British cabinet is very ethnically diverse.

They all say things that are anti-immigration, anti-woke and antiracist if that makes sense.

It seems like you can make it to the top in Britain as a Brown person by person but you have to agree to leave things as they are when it comes to race.

I think that is a very depressing state of affairs.

I get the feeling that if you are conservative, you are not allowed to bring your full self to the cabinet table.

>> Is there an argument that says, This does not contribute to national unity?

Is there something that says it is dangerous to national unity?

>> If we understand history, it brings us closer together.

My understanding has made me realize that people of color have been here since the days of Henry VII.

A profound part of our national story is World War I and World War II.

No one taught me in school that millions of soldiers from India and fought for the British Empire.

I sat through dozens, probably hundreds of ceremonies about World War II at school and no one mentioned that people like me were there.

Deleting this history, that is the thing that divides people.

Knowing it and knowledge brings us together.

>> You were saying that a British education encouraged you to view your Indian heritage through patronizing Western eyes.

Could you say a little bit more about that?

Because one of the mantles of British imperialism was education.

Even today, a lot more world leaders have a British education.

That enforces certain ideas about Britain, certain ideas about the West.

I was definitely subjected to those.

I had supposedly one of the best educations in the world.

I did not study a single brown writer until my final term at University.

It was a very selective education.

Looking back, it was a form of colorization if that makes sense.

>> Let's look back to this weekend because of the coronation.

Will this history in any way be visible in these ceremonies?

>> I think it is a very multicultural ceremony.

It has to be.

As a king, he is the head of a multicultural country.

Also, a collection of 56 former imperial states.

The monarch has to...this international association of countries and one of the things they really want to talk about is the legacy of slavery and the legacy of empire.

It is something the government does not necessarily want to talk about.

I think you will see a very multicultural and inclusive ceremony.

The Lord's Prayer said in multiple languages, there are people from the Commonwealth.

I think it will be reflecting the Empire.

But you won't hear the word "Empire."

>> Can I just go back to the Prince Harry/Meghan Markle situation?

It seemed that her acceptance into the family signaled something.

Like a willingness to live in the world as is.

And that does not seem to have happened at all.

What is your take on that?

>> It says a lot about the state of affairs when it comes to race.

Finally, the royal family a person of color as part of the family which reflected multicultural Britain.

This was an amazing thing for so many people of color in Britain and I can't help noticing it went very wrong and she is not even coming.

I travel around the former Empire this year and there is a view that this is reflective of the racism of the royal family.

There is much less support in multicultural Britain through monarchy then 30% of ethnic people in Britain.

I think this is a real problem for the royal family because they also historically are tied up in the racism of the British Empire.

Black and Asian immigrant staff were banned from working in clerical roles until the late 1960s.

Even now, Buckingham Palace is excluded.

>> I have the understanding that you are not a royal whisperer.

Do you have any sense of what the royal family writ large cares about with any of this?

>> Prince Charles really cared about it.

He did loads of work with the black mini, black businesses.

He has spoken in defense of Islam.

He has called himself a defender of the faiths.

He is pretty woke.

I think the establishment dislikes him for that.

It will be interesting to see how he plays it.

Because now he is the ultimate establishment.

There is a tension between what he believes and what he needs to do.

I don't know how that will play out.

A request before I let you go, have there been efforts to ban your book?

>> My publisher gave out 15,000 copies to British school so that has been nice but yes I've had a massive backlash in terms of racism and racist abuse.

It also makes me realize I am doing important work.

Whenever people do shout at me, I have so many people buying the book and then trying to engage with me to make up for that.

I think I need to focus more on the positive.

>> Thank you for talking with us.

>> Thank you.

>> An interesting conversation.

Don't miss our show tomorrow.

I will be speaking to Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht who is starring in a new play on Broadway called "Summer of 1976."

>> What do you feel from the audience?

There is a lot of laughter and involvement.

First we were very surprised with the laughter.

We were not expecting it to be as enjoyable and raucous as the audience suggested.

>> I think it is an honest reaction.

I think there is something about the truth that tickles.

That is our program for tonight.

If you want to find out what is coming up on the show every night, sign up for our newsletter at PBS.org/amanpour.

Thank you for watching.

Good night from London.