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Former FBI agent Robert Hanssen traded national security secrets to Russia for $1.4 million in cash, and got away with it for 20 years. But a new book says it was Hanssen's ego -- more than his wallet -- that was being fed. Hear Hanssen's story through the eyes of author David Vise. (7:15) (The book is called The Bureau and the Mole: The Unmasking of Robert Philip Hanssen, the Most Dangerous Double Agent in FBI History, by David A. Vise. ISBN 0-87113

On the eve of a likely invasion of Iraq, NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations about the history of casualties in war. In Vietnam, the United States lost more than 58,000 soldiers. In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, 147 were killed on the battlefield. Many Americans have come to expect fewer casualties to be the norm for conflicts. Boot is the author of The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. We also hear from people in San Diego, Cleveland and Austin about what they expect will be the number of battlefield deaths if war occurs.

A hot new film, Laurel Canyon, stars Frances McDormand as a hard-livin', hard-lovin' record producer in '70s L.A. In the real world, female record producers were virtually nonexistent in the music industry. How come? NPR's Neda Ulaby investigates in a two-part series. Today: the secret history of women rock 'n' roll producers, with music from Sheryl Crow, the Fleetwoods, the Shangri-las and Missy Elliott.

Author James Mann's latest book, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, details 30 years of professional relationships among the president's foreign policy advisors. Mann speaks with NPR's Liane Hansen.

Her book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a best seller in Britain, is a narrative history of punctuation. Truss claims that with the advent of e-mail and text messaging, proper punctuation is an endangered species. Truss is also the author of three novels and numerous radio comedy dramas. She has been a television critic and sports columnist for The Times (London). She also won Columnist of the Year award for her work for Women's Journal. She now reviews books for the Sunday Times of London.

In 1949, when he was 24, Greenberg joined the Inc. Fund, which would later be called the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He worked on some of the most important civil rights cases, including representing Martin Luther King, Jr. He also led the Fund's campaigns to help integrate the University of Alabama and the University of Mississippi. With others, he tried the Delaware and Topeka cases of Brown v. Board of Education. His memoir and history of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is called Crusaders in the Courts: Legal Battles of the Civil Rights Movement.

Just in time for Mother's Day, participants in the StoryCorps national oral history project make special recordings with, and for, their moms. Hear a sampling of the conversations recorded in a booth at New York City's Grand Central Terminal.

NPR's Liane Hansen has the second half of her conversation with the authors of two new books on the use of American power in the world. Niall Ferguson is Herzog Professor of Financial History at the Stern School of Business at New York University. He's the author of Colossus: The Price of America's Empire. Walter Russell Mead is the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. His new book is Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk.

In a turning point in American history, the Supreme Court ruled 50 years ago that separate educational facilities for blacks were inherently unequal. A look at how Americans reacted, through the letters they wrote to their president, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Gen. Romeo Dallaire was commander of the U.N. peacekeeping forces in Rwanda 10 years ago during one of the worst massacres in modern history. Some 800,000 Rwandans were killed in 100 days. Most of them were Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians. During that time Dallaire and his troops were denied authority to intervene. The experience changed him, tormented him, and filled him with guilt. He suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome, was suicidal and depressed. He's written a new account, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.