WEBVTT 1 00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:27.239 Hello, and welcome to Western SIV. I've got a wonderful author interview for 2 00:00:27.320 --> 00:00:33.679 you here today. I'm sitting down with historian Nicholas Morton. We're going to 3 00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:39.600 be talking about everyone's favorite topic, the Crusades, Crusader warfare, Crusader States, 4 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:45.799 the misconceptions about the Crusades, everything that matters. Because his book The 5 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:52.200 Crusader States and their Neighbors, a Military History is actually out on paperback right 6 00:00:52.240 --> 00:00:54.640 now. I've got a link to it in the show notes if you'd like 7 00:00:54.679 --> 00:00:57.479 to pick it up. It's an excellent coverage. But I also think this 8 00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:03.599 topic is just really pertinent right now because we're going through another period of what 9 00:01:03.719 --> 00:01:08.120 seems to be endemic conflict in the Middle East. And as I mentioned in 10 00:01:08.159 --> 00:01:14.439 the interview, people always seem to want to harken back to the Crusades as 11 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:19.879 some sort of grandfather of all of the problems that come out of the Middle 12 00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:23.920 East, and there's so so many issues with doing that, and so I 13 00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:29.159 think it's relevant to have this conversation again. And also it's just it's important 14 00:01:29.400 --> 00:01:34.760 and it's interesting, and who doesn't like talking about the assassins and the Crusader 15 00:01:34.799 --> 00:01:38.120 States and the leper King and all of that. I mean, there's just 16 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:42.079 so many cool names from the Crusades, am I Right, So without further 17 00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:57.560 Ado, let's get to the interview. All right, welcome back. As 18 00:01:57.599 --> 00:02:01.439 I mentioned moments ago, I'm sitting down with historian Nick Bunker. We're going 19 00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:07.680 to be talking about his latest book, In the Shadow of Fear America in 20 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:13.919 the World in nineteen fifty. As someone who teaches this period of history every 21 00:02:13.960 --> 00:02:19.159 single year, I found the book to be particularly interesting. You start the 22 00:02:19.199 --> 00:02:23.879 book in Labor Day nineteen forty nine. I'm kind of interested in that date 23 00:02:23.879 --> 00:02:29.000 because I found the beginning of the book fascinating in a lot of ways, 24 00:02:29.360 --> 00:02:34.319 and I was hoping you could explain to those who are listening, why did 25 00:02:34.360 --> 00:02:38.879 you choose to start the book there, and how is that, in so 26 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:46.400 many ways the perfect starting point for the historical narrative that follows. Well, 27 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:47.719 Adam, Well, thank you very much for having me on the podcast. 28 00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:52.879 Well, you know, this is my fourth book, and what I always 29 00:02:52.879 --> 00:02:58.520 do in my books is I try to start with a very visual picture of 30 00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:02.840 what I'm talking about, cinematic presentation of the events and the issues. And 31 00:03:04.199 --> 00:03:08.039 Labor Day September fifth, ninety forty nine is ideal for that because Labor Day 32 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:10.560 is always a day with a great deal going on in the United States. 33 00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:17.159 Baseball marches in those days Heyday, the labor Unions, marches by labor Unions 34 00:03:17.159 --> 00:03:21.159 in Detroit, and so on, all kinds of are other events, rodeos, 35 00:03:21.240 --> 00:03:24.199 new films being released. So it's an opportunity to present a kind of 36 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:29.319 portrait of America at that moment, not taken at random, but with a 37 00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:32.120 view to kind of displaying all the kind of forces at work. But the 38 00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:38.199 other thing is that September ninety forty nine is a very interesting moment, partly 39 00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:42.240 because of things that were happening overseas. For example, Great Britain was going 40 00:03:42.280 --> 00:03:46.360 through one of its economic crises, one of its many economic crises, and 41 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:50.479 looking for help from the United States. In addition to that, the Soviets 42 00:03:50.840 --> 00:03:55.080 have just tested their first atomic bomb on August the twenty ninth, ninety forty 43 00:03:55.159 --> 00:03:59.360 nine, just a few days earlier, and that's an important moment too, 44 00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:02.080 which I think will discuss later on. But also for Harry Truman, it 45 00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:06.319 was an important day. Now. Harry Truman's situation of the moment was this, 46 00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:11.800 Now he was sixty five years old, but still a man who retained 47 00:04:11.840 --> 00:04:15.040 all his energy and his enthusiasm and his idealism. And of course he'd won 48 00:04:15.199 --> 00:04:18.720 a great victory in the presidential election the year before, in ninety forty eight, 49 00:04:19.399 --> 00:04:23.720 but by the time it got to September ninety forty nine, he was 50 00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:28.920 only a difficulty. Now. Truman's popularity had always swung up and down quite 51 00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:31.600 wildly. I've look at a chart of his popularity ratings right throughout his presidency 52 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:36.040 from ninety forty five to fifty two. You'll see his popul ratings swinging up 53 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:40.360 wildly, up and down. Now, the problem he had in ninety forty 54 00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:43.000 nine was partly to do with the economy, which was always a problem for 55 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:46.879 Truman. First half of ninety forty nine there was a recession, five million 56 00:04:46.920 --> 00:04:51.639 unemployed. The recession had probably more or less ended by September, but people 57 00:04:51.639 --> 00:04:56.680 weren't sure of that yet. That had contributed to a fall in his popularity 58 00:04:56.800 --> 00:04:59.839 ratings. In addition, he was having a lot of trouble with Congress. 59 00:05:00.439 --> 00:05:03.920 Now technically speaking at the Democratic Party. Truman's party controlled both houses of Congress, 60 00:05:04.120 --> 00:05:08.959 but in fact they were being very difficult reobstructive towards his legislative agenda. 61 00:05:09.399 --> 00:05:12.720 Now, Truman had come back into office at the beginning of nineteen forty nine 62 00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:15.839 with a very ambitious program of liberal reforms known as a Fair Deal. But 63 00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:20.519 Congress were essentially refusing to enact all but a handful of his measures. And 64 00:05:20.600 --> 00:05:26.399 so Labor Day, September fifth, ninety forty nine, Truman decides to kind 65 00:05:26.399 --> 00:05:30.000 of relaunch himself, and he gave two big speeches, one in Pittsburgh and 66 00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:33.839 one in Dai Moin in Iowa, which were intended to kind of really mount 67 00:05:33.839 --> 00:05:38.879 a kind of rousing defense of his program. And obviously those places were chosen 68 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:42.720 for very good reasons. Pittsburgh because of course it's the capital of the steel 69 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:46.959 industry and cover one of the heartlands of the of the labor unions. And 70 00:05:46.040 --> 00:05:49.600 Dai moine Ire because of course it's the corn belt and that was where you 71 00:05:49.639 --> 00:05:55.360 found farmers and labor and farmers were the people that Truman saw as the heart 72 00:05:55.399 --> 00:05:59.279 of his electoral coalition. And so Labor Day, September fifth, he goes 73 00:05:59.319 --> 00:06:01.759 to those two pa is to try and make sure that he's he's fully on 74 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:05.759 top of that situation and try to rally their support behind him for a new 75 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:14.639 push for his legislative agenda. But it's almost interesting if we look at this 76 00:06:14.759 --> 00:06:23.639 part of the book, Truman seems to fail to understand the way that America 77 00:06:23.839 --> 00:06:30.920 is changing in nineteen forty nine, as we're sort of transitioning away from the 78 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:36.920 New Deal and FDR and his liberal revolution and into a sort of new America. 79 00:06:38.120 --> 00:06:41.879 And one of the things that I think is always interesting to show people 80 00:06:41.959 --> 00:06:46.240 is the electoral maps from these times, because as you look, you'll notice 81 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:49.160 a lot of states that are we say red and blue in America, A 82 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:53.519 lot of states that are red here are blue then right, And so you 83 00:06:53.639 --> 00:06:57.240 have this sort of I don't want to say, maybe an uneasy alliance between 84 00:06:57.279 --> 00:07:05.680 sort of Dixiecrat, other Democrats and then other labor party individuals throughout sort of 85 00:07:05.720 --> 00:07:10.040 what we would call the rust belt here today. And so I wanted to 86 00:07:10.079 --> 00:07:15.319 ask, is nineteen forty nine sort of the beginning of the end of this 87 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:20.800 sort of FDR here, this New Deal period, when labor sort of at 88 00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:28.240 its height and we see this sort of growth in liberalism in America. Is 89 00:07:28.279 --> 00:07:30.839 this sort of high tide and it's kind of downhill? For Truman from here, 90 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:34.920 Well, it's not truth in that. Now with regard to the New 91 00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:40.000 Deal. Now, the New Deal institutions and the creations of the New Deal 92 00:07:40.120 --> 00:07:42.560 was still in place, and they would remain in price for a very long 93 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:46.560 time. Social Security, which Roosevelt had created nineteen thirty five, that was 94 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:49.199 still in place, and in fact it was a system that was still developing 95 00:07:49.240 --> 00:07:54.480 and growing. The federal agencies that Roosevelt had created, the Security, an 96 00:07:54.519 --> 00:07:58.120 Exchange Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration, they were still in place. 97 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:01.480 They weren't going to disappear. Even the Deal were definitely there, and 98 00:08:01.480 --> 00:08:03.600 it was a kind of a permanent change in the way that America function But 99 00:08:03.720 --> 00:08:07.319 there was a sense, yes, in which the kind of energy and the 100 00:08:07.439 --> 00:08:13.120 drive and the enthusiasm of Roosevelt's period had a really come to an end. 101 00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:16.639 It was possible to argue and found that the Democratic Party was really quite an 102 00:08:16.639 --> 00:08:20.079 old man's party by the stage. It's quite striking when you look at the 103 00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:24.680 leading figures in the Democratic Party at this period in Congress, for example, 104 00:08:24.879 --> 00:08:26.480 this had to be much older generation. And that was actually true of Truman 105 00:08:26.560 --> 00:08:31.200 himself. There was a new breed of insurgent Republicans. So there were young 106 00:08:31.240 --> 00:08:35.879 men. The most famous, a most notorious is obviously Senator Joseph McCarthy. 107 00:08:37.159 --> 00:08:39.080 He was only in his early forties. There were other people too, though, 108 00:08:39.480 --> 00:08:43.000 Richard Dixon, who was only thirty seven, and he was now a 109 00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:46.879 rising star. Barry gold Order, for example, now Barry gold or are 110 00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:50.320 not yet in national politics, that he won his first seat on the Phoenix 111 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:54.639 City Council in Phoenix, Arizona, in November ninety forty nine. So there 112 00:08:54.639 --> 00:08:58.440 was a sense, yes, in which the liberal tide had kind of peaked 113 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:03.399 and there was an opportunity for the Republicans if you'd like to reinvent themselves. 114 00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:09.240 And I think that was what was actually occurring. That's interesting, and you 115 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:13.440 know, one of the things that we have to also keep in mind is 116 00:09:13.480 --> 00:09:16.759 that, you know, none of this happens in a bubble, because the 117 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:22.879 United States is still operating in a world that's emerging from the destruction of the 118 00:09:22.919 --> 00:09:28.720 Second World War, you know, and in Europe, particularly in Western Europe. 119 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:35.600 You know, America is trying to sell Western Europe on this idea of 120 00:09:35.799 --> 00:09:41.000 an economic and political system that's supposed to you know, keep Western Europe and 121 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:48.840 the American orbit going forward. And you talk about two gentlemen in particular, 122 00:09:48.600 --> 00:09:54.559 Benjamin Franklin Ferless and Philip Murray, as people who are trying to make this 123 00:09:54.759 --> 00:10:00.200 happen. And in what ways were those two gentlemen? And I like the 124 00:10:00.200 --> 00:10:05.200 way that you focus on them in the book sort of an excellent microcosm of 125 00:10:05.240 --> 00:10:11.240 the future that America had in mind for its Western European allies. There's two 126 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:16.639 characters that you mentioned, Benjamin Fairlis and phil Murray are completely forgotten today. 127 00:10:16.279 --> 00:10:20.559 But if you had been making a list in ninety forty nine of the twenty 128 00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:22.919 or thirty most powerful people in America, you would have put those two men 129 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:26.279 on the list. But this is often the case. Some of the most 130 00:10:26.279 --> 00:10:31.000 powerful, interesting people in a period has just become forgotten in the years to 131 00:10:31.039 --> 00:10:35.879 come. Now, Benjamin Fairless was the president and chief executive of US Steel, 132 00:10:35.080 --> 00:10:39.360 and US Steel at the times a huge company. It still exists today, 133 00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:41.759 of course, under a different name, but US still was a huge 134 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:45.519 company. It wasn't just the biggest steel company in America. It actually produced 135 00:10:45.559 --> 00:10:48.240 more steel than the entirety of France and West Germany combined. And that was 136 00:10:48.279 --> 00:10:52.120 the company that failis led. Now on the other side of the industrial divide 137 00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:56.320 was Phil Murray. Now Phil Murray wasn't actually American. He was a Scotsman. 138 00:10:56.960 --> 00:11:01.440 He was a Scotsman who had emigrated with his father to America when Phil 139 00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:05.399 Murray was in his teens. He was a coal miner, first went down 140 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:09.440 to pid in Scotland when he was ten years old. And at this point 141 00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:13.039 he was the president of the United steel Workers and he was also the president 142 00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:16.360 of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which was a huge kind of umbrella organization 143 00:11:16.519 --> 00:11:20.799 for many labor unions and still exist today as part of the AFLCIO. So 144 00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:24.759 here were these two characters on either side of the industrial divide, and in 145 00:11:24.799 --> 00:11:26.960 fact, at this moment they were locked in a dispute. They were locked 146 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:31.320 in a big dispute within the steel industry between management and the unions, essentially 147 00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:37.639 because the unions wanted pensions and healthcare benefits post retirements and the management didn't want 148 00:11:37.639 --> 00:11:39.559 to give them to them. So here are these two men. But the 149 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:43.080 curious thing is that although they were on opposite sides of divide, these two 150 00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:48.879 powerful characters, they actually were very similar in anyways. Both of them were 151 00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:52.279 men who had risen from the bottom. And that's against something interesting that when 152 00:11:52.279 --> 00:11:56.559 you look at corporate managers in American companies in the fourties and fifties, you'll 153 00:11:56.559 --> 00:12:00.600 often find they were people who came from very humble circumstances and didn't even have 154 00:12:00.600 --> 00:12:03.879 a college degree. Now, Benjamin Fairlis son of a coal miner from Ohio, 155 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:07.679 he had got his start in the sinistry as a construction work of building 156 00:12:07.679 --> 00:12:11.799 a steel mill, and then he rose by diligence from flare and so on 157 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:15.960 to get to the top of the company. Murray, as I said, 158 00:12:16.320 --> 00:12:18.000 went down a pit in Scotland at ten years old. Again he had risen 159 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:22.960 from the bottom. But the two men had not only their social mobility in 160 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:26.600 common, but also the kind of confidence and vision of the future. You 161 00:12:26.600 --> 00:12:28.200 see, both of them really believed in what they thought as being the kind 162 00:12:28.200 --> 00:12:35.000 of the American industrial system, which involved very big companies investing very heavily in 163 00:12:35.080 --> 00:12:39.639 new plant and equipment, continually investing, continually investing in mechanization, automation, 164 00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:46.759 applying science technology, operating on a very big scale, and achieving high proxivity 165 00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:50.360 and high wages. And both Murray and Fairless in their different ways believed that 166 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:56.519 this system could end up producing an ever improving standard for both the shareholders of 167 00:12:56.519 --> 00:13:01.559 the company and for the workers. Corporate managers would be happy too. That 168 00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:05.519 was the kind of vision of the American industrial system. Although, as I 169 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:09.320 say, they're on different sides of the divide in this particular dispute. Now, 170 00:13:09.320 --> 00:13:11.080 the relevant of that to what was going on in Europe is simply this. 171 00:13:11.240 --> 00:13:15.919 Now, this was the period when the Marshall Plan was at its peak. 172 00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:18.879 I mean, the Marshall Plan had been launched in nineteen forty seven. 173 00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:22.279 By the end of nineteen forty nine it was already getting well into its stride 174 00:13:22.519 --> 00:13:26.320 in Europe. And of course the Marshall Plan was a huge economic and financial 175 00:13:26.360 --> 00:13:31.200 measure for the United States to help rebuild the kind of shattered economies of Western 176 00:13:31.200 --> 00:13:33.000 Europe. Not just the shadow one was also Great Britain too, because Great 177 00:13:33.039 --> 00:13:39.360 Britain received actually the largest share of the aid. Now, the Marshall Plan 178 00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:43.399 wasn't just about money, although that was very important. It was about It 179 00:13:43.399 --> 00:13:46.399 wasn't important about money because they had to Essentially they were giving America giving Europe 180 00:13:46.440 --> 00:13:50.759 dollars which Europe could use then to buy products from America. That was really 181 00:13:50.799 --> 00:13:52.399 one of the goals of it. There was also kind of a philosophical thing 182 00:13:52.399 --> 00:13:56.279 what they were trying to do. They were trying to take the American industrial 183 00:13:56.320 --> 00:13:58.759 model, which Murray and fail Is believed in, and export it to you 184 00:13:58.759 --> 00:14:03.039 Europe. They were kind of wanted to turn Europe into something like the United 185 00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:07.720 States, in other words, a huge single market. And by the way, 186 00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:09.799 that's an issue, the European Single Market, which has been a very 187 00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:13.240 big political issue here in the UK in the last five years or so. 188 00:14:13.080 --> 00:14:18.200 They wanted to turn Europe into a huge single market with no barriers between the 189 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:24.039 countries, with trade flying freely, so that in Europe companies and individuals could 190 00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:28.840 achieve the kind of standards of productivity and the kind of standard living that America 191 00:14:28.879 --> 00:14:31.240 already had. And there was a political issue aside to this, of course, 192 00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:35.519 partly was a way of ensuring that the Western Europe remained stout against the 193 00:14:35.559 --> 00:14:39.360 Soviet Union, but also it was a way of trying to prevent the recurrency 194 00:14:39.399 --> 00:14:43.399 what to occurage in the nineteen thirties. There was an enormous amount of looking 195 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:48.759 back to the nineteen thirties of this period, politicians thinkers of all kinds. 196 00:14:48.759 --> 00:14:50.759 We're always looking at the nineteen thirties and saying, how can we ensure that 197 00:14:50.840 --> 00:14:54.159 we don't see the terrible things happening in the Ninefots happen again? How can 198 00:14:54.200 --> 00:15:00.600 we ensure that Europe does not veer towards extremist politics, whether fascism or communism. 199 00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:03.399 And by creating a kind of American style economy in Europe, they believe 200 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:07.360 they could do that because the countries of europ wouldn't want to fight each other 201 00:15:07.720 --> 00:15:11.000 if they were trading with each other and achieving an American kind of stamp of 202 00:15:11.039 --> 00:15:16.960 living. Yeah, that's so interesting, and I think it's it's interesting because 203 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:20.440 I still think it's to an extent true today when when you talk to individuals, 204 00:15:20.519 --> 00:15:26.799 there's there's still so much retrospective thinking about the nineteen thirties. And when 205 00:15:26.840 --> 00:15:31.759 you talk about the fear of history repeating itself, the example that constantly comes 206 00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:37.120 up is the rise of Hitler and fascism in history. And it's just constant. 207 00:15:37.159 --> 00:15:41.960 It's being transposed over and over and over again. You know, when 208 00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:43.639 you know, when we talk about things like appeasement, appeasement is the word 209 00:15:43.639 --> 00:15:48.200 that always comes up. Well, we can't ever appease a dictator because of 210 00:15:48.200 --> 00:15:52.840 what happened in the nineteen thirties. So if we do this again, then 211 00:15:52.879 --> 00:15:54.039 this dictator is going to ask for more and more and more, and we're 212 00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:56.759 going to have another World war. That's what's going to happen. And it's 213 00:15:56.840 --> 00:16:03.879 fascinating the way that was happening constantly in the nineteen fifties and still happens today 214 00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:07.720 to a large extent, especially in the United States. I'll say for my 215 00:16:07.799 --> 00:16:12.759 part, but there is and I like the use of the word shadow in 216 00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:17.639 the book on the cover, because there is, of course this huge shadow 217 00:16:17.759 --> 00:16:23.279 that's looming over everything in the United States, and that is not the potential 218 00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:30.840 resurrection of Nazi Germany. That is the Soviet Union. You know, everything 219 00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:37.080 as we enter what we call the Cold War is going to be focused around 220 00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:41.200 this competition with the Soviet Union. So I think it is important to set 221 00:16:41.240 --> 00:16:45.279 the stage. And if we're starting in nineteen forty nine with the Soviet Union 222 00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:52.279 still under the control of aging Joseph Stalin, rapidly aging Joseph Stalin, but 223 00:16:52.200 --> 00:16:56.440 what was that like where were they at that point? As we're looking at 224 00:16:56.519 --> 00:17:02.960 nineteen forty nine well, first of all, I entirely agree with you about 225 00:17:03.039 --> 00:17:07.119 the way people still look back to the nineteen thirties continually. Whenever people are 226 00:17:07.160 --> 00:17:10.480 discussing any aspect of foreign policy in our Securia at the moment, whether it 227 00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:15.279 be do with Ukraine or many other issues, they'll frequently returned to the issue 228 00:17:15.319 --> 00:17:18.039 of appeasement and the rise of dictators. I mean, I personally, I 229 00:17:18.079 --> 00:17:22.799 think maybe there are a president or to sign an executive order maybe banning anybody 230 00:17:22.839 --> 00:17:26.559 from talking about in the Munich crisis because it doesn't necessarily help. My feeling 231 00:17:26.599 --> 00:17:27.720 is that the much more relevant period is the one I talk about in this 232 00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:32.240 book, which is the late forties and thirty fifties. Now, in terms 233 00:17:32.279 --> 00:17:34.400 of where the Soviet Union was in ninety forty nine, as you say, 234 00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:40.000 Stalin was approaching his seventieth birthday. Not in good shape physically, of course, 235 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:42.200 Stalin a heavy smoker, heavy drinker, all kinds of health problems which 236 00:17:42.200 --> 00:17:47.279 would eventually kill him in ninety fifty three, but still exceptionally effective as a 237 00:17:47.279 --> 00:17:52.559 politician. Now, Russia itself was in economically not the best place in the 238 00:17:52.599 --> 00:17:57.079 world. Of course, they had some tremendous losses of human beings and of 239 00:17:57.119 --> 00:18:00.960 capital and of buildings and so on. In World War Two, there had 240 00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:04.960 been a famine starting in ninety forty six that had lasted a couple of years. 241 00:18:04.960 --> 00:18:08.240 Hardly surprising because of course, they had lost such a huge chunk of 242 00:18:08.279 --> 00:18:12.240 their male labor force on the land. They'd been unable to invest in the 243 00:18:12.279 --> 00:18:17.680 productivity of the land, and Stalin hadn't helped with his policies towards towards Soviet 244 00:18:17.720 --> 00:18:21.799 agriculture, so Soviet Union could barely feed itself. They were also trying to 245 00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:26.079 maintain an enormous war machine. They were spending something like fifteen or fifteen percent 246 00:18:26.200 --> 00:18:30.799 or more of the economy on war production to maintain their huge army in Eastern 247 00:18:30.799 --> 00:18:34.119 Europe and to build aircraft, ships and so on, and that was pretty 248 00:18:34.119 --> 00:18:38.160 a huge strain on the Soviet economy. In addition to that, style at 249 00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:42.799 that time was revisiting some of the tactics he'd use in the nineteen thirties. 250 00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:47.200 Now, the ninety thirties had been the era of the so called Great Terror. 251 00:18:48.039 --> 00:18:51.960 Between ninety thirty six and ninety thirty nine, show trials, purges, 252 00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:56.200 the creation of the huge labor camps of the Goo Lag and all very public. 253 00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:57.599 Actually, the West was fully aware of what was going on in the 254 00:18:57.640 --> 00:19:03.119 Soviet In the nineteen thirties now ninety forty nine ninety fifty was the period of 255 00:19:03.119 --> 00:19:06.839 what was known as Stein's Little Terror, and this was much less known about 256 00:19:06.880 --> 00:19:11.480 in the West because it was much It wasn't so secret, but Stalin didn't 257 00:19:11.480 --> 00:19:14.680 hold show Charles, for example, and the Little Terror involved a series of 258 00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:18.480 purges of parts of the Communist Party, purges of intellectuals, strictly Jewish intellectuals, 259 00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:23.960 all intended to allow Stalin to continue to maintain his extremely firm grip on 260 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:26.440 the country. For example, there was a thing called the Leningrad Affair. 261 00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:30.920 He essentially purged the entire Communist Party in Leningrad. No one in the Western 262 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:33.319 kew anything about this, but it was it was great issue in the Soviet 263 00:19:33.359 --> 00:19:37.039 Union of the time. Full details didn't really become available until the nineteen eighties 264 00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:41.720 and the nineteen nineties when the Soviet Union collapsed, But that was really what 265 00:19:41.720 --> 00:19:44.440 Stinin was up to. In addition to that, though, there was something 266 00:19:44.519 --> 00:19:48.440 very ominous going on, which was not only did he did he now have 267 00:19:48.480 --> 00:19:52.720 the atom bomb, but also the Soviet press and Soviet States when we were 268 00:19:52.759 --> 00:19:56.880 making speeches and coming out with writings, which was starning to hint at something 269 00:19:56.960 --> 00:20:00.640 involving Asia. They were start to hint at the fact that they wanted to 270 00:20:00.680 --> 00:20:04.480 see an arms struggle in Asia, an armed struggle against what they called Western 271 00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:07.799 imperialism. That arms struggle was already starting to some extent. There was an 272 00:20:07.880 --> 00:20:12.279 armed insurgency in Malaya. There was the situation in Vietnam, of course, 273 00:20:12.319 --> 00:20:17.279 where the Vietnam there by Ho Chi Minh were fighting against the French. And 274 00:20:17.319 --> 00:20:18.839 there were hints in other places too at this kind of armed struggle. So 275 00:20:19.039 --> 00:20:23.200 the Soviet Union was, to say, economically still weak, but very firmly 276 00:20:23.279 --> 00:20:26.319 under the grip of Stalin. And there were suggestions, there were hints that 277 00:20:26.319 --> 00:20:30.279 they were turning their attention more and more towards towards the East, towards Asia. 278 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:36.920 Yeah, and I think that there's two really important points here to sort 279 00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:41.079 of keep in mind. And I like the in the book how you do 280 00:20:41.279 --> 00:20:48.000 talk about the Soviet Union in terms of its domestic issues and not just its 281 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:52.720 international outlook. And the reason for that is particularly I think in the United 282 00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:55.960 States. I suppose that's the only country I can speak of in this regard. 283 00:20:56.240 --> 00:21:00.519 We have a tendency to assume that everyone else in every other country in 284 00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:03.680 the world is just hyper focused on us, the United States. Everything is 285 00:21:03.720 --> 00:21:10.759 about us, and that everything that the Soviet Union was doing was geared towards 286 00:21:10.839 --> 00:21:15.160 the United States, when in reality, many countries, I suppose you would 287 00:21:15.160 --> 00:21:18.960 say China is the example today are just as interested in domestic issues and other 288 00:21:21.039 --> 00:21:25.599 issues going on. The other point that I think is important is and even 289 00:21:25.599 --> 00:21:27.359 if you look in the nineteen fifties and again if you want to talk about 290 00:21:27.640 --> 00:21:32.799 what's an important period of history for politicians to be aware of today, we 291 00:21:32.839 --> 00:21:37.920 have this tendency in the United States to really play up the strengths of whatever 292 00:21:37.039 --> 00:21:41.960 our chief adversary is at the moment and downplay the weaknesses, when in reality, 293 00:21:42.759 --> 00:21:47.680 the Soviet Union was weak economically coming out of the Second World War. 294 00:21:47.799 --> 00:21:52.920 That's something that you don't see, you know, a lot of discussions of 295 00:21:52.039 --> 00:21:56.759 which is an important thing to keep in mind. But sort of moving on 296 00:21:56.920 --> 00:22:00.400 here, one of those real strengths of this book that I really enjoy is 297 00:22:00.440 --> 00:22:04.920 that you do talk about a lot of the important figures who aren't just the 298 00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:10.079 people who you would see in a if you picked up a United States textbook. 299 00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:15.200 Okay, it's not all about Truman. It's not all about Joseph McCarthy. 300 00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:19.359 Later on, in fact, in chapter one, you're right Dean Atchison, 301 00:22:19.519 --> 00:22:22.079 and I'm not sure I forgot that right was the right person at the 302 00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:26.839 right time, and I found him to be a fascinating character. So it's 303 00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:33.039 hoping you could tell the listeners who was Dean Atchinson and how did his formative 304 00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:37.880 years prepare him for what he was going to do, and why is he 305 00:22:37.960 --> 00:22:42.799 such an important figure at this period in history? Atchison he was Secretive State 306 00:22:44.200 --> 00:22:47.279 Harry Truman at this point. He'd remained Secretive State until the end of the 307 00:22:47.279 --> 00:22:51.039 Truman reministration at the end of nineteen fifty two, ninety forty nine. He 308 00:22:51.039 --> 00:22:55.240 was fifty six years old, and he was a very capable, competent individual. 309 00:22:55.440 --> 00:22:57.720 I mean, he was a graduate of both of Yale and Harvard Harvard 310 00:22:57.799 --> 00:23:03.359 Law School, very experienced lawyer, very experienced government official in a number of 311 00:23:03.400 --> 00:23:06.960 different roles. Now, as a lawyer, what had happened was that after 312 00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:10.599 he left Harvard Law School, he had become a clerk to the Supreme Court 313 00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:15.319 Justice Lewis Brandeis, who was also happens to be was also quite a great 314 00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:21.440 friend of Harry Truman. And working for Brandeys, Attison had really picked up 315 00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:22.640 two things. First of all, it had picked up the same kind of 316 00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:29.440 democratic politics as Brandeis and Wilson had. That was important because Addison and Wilson, 317 00:23:29.960 --> 00:23:33.039 Ashlon and Truman really became very very good friends. They were very very 318 00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:37.440 firm allies. Really both believed in each other. But also what Addison had 319 00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:41.200 done is he'd mastered a kind of a technique of how to be a lawyer 320 00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:45.200 which really stood him in good stead. Working for brand Eyes at the Supreme 321 00:23:45.240 --> 00:23:49.279 Court, what Adison was doing was he was given very complicated cases, cases 322 00:23:49.279 --> 00:23:52.680 with a lot of facts involved, especially case to do with labor relations or 323 00:23:52.720 --> 00:23:56.119 labor law, which is something that action was preoccupied with. And what Addison 324 00:23:56.200 --> 00:24:00.920 learned how to do is how to take an extremely complicated fact, actual situation, 325 00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:03.920 get to the essentials of it, draw out the basic principles, and 326 00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:07.599 then come out with a definite course of action. In the case of working 327 00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:11.240 for the Supreme Court justice, he was helping to draft the opinion in a 328 00:24:11.240 --> 00:24:15.279 particular Supreme court case, but later On had helped him to in his negotiating 329 00:24:15.319 --> 00:24:21.079 style, and Acton really became an excellent negotiator now. He it also worked 330 00:24:21.079 --> 00:24:22.960 in the US Treasure Department in the early nineteen thirties, where he kind of 331 00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:26.640 fell out with Franklin Roosevelt. The two men didn't really like each other. 332 00:24:26.599 --> 00:24:30.960 And then he worked in the State Department. And again he'd worked particularly during 333 00:24:30.039 --> 00:24:33.119 World War Two, he'd worked on big economic issues. I mean, he 334 00:24:33.160 --> 00:24:37.359 was essentially one of the master minds of the famous Brestonwoods Agreement for managing the 335 00:24:37.359 --> 00:24:41.880 international currency system, which to some extent was to Vidal way into the nineteen 336 00:24:41.880 --> 00:24:47.559 seventies. So that's the kind of man he was. He wasn't He didn't 337 00:24:47.559 --> 00:24:51.839 see himself as a great thinker about geopolitics. He didn't see it was the 338 00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:55.880 original idea in that line. But he was firmly committed to belief in the 339 00:24:55.880 --> 00:24:59.400 West Alliance, first of all against Adlfit and then against the Soviet Union. 340 00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:04.279 And also he was exceptionally good at taking political policy ideas and gett him into 341 00:25:04.319 --> 00:25:07.640 practice. One of his big achievements in ninety forty nine was the creation of 342 00:25:07.680 --> 00:25:11.880 West Germany. Is what became the Federal Republic of West Germany that had to 343 00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:17.119 be created out of what had existed before, which was the division of West 344 00:25:17.119 --> 00:25:21.920 Germany into occupation zones Britain, France, and the United States. And he 345 00:25:22.039 --> 00:25:26.480 essentially got into place the mechanism for turning West Germany action to a new federal 346 00:25:26.519 --> 00:25:30.359 republic, and they had their first election of the forty ninety forty nine and 347 00:25:30.359 --> 00:25:33.200 that was a really big deal. The problem, of course, was that 348 00:25:33.240 --> 00:25:37.480 although that was a very big achievement by Atchison, creating the Federal Republic of 349 00:25:37.519 --> 00:25:41.680 West Germany wasn't really something that really resonated with an American audience at home, 350 00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:45.680 and so Acton always had this problem that although he was very popular with the 351 00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:48.759 President, it was exceptionally popular and competent, he didn't really have a strong 352 00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:52.279 domestic following at home in the United States of America, and that would come 353 00:25:52.319 --> 00:26:21.960 to some extent to be his undoing. Well, that's interesting, and now 354 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:23.880 we've sort of talked about We've talked about the United States, we've talked about 355 00:26:25.119 --> 00:26:27.519 the Soviet Union, We've talked a little bit about Great Britain. But Great 356 00:26:27.519 --> 00:26:33.039 Britain has a major role to play throughout the late late nineteen forties, early 357 00:26:33.160 --> 00:26:37.440 and throughout the nineteen fifties in terms of the international scene, in particularly what's 358 00:26:37.440 --> 00:26:41.680 going to happen in Western Europe. And I think it's worth pointing out that 359 00:26:42.200 --> 00:26:47.839 Great Britain wins two World wars. They're on the winning side of two World 360 00:26:47.920 --> 00:26:52.200 wars, and yet they come out of it losing their empire and with essentially 361 00:26:52.279 --> 00:26:56.000 a shattered economy, which is, you know, winning a war isn't quite 362 00:26:56.039 --> 00:26:57.599 the boot doggle. I suppose that it once was, I guess is the 363 00:26:57.640 --> 00:27:02.559 message to out of those two things. But I thought, let's set the 364 00:27:02.559 --> 00:27:06.200 stage as well, like, how did Great Britain stand in nineteen forty nine, 365 00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:11.960 particularly its economy, and how did that play into America's international plans? 366 00:27:14.319 --> 00:27:15.720 Well, and I'm having to say you're being a little unfair to us British 367 00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:21.039 there actually, because he wasn't quite as simple as that. Yeah, Britain 368 00:27:21.039 --> 00:27:23.319 hadn't yet lost its empire. It was in the process of losing it. 369 00:27:23.799 --> 00:27:26.480 Now they had definitely lost one big chunk of the empire, which was the 370 00:27:26.480 --> 00:27:30.960 Indian subcontinent. When India and Pakistan became independent in August nineteen forty seven, 371 00:27:30.960 --> 00:27:34.640 Am but the rest of it was still pretty much intact. The way the 372 00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:38.279 British saw it was that they were not losing their empire, they were transforming 373 00:27:38.279 --> 00:27:45.359 into something new, a British Commonwealth. And the key character here was Maguldernist 374 00:27:45.359 --> 00:27:48.000 Bevin, who was the British Foreign Secretary, who, in other words, 375 00:27:48.039 --> 00:27:51.640 he was the equivalent in Britain of Denatus and the Sector state in the United 376 00:27:51.640 --> 00:27:55.119 States. And Bevin because was a socialist, he had been a Laby Union 377 00:27:55.200 --> 00:27:57.000 leader himself for a long time. He wasn't member of the British Labor government, 378 00:27:57.279 --> 00:28:03.000 but he wanted to turn the British Empire into commonwealth, a voluntary association 379 00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:07.960 of independent states. His intention was over time they would all become independent, 380 00:28:08.559 --> 00:28:12.400 a volunte associate of independent states which would stand together and cooperate, and it 381 00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:15.279 would cooperate economically, and that was very important to the British, because the 382 00:28:15.319 --> 00:28:18.720 British did to some degree, in fact to a large degree, depend on 383 00:28:18.839 --> 00:28:23.039 certain parts of the empire, particularly West Africa and Malaysia, and in other 384 00:28:23.119 --> 00:28:26.000 other parts too, but those were really two the most important. So it's 385 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:29.640 going to be economic decoperating with each other. It was going to be a 386 00:28:29.680 --> 00:28:33.240 military alliance. It was also going to be an alliance that was stowed against 387 00:28:33.279 --> 00:28:36.559 the Soviets, and it was going to be an alliance of countries, voluntary 388 00:28:36.559 --> 00:28:40.799 associated countries who would be committed to democracy, the rule of law, all 389 00:28:40.839 --> 00:28:45.119 the things the British thought that they had given to the Empire, and it 390 00:28:45.160 --> 00:28:48.799 was going to be important another region which was geopolitically because of course the British 391 00:28:48.839 --> 00:28:53.559 Empire or the British commn author now was included all these really important strategic locations 392 00:28:55.720 --> 00:29:00.680 straight of Gibraltar, for example, controlling the anenters of Mediterranean, controlling the 393 00:29:00.759 --> 00:29:03.960 other end of the Mediterranean and providing the route not only to India, but 394 00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:07.160 also to something that was becoming more and more important at this moment, which 395 00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:11.880 was the oil wells of Iraq and Iran. Those were becoming really really crucial 396 00:29:11.880 --> 00:29:15.960 to British foreign policy. Two or three years later they started to become really 397 00:29:15.960 --> 00:29:18.960 crucial to American foreign policy too, that was just starting at this period, 398 00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:22.519 but also got Singapore for example. Just look at them out and see why 399 00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:26.920 Singapore is so important to the British Empire. Turning itself into this British Commonwealth, 400 00:29:26.200 --> 00:29:30.319 hoping to sort of hold together in some way or other and also maintaining 401 00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:36.319 control of all these rate strategic choke points. Now, this then changed sometime 402 00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:37.920 later, from about ninety fifty five to fifty six, Homers, the British 403 00:29:37.960 --> 00:29:41.519 actually really did begin to seriously dismantle the empire. But in ninety fourty nine 404 00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:47.200 to ninety fifty they really thought that they could actually hold it together. Well, 405 00:29:47.240 --> 00:29:52.799 that's interesting, it's more of a transition at this point. The next 406 00:29:52.960 --> 00:29:56.039 part that I wanted to ask about is that we we rarely talk about senators 407 00:29:56.039 --> 00:30:00.000 in US history, which is a little bit remarkable, give and how important 408 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:03.960 of an institution that that actually is. But again, if you open a 409 00:30:04.279 --> 00:30:08.759 US history textbook, you know, from beginning to end you could probably count 410 00:30:08.799 --> 00:30:15.359 on two hands the number of times that a senator is actually named. You 411 00:30:15.400 --> 00:30:18.559 talk about Walter George, and I found him to be particularly interesting, Like 412 00:30:18.759 --> 00:30:25.240 why was Walter George so important? And particularly how does he represent the changing 413 00:30:25.319 --> 00:30:30.160 nature of the Democratic Party after the Second World War, and then how the 414 00:30:30.240 --> 00:30:36.920 changing nature of that party will impact Truman's agenda. Well, I totally agree. 415 00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:40.599 In America there is a tendency to neglect Congress by historians. Historian to 416 00:30:40.599 --> 00:30:44.599 spend an enormous amount of time on presidential history. They liked a great presidents 417 00:30:44.599 --> 00:30:45.720 out of ten and and put them in kind of an order of who is 418 00:30:45.720 --> 00:30:49.400 the greatest president, who was the best president? And Congressman of senaces is 419 00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:55.359 simply often get forgotten. And I'm a rather different personally. I think Congress 420 00:30:55.400 --> 00:30:59.160 is actually the most fascinating part of the American system because Congress is the place 421 00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:02.880 where a lot of power for characters collide with each other, and they collide 422 00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:07.359 with each other in these debates that are actually really very important everything for example, 423 00:31:07.359 --> 00:31:10.119 in America, and one ray or another, every issue America is grappling 424 00:31:10.119 --> 00:31:12.240 with, always a ends up in the federal budget, and Congress is the 425 00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:15.759 place where the federal budget gets taken to pieces, dissected, put back together, 426 00:31:15.839 --> 00:31:18.599 and or sometimes they really can't reach any agreement at all, which is 427 00:31:18.599 --> 00:31:23.039 obviously what's happening at the moment in the at this moment in twenty twenty three. 428 00:31:23.559 --> 00:31:29.799 So I find congressm fascinating. Now you mentioned Walter George now senator or 429 00:31:29.799 --> 00:31:33.240 to George again completely forgotten figure now, But if I could give you a 430 00:31:33.319 --> 00:31:37.680 kind of modern equivalent you have a senator at the moment in the United States 431 00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:40.680 who's sort of the equivalent, and that's Joe Manchin. You know, Joe 432 00:31:40.759 --> 00:31:44.920 Manson in the Democratic Party now is not unlike Walter George in those days, 433 00:31:45.359 --> 00:31:48.400 Mansion is more famous. He's more of a household name wall of George wasn't 434 00:31:48.400 --> 00:31:49.119 so much of a house and name, but still sort of the same sort 435 00:31:49.160 --> 00:31:53.359 of situation. A Democrat, but a conservative Democrat, a skeptical Democrat, 436 00:31:53.559 --> 00:31:57.480 and a bit of an awkward Democrat where the president's concerned. In Mansion's coast, 437 00:31:57.519 --> 00:32:00.480 President Biden, and in the case of Water Georgia was Harry Truan. 438 00:32:01.119 --> 00:32:05.079 Now George Water George was quite an old man by now, he was in 439 00:32:05.119 --> 00:32:09.279 his seventies. He'd actually been in the Senate since nineteen twenty two as the 440 00:32:09.319 --> 00:32:13.319 senior Senator for Georgia. And of course that man actually often didn't have to 441 00:32:13.319 --> 00:32:16.640 find elections because in Georgia at the time, Georgia was so democratic that very 442 00:32:16.680 --> 00:32:21.480 often the Republicans didn't even put up candidates, whether for Congress or for the 443 00:32:21.480 --> 00:32:23.920 Senate. There really was absolutely no prospected victory. And of course that's a 444 00:32:24.039 --> 00:32:30.799 very different scenario now, so he was senior Senator for Georgia and fiscal conservative 445 00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:35.799 and very powerful because he was the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in the 446 00:32:35.880 --> 00:32:38.519 late nineteen forties and it had been that since ninety forty one. Later he 447 00:32:38.519 --> 00:32:42.440 would get him more powerful nineteen fifties when he was the chairmder of the Senate 448 00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:46.799 Foreign Relations Committee, and water George became an essential ally of Dwight the Eisenhower. 449 00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:51.160 The relationship between Eisenhower and water George became very import didn't do that in 450 00:32:51.160 --> 00:32:54.640 the middle period of the nineteen fifties anyway. In ninety forty nine, Water 451 00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:59.200 George was in his heyday chair of the Senate Finance Committee and according all sorts 452 00:32:59.240 --> 00:33:02.160 of problems for Harry. Basically, the problem was that George, being a 453 00:33:02.200 --> 00:33:07.559 fiscal conservative, was trying to hold Harry Truman to the goal of a balanced 454 00:33:07.559 --> 00:33:10.599 budget, which really wasn't achievable, which meant that Water George was imposing all 455 00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:14.799 kinds of limitations on what Truman could do, basically, for example, the 456 00:33:14.839 --> 00:33:17.359 military budget they were holding now the military budget. In addition to that, 457 00:33:17.359 --> 00:33:22.039 Water George was skeptical about NATO. Now it's a very interesting point because today. 458 00:33:22.119 --> 00:33:24.880 You know, we used to thinking of NATO as this as this great 459 00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:30.599 organization that has been there for seventy years or so, and we like to 460 00:33:30.640 --> 00:33:32.319 think that it's always some as commanded a great deal of support, and that 461 00:33:32.400 --> 00:33:36.160 it came into being kind of triumphant in ninety forty nine. But there were 462 00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:39.400 a great many skeptics about NATO in these early years, including water George, 463 00:33:39.480 --> 00:33:44.400 as were Republicans. The problem with NATO at the time was that NATO was 464 00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:46.200 like a great big donut with a hole in the middle, and the hole 465 00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:52.200 in the middle was was Germany. Because at this point the French refused to 466 00:33:52.240 --> 00:33:54.480 allow West Germany to rearm. The British weren't very happy either of out West 467 00:33:54.519 --> 00:33:58.720 Joermany rearming, but the French ra absolutely they would not have to hear a 468 00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:01.279 word of it, for obviously, because they'd thought three wars with Germany in 469 00:34:01.319 --> 00:34:07.200 the preceding eighty years. If you didn't have Germany in NATO, and if 470 00:34:07.240 --> 00:34:09.920 you didn't have all the Western powers France, Italy, the Netherlands, Britains 471 00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:15.239 on all contributing by way of serious armed forces, then it really was a 472 00:34:15.320 --> 00:34:17.199 question mark what whether really NATO made any sense at all, and wall of 473 00:34:17.199 --> 00:34:21.480 George one of those people. Harry Truman wanted to send a billion dollars of 474 00:34:21.519 --> 00:34:24.079 military aid to NATO at the end of ninety forty nine. Wall of George 475 00:34:24.079 --> 00:34:28.199 was very uhappy about this. He thought America couldn't afford it. He was 476 00:34:28.239 --> 00:34:31.079 worried that the money would be wasted. He was worried that if you did 477 00:34:31.119 --> 00:34:35.719 rearm Europe and the Soviets invaded, all the arms were all of Soviet hands. 478 00:34:35.760 --> 00:34:37.840 So that was the kind of person water George was. And he's emblematic 479 00:34:37.880 --> 00:34:42.280 and important because he just shows you the extent which Harry Truman had trouble with 480 00:34:42.320 --> 00:34:44.880 Congress, and he shows you, I think, one of the nuances and 481 00:34:44.880 --> 00:34:47.800 subtleties of attitudes. At the time. There were many Democrats who frankly were 482 00:34:47.840 --> 00:34:52.239 more conservative than some Republicans. That was the situation that Harry Tchuman had to 483 00:34:52.239 --> 00:34:57.360 deal with. And finally, of course water George was a segregationist. Being 484 00:34:57.360 --> 00:35:00.480 a senator from Georgia, he firmly believed in segregate. He was determined to 485 00:35:00.519 --> 00:35:04.519 maintain, to preserve, and continue. He was what I call a silent 486 00:35:04.639 --> 00:35:07.320 segregation is in a sense you tried not to talk about the issue, and 487 00:35:07.360 --> 00:35:12.360 that was characteristic at the time. Many politicians wanted to maintain segregation. They 488 00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:15.920 were dead against any form of civil rights legislation, but they tried to avoid 489 00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:17.960 talking about it because they thought the less you talked about it, the less 490 00:35:19.119 --> 00:35:21.760 likely is it would become an issue. And eventually, of course, it 491 00:35:21.800 --> 00:35:23.320 did become a huge issue. I mean, like Walter George are the kind 492 00:35:23.320 --> 00:35:28.000 of people who prevented it from being abolished, maybe a lot earlier than it 493 00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:30.400 should have been. It's going to become a huge issue, and it's going 494 00:35:30.440 --> 00:35:34.559 to become the you know, one of the major issues that's going to ultimately 495 00:35:34.920 --> 00:35:38.880 you know, break that Democratic Party. And you know that's why, you 496 00:35:38.920 --> 00:35:44.000 know, you see that massive flip between you know, nineteen the election of 497 00:35:44.880 --> 00:35:47.840 John F. Kennedy in nineteen sixty and then you know, the election of 498 00:35:49.079 --> 00:35:53.679 Richard Nixon later on in nineteen sixty eight. So that's those states are all 499 00:35:53.679 --> 00:35:57.039 going to flip. And you could just you can go look at the electoral 500 00:35:57.039 --> 00:35:59.800 maps right now if you want to. But yeah, we don't talk about 501 00:36:00.079 --> 00:36:04.519 the Senate enough in the United States, and I don't I don't particularly know 502 00:36:04.559 --> 00:36:08.159 why that is. I guess maybe it's just easier to talk about presidents because 503 00:36:08.199 --> 00:36:10.760 there's more of them. But I'm just going to throw out another name that 504 00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:14.400 you know, some of the listeners may be familiar with, but he's in 505 00:36:14.440 --> 00:36:17.159 Congress right now. His name is Chuck Grassley's a Republican from Iowa. It's 506 00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:22.559 been there for I believe forty seven years. That's a long time, folks. 507 00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:28.599 So if you want to talk about the concentration of power in some people's 508 00:36:29.199 --> 00:36:32.000 hands, like, we don't have term limits for senators, right, and 509 00:36:32.079 --> 00:36:36.719 we do for presidents. So yes, we do focus a lot on those. 510 00:36:37.039 --> 00:36:40.239 And it's also worth pointing out that please, by all means, if 511 00:36:40.280 --> 00:36:44.480 you're listening to this, pull up the United States Constitution, you know the 512 00:36:44.519 --> 00:36:47.840 first article is Congress because that was the most important from their perspective. And 513 00:36:47.880 --> 00:36:53.840 that also explains why a Congress that suffers periods of paralysis, which ours tends 514 00:36:53.880 --> 00:37:02.039 to now is so problematic because it hoists the response ability for accomplishing tasks and 515 00:37:02.039 --> 00:37:07.199 the other two branches that really weren't intended to do it from their perspective, 516 00:37:07.199 --> 00:37:12.079 and that causes constitutional problems. Okay, but all this aside, that was 517 00:37:12.119 --> 00:37:15.760 just a little soapbox there. But all this aside, I want to talk 518 00:37:15.800 --> 00:37:21.719 about the nuclear weapons because obviously the other shadow that is cast over the nineteen 519 00:37:22.159 --> 00:37:29.320 fifties is the prospect of nuclear war and essentially nuclear annihilation. When did Truman 520 00:37:29.559 --> 00:37:36.320 find out that the Soviets had successfully tested a nuclear weapon? And like I 521 00:37:36.360 --> 00:37:39.719 mean, obviously it changes the balance of power in Europe and around the world. 522 00:37:39.800 --> 00:37:44.920 But give us a sense for what we're talking about here, for what 523 00:37:44.960 --> 00:37:51.559 it means for the Soviets harnessing that power. Just say, on this subject 524 00:37:51.639 --> 00:37:54.280 term limits and Congress before I talk about Adam Bum. Of course, in 525 00:37:54.360 --> 00:37:58.920 Britain we had this bizarre institution knows the House of Lords within Parliament, and 526 00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:00.559 as you know, in the House of more than eight hundred members of it, 527 00:38:00.639 --> 00:38:02.800 you can be appointed at the House of Lords at the age of twenty 528 00:38:02.840 --> 00:38:07.039 five or thirty and you're a man there till you die. So you know, 529 00:38:07.079 --> 00:38:08.320 we can't really talk. I think your problem actually is a bit less 530 00:38:08.320 --> 00:38:12.119 than ours. But on the subject of the atom bomb, well, now, 531 00:38:13.480 --> 00:38:16.159 as I was saying earlier, the Soviets had detonated their first atomic bomb 532 00:38:16.159 --> 00:38:20.440 test on August the twenty ninth, ninety forty nine, just a few days 533 00:38:20.440 --> 00:38:25.159 before the book begins. Now, what happened was two three days later, 534 00:38:27.800 --> 00:38:30.519 some of the radioactive dust from the explosion was picked up by an American B 535 00:38:30.679 --> 00:38:35.599 twenty nine bomber which was flying over the sea to the north of Japan. 536 00:38:36.960 --> 00:38:40.719 Now, the news of that, or the readings from the radioactive monitor were 537 00:38:40.719 --> 00:38:45.599 immediately transmitted to Washington by teleprinter, So the news a media arrived in Washington. 538 00:38:45.679 --> 00:38:47.679 But of course they didn't know yet whether or it really was a Soviet 539 00:38:47.679 --> 00:38:52.000 atom bomb. It might simply been dust from an explosion, for example, 540 00:38:52.039 --> 00:38:55.480 accident in a Soviet nuclear reactor. I mean the followed a period of really 541 00:38:55.519 --> 00:39:00.440 intense activity, lasting for several weeks, and altogether ninety aircraft were sent up 542 00:39:00.480 --> 00:39:04.320 both by the US Air Force and by the Royal Air Force from Great Britain 543 00:39:04.519 --> 00:39:08.920 to monitor this radioactive duscloud as it kind of drifted from Japan over Alaska, 544 00:39:09.119 --> 00:39:12.880 over Canada, over the Atlantic, and eventually over Great Britain. I think 545 00:39:12.920 --> 00:39:15.239 some of the dusts actually ended up in Scotland. They had to analyze it 546 00:39:15.320 --> 00:39:20.679 very carefully. Now, it took a little while. Truman was told about 547 00:39:20.719 --> 00:39:22.679 this on about September the tenth, five days after Labor Day. But what 548 00:39:22.679 --> 00:39:25.760 he was told about was the fact that the tests were being conducted because there 549 00:39:25.760 --> 00:39:30.079 was no confirmation yet. About a week later they got the confirmation through that 550 00:39:30.119 --> 00:39:34.400 it was definitely an an atom bomb test. And the reason they able to 551 00:39:34.480 --> 00:39:38.559 do that was because by analyzing the nature of the radioactivity, they could tell 552 00:39:38.599 --> 00:39:42.639 that it must have come from nuclear fission, which is what happens when you 553 00:39:42.679 --> 00:39:46.599 have an atom bomb goes off. Now, Truman decided to tell the American 554 00:39:46.639 --> 00:39:51.360 people, and not everybody agreed in his administration about that, that he s'uld 555 00:39:51.360 --> 00:39:53.199 actually make a public announcement. But Truman decided to do so, which he 556 00:39:53.239 --> 00:39:57.039 did on September the twenty third, And he did that, as far as 557 00:39:57.079 --> 00:39:59.400 we can see, for three three reasons. First of all, he was 558 00:39:59.440 --> 00:40:01.920 worried that there would be a leak, but somebody in the Pentagon of the 559 00:40:01.960 --> 00:40:06.639 Air Force or the scientific world would lead this to the press and there would 560 00:40:06.639 --> 00:40:08.559 be a kind of sensation and a panic and sign. So true was worried 561 00:40:08.559 --> 00:40:13.360 about that. He was also worried that the Soviets might get their first an 562 00:40:13.400 --> 00:40:16.119 announcement, so he wanted to make sure the Soviets didn't announce it in such 563 00:40:16.119 --> 00:40:20.360 a way that it again it would become a propaganda coup for the Soviet Union. 564 00:40:20.679 --> 00:40:22.840 And Thirdly, I think he just felt the American people ought to know, 565 00:40:22.920 --> 00:40:28.039 so he made this announcement seventy twenty. Third, the strange thing is 566 00:40:28.320 --> 00:40:30.760 that the announcement didn't actually cause a panic. And I think the reason it 567 00:40:30.800 --> 00:40:34.360 didn't cause a panic in the nation was because for years now it had been 568 00:40:34.400 --> 00:40:37.440 expected that at some point the Soviets would get the autom bomb, because the 569 00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:39.719 Soviets had been dropping heavy hints about it in ninety forty seven, their foreign 570 00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:43.840 minister Molotov had already more or less said that they had the science, which 571 00:40:43.840 --> 00:40:46.280 they probably did at that stage. So it didn't cause a terrible panic. 572 00:40:46.360 --> 00:40:51.480 What it did do was it caused a lot of consequences inside the government and 573 00:40:51.519 --> 00:40:54.400 inside the military'st option in Washington, and those turned out to be quite faithful. 574 00:40:54.440 --> 00:41:00.800 And then you might ask me what they were well on that threat a 575 00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:02.840 little bit, because I do want to know. I mean, America essentially 576 00:41:02.920 --> 00:41:07.519 has this you know, this ace in the hall, because they have this 577 00:41:07.079 --> 00:41:12.400 huge advantage with this weapon, and obviously this is going to result in military 578 00:41:12.480 --> 00:41:15.960 changes. So what happened within the Pentagon as a result, Well, the 579 00:41:16.039 --> 00:41:19.960 Soviets had got the bomb, probably about two or three years earlier than the 580 00:41:19.960 --> 00:41:22.639 Americans had been expecting. The scientists in US had thought it would take them 581 00:41:22.960 --> 00:41:27.880 maybe about nineteen fifty two or fifty three did actually get the bomb. Now, 582 00:41:27.960 --> 00:41:30.119 in terms of the military balance of power, the acquisition of the bomb 583 00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:35.000 by the Serbian didn't actually make an immediate great difference because they didn't have an 584 00:41:35.039 --> 00:41:38.440 aircraft which would be capable of delivering it to the United States. They wouldn't 585 00:41:38.440 --> 00:41:42.400 have that for some years to come. In addition, they didn't have missiles. 586 00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:45.199 For example, they did not even have the international intercontinental polsting missiles that 587 00:41:45.239 --> 00:41:49.079 became such an issue in the mid to late ninety fifties. They didn't have 588 00:41:49.079 --> 00:41:52.159 that. So it didn't make an enormous difference to the balance of military power 589 00:41:52.199 --> 00:41:53.840 immediately, but it was clear that it was going to at some stage in 590 00:41:53.840 --> 00:41:57.360 the not too distant future. By the mid fifties, there was going to 591 00:41:57.400 --> 00:42:01.119 be a big issue. Now, the most born effects in the near term 592 00:42:01.199 --> 00:42:06.280 in the United States of the announcement of the Soviet bomb was the issue of 593 00:42:06.280 --> 00:42:10.480 the hydrogen bomb. Now, I'm sure many people have seen the film Oppenheimer, 594 00:42:10.519 --> 00:42:14.360 which appeared a few months ago, and it really an excellent film actually, 595 00:42:14.360 --> 00:42:16.679 I mean, given how difficult it is to put history on the screen, 596 00:42:16.719 --> 00:42:20.639 on the cinema screen, I think that does a fantastic Jobbert, and 597 00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:24.000 much of what the film says is entirely accurate. The problem was that it 598 00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:28.199 had been known for some time from a theoretical point of view, that it 599 00:42:28.239 --> 00:42:30.320 ought to be possible to create a new kind of weapon, the hydrogen bomb, 600 00:42:30.360 --> 00:42:35.320 based on thom nuclear fusion, that had been known in principles since about 601 00:42:35.400 --> 00:42:37.280 nineteen forty one or forty two. The science was there, it wasn't a 602 00:42:37.320 --> 00:42:42.039 talk clear whether it was actually practically feasible, how it would be done, 603 00:42:42.079 --> 00:42:44.480 and how it would work, and how dangerous and so on it would be. 604 00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:47.480 But it was known that work could be done, and so the immediate 605 00:42:47.519 --> 00:42:52.840 impact of the Soviet bombs as was to generate a huge wave of pressure and 606 00:42:52.880 --> 00:42:59.599 support within national security circles in Washington, with Indepentagon within Congress to get the 607 00:42:59.679 --> 00:43:02.400 hydrogen bomb built by the United States before the Russians did. And that's essentially 608 00:43:02.440 --> 00:43:07.400 what happened. There was one particular individual for two particlar inividuals. One was 609 00:43:07.480 --> 00:43:10.119 Lewis Strauss, who is portrayed in the film in the Oppenheimer film, who 610 00:43:10.159 --> 00:43:15.400 was a member of the Atomic Energy Commission. He pushed very heavily for the 611 00:43:15.440 --> 00:43:19.000 building of the of the hydrogen bomb. There was another man called Senator Brah 612 00:43:19.079 --> 00:43:22.559 McMann, and another senator, a very interesting senator, Senator Brian McMahon, 613 00:43:22.639 --> 00:43:25.920 who was a leading Democrat. He was somebody who actually if he hadn't died, 614 00:43:25.920 --> 00:43:30.039 he died just very young a couple of years later. If he had 615 00:43:30.079 --> 00:43:32.400 not died, he might actually have been the Democratic candidate for president in nine 616 00:43:32.480 --> 00:43:36.480 fifty two instead of Adelaide Stevenson. The history might have been different, actually, 617 00:43:36.519 --> 00:43:39.199 But but Mahn was very, very keen to push for the building of 618 00:43:39.239 --> 00:43:44.719 the hydrogen bomb, and they gathered around them a grade deal support in Congress. 619 00:43:44.840 --> 00:43:46.639 They had supported the military as well, and the Joint Tature staff wanted 620 00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:51.360 to build the hydrogen bomb, and so a kind of unstoppable menum build up, 621 00:43:51.760 --> 00:43:54.800 which meant that in the end of January nineteen fifty when Harry Truman had 622 00:43:54.840 --> 00:43:58.880 to had to make a decision on this issue, there was really no decision 623 00:43:58.920 --> 00:44:01.639 that Harry Tchruman could take other van to go ahead with the research and development 624 00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:06.880 build the h bomb, which of course eventually was was tested the end of 625 00:44:06.920 --> 00:44:09.800 ninety fifty two, and then tested much more thoroughly and in a usual form 626 00:44:10.039 --> 00:44:14.559 in ninety fifty four with a huge test of Bikini Atoll. It became normously 627 00:44:14.639 --> 00:44:17.639 controversial around the world. So the hydrogen bomb development program was already kind of 628 00:44:17.840 --> 00:44:22.280 flowed from what was happening with the Soviet bomb in the fall of ninety forty 629 00:44:22.360 --> 00:44:27.679 nine, and that sort of it's it's interesting because you know, the Soviets 630 00:44:27.719 --> 00:44:30.559 get the atomic bomb, the pressure then becomes to get a more powerful weapon, 631 00:44:30.559 --> 00:44:35.960 which is the hydrogen bomb. And that plays into my next question because 632 00:44:36.320 --> 00:44:39.039 it becomes clear at some point, and I think you write in the book 633 00:44:39.519 --> 00:44:45.039 no one expected Harry Truman to win the Cold War at a stroke, which 634 00:44:45.079 --> 00:44:46.800 is another way of sort of saying that, like, this was clearly going 635 00:44:46.840 --> 00:44:52.599 to be a long term conflict, and you can see this developing later on. 636 00:44:52.719 --> 00:44:54.960 So I had two questions about that. One was, okay, so 637 00:44:55.320 --> 00:45:00.360 if this is going to be a long term conflict, what was the strategy 638 00:45:00.679 --> 00:45:06.800 that was being talked about as we start to focus in on Truman's administration in 639 00:45:06.840 --> 00:45:12.480 the early nineteen fifties. And two, did people understand and I'm going to 640 00:45:12.559 --> 00:45:15.800 use that term broadly, you know, both within the administration and then you 641 00:45:15.800 --> 00:45:20.639 know, maybe even regular Americans people understand that this was going to be this 642 00:45:20.800 --> 00:45:24.840 long term struggle that could drag on for decades. Well, they certainly understood 643 00:45:24.880 --> 00:45:28.920 that. Yes, there were many, many observers who predicted there would be 644 00:45:28.920 --> 00:45:31.480 a long struggle of going for decades. But nevertheless, the Cold War was 645 00:45:31.480 --> 00:45:36.159 reading very much in early stages, and a lot of thinking about issues of 646 00:45:36.239 --> 00:45:39.079 national security and so on was in its very early stages. It was kind 647 00:45:39.079 --> 00:45:42.559 of uninformed. It's a bit kind of incoated. It really hadn't sort of 648 00:45:42.599 --> 00:45:46.599 congealed together. Now you can argue about the date when the Cold War began, 649 00:45:46.679 --> 00:45:50.920 and there's a lot of argument about that, but one key date, 650 00:45:50.960 --> 00:45:53.519 obviously was the Truman Doctrine speech, which he gave to Congress in the spring 651 00:45:53.599 --> 00:45:57.880 of nineteen forty seven. And the part about that speech was essentially what he 652 00:45:57.920 --> 00:46:00.679 was saying was that America would stand alone, alongside and support any country that 653 00:46:00.840 --> 00:46:06.480 was resisting aggression from outside, which essentially meant aggression from the Soviet Union or 654 00:46:06.559 --> 00:46:08.280 as allies. Now, the Truman doctrine you can see, is kind of 655 00:46:08.280 --> 00:46:10.440 one of the founding moments of the Cold War, but it was a doctrine, 656 00:46:10.480 --> 00:46:15.119 It wasn't actually a strategy. The key word in terms of strategy is 657 00:46:15.119 --> 00:46:19.840 containment. The word containment which will forever be associated with with the American diplomat 658 00:46:19.880 --> 00:46:23.719 and historian and thinker George Kennon who was talking about containment in ninety forty six 659 00:46:23.719 --> 00:46:29.000 and ninety forty seven, the idea of containing the Soviet Union, of preventing 660 00:46:29.039 --> 00:46:31.960 the Soviet Union from spinning over out of its borders and projecting its to power 661 00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:37.639 all across the globe. Now, the problem with containment and kname was of 662 00:46:37.719 --> 00:46:39.800 the heart of the strategy of Harry Truman towards the Cold War. The problem 663 00:46:39.840 --> 00:46:45.159 is was it mean. The word containment is the key word, but it 664 00:46:45.480 --> 00:46:49.000 can in practical terms, you can have lots of different kinds of interpretations, 665 00:46:49.039 --> 00:46:52.679 and it can mean all sorts of different things. One possibility for container is 666 00:46:52.679 --> 00:46:55.760 what they called perimeter defense, where essentially you put armed forces all the way 667 00:46:55.800 --> 00:46:59.559 around the borders of the Servant Union in Russia as you hem them in so 668 00:46:59.599 --> 00:47:02.760 they can't escape outside their borders. Well that's not really practical. That was 669 00:47:02.800 --> 00:47:07.119 totally impractical with the resources available. Another possibility was called what he called on 670 00:47:07.199 --> 00:47:13.519 harb or strong point containment, where what you do is you defend the really 671 00:47:13.519 --> 00:47:16.760 important places good example, the German ruler for example, because the German ruler 672 00:47:16.800 --> 00:47:21.599 is a great war making complex of West Germany is certainly under Hitler and then 673 00:47:22.039 --> 00:47:23.719 terribly important toll after World War Two. If you defend things like that, 674 00:47:23.840 --> 00:47:28.239 or you defend places like Japan because Japan has its own bornt strategically, So 675 00:47:28.280 --> 00:47:32.239 that's another form of containment. Another form of containment is cultural containment, is 676 00:47:32.320 --> 00:47:37.800 doing your absolute best to present America's way of life and to present the British 677 00:47:37.840 --> 00:47:39.960 way of life, say the Democratic word, as being the ideal way of 678 00:47:39.960 --> 00:47:43.440 life, the way of life they should aspire to. So all kinds of 679 00:47:43.519 --> 00:47:47.039 things that containment could mean, and containment was something that had to be debated 680 00:47:47.159 --> 00:47:52.599 endlessly. Really only in the mid fifties really do agyize and how that the 681 00:47:52.639 --> 00:47:57.280 kind of Cold War strategy really settled down into its definite form that would would 682 00:47:57.320 --> 00:48:00.920 be maintained right up until the collapse of the Son Union in the mid nineteen 683 00:48:00.960 --> 00:48:07.000 eighties. And also, of course the problem was that whatever Harry Truman or 684 00:48:07.039 --> 00:48:09.440 Dean Asherson or drightly, I don't have all about containment, for Russians had 685 00:48:09.480 --> 00:48:13.400 ideas of their own. And one of the great problems of this period was 686 00:48:13.400 --> 00:48:15.760 the fact that Stalin was a lot more flexible than people gave him credit for. 687 00:48:16.480 --> 00:48:21.079 Now. Stalin absolutely fascinating character, you know, a central character in 688 00:48:21.079 --> 00:48:23.119 my book, a central character in many books, a character you know, 689 00:48:23.320 --> 00:48:27.400 difficult to interpret, but absolutely the person you have to get to grips with. 690 00:48:27.760 --> 00:48:30.800 And Starr had one particular characteristic which I think was a real problem for 691 00:48:30.840 --> 00:48:35.199 everybody, which was that he was in terms of his ideology, his political 692 00:48:35.320 --> 00:48:37.440 views, they were always fixed. He was always a Marxist Leninist, but 693 00:48:37.519 --> 00:48:42.519 in terms of his strategy and tactics from months to months, from year to 694 00:48:42.639 --> 00:48:45.039 year, he was prepared to be very flexible big make U terms and that's 695 00:48:45.079 --> 00:48:50.320 what essentially did when he authorized the invasion of Korea in June nineteen and fifty 696 00:48:51.400 --> 00:48:54.599 ninety forty nine. He did not want Kimmelsung from from North creator to invade 697 00:48:54.639 --> 00:48:59.480 the South. Suddenly changes his mind in January nineteen fifty and gives the go 698 00:48:59.519 --> 00:49:01.480 ahead from came Alsumcum by the South, And that was home with Stalin. 699 00:49:01.679 --> 00:49:06.239 Stin was a man who was prepared to change. He's made u turns. 700 00:49:06.519 --> 00:49:08.840 He was strategically very very flexible, very devious, and that was one of 701 00:49:08.840 --> 00:49:14.480 the reasons which made Stalin such a kind of formidable competitor and a formidable opponent. 702 00:49:15.920 --> 00:49:17.519 Yeah, and I think it's worth pointing out here that, you know, 703 00:49:17.559 --> 00:49:22.320 while we kind of retroactively look back on this period and again, this 704 00:49:22.360 --> 00:49:25.320 is another America, maybe some characteristic of America that you know, we see 705 00:49:25.320 --> 00:49:29.840 America as, oh, it's the superpower, it's always been a superpower in 706 00:49:29.880 --> 00:49:34.079 the world. But that's not it's not actually historically accurate, you know, 707 00:49:34.119 --> 00:49:37.920 in terms of when we go back and we think about, well, no, 708 00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:39.960 I mean we didn't. You know, I honestly have had people in 709 00:49:39.960 --> 00:49:44.719 the past day well we want independence from the British and were immediately the great 710 00:49:44.760 --> 00:49:46.159 superpower of the world. And it's like, no, not at all, 711 00:49:46.719 --> 00:49:51.440 that's that's not true. But so this was new, This was this was 712 00:49:51.639 --> 00:49:55.079 new for the people in the Truman administration sort of thinking about because you talk 713 00:49:55.119 --> 00:49:58.679 about like, well, what is containment mean? And this was these were 714 00:49:58.760 --> 00:50:02.000 questions that they had to rapple with in terms of, Okay, well, 715 00:50:02.159 --> 00:50:07.039 how are we going to contain the Soviet Union? And yeah, it doesn't 716 00:50:07.079 --> 00:50:13.679 settle into it sort of permanent characteristics until later like this was this was an 717 00:50:13.719 --> 00:50:16.119 era where there was very much a debate about how to do these sorts of 718 00:50:16.159 --> 00:50:19.960 things. And I think it's really important and I wish it was a part 719 00:50:19.960 --> 00:50:22.079 of history that was talked about a little bit more or we're coming up on 720 00:50:22.119 --> 00:50:25.559 time. But I did want to ask one last question because I didn't know 721 00:50:25.760 --> 00:50:30.119 very much about this, and I thought it was a really interesting part of 722 00:50:30.159 --> 00:50:32.559 the book. Everybody start of the B twenty nine bombers, but there's there's 723 00:50:32.599 --> 00:50:37.000 this controversy over the B thirty six. You know that you that you talk 724 00:50:37.039 --> 00:50:40.480 about the book because the other thing that's going on in the nineteen fifties in 725 00:50:40.519 --> 00:50:45.559 the United States, something that Eisenhower will sort of famously talk about, is 726 00:50:45.760 --> 00:50:51.760 these growing concerns over the rise of what we call the military industrial complex and 727 00:50:51.800 --> 00:50:59.360 the changing nature of warfare and of how we come up with new weapons. 728 00:50:59.360 --> 00:51:01.320 Because you know, we talk about the need to create the hydrogen bomb because 729 00:51:01.880 --> 00:51:07.079 the Russians get the atomic bomb, and then you need ways to distribute this 730 00:51:07.239 --> 00:51:13.480 firepower ever changing ways, and so but the B thirty six was a really 731 00:51:13.480 --> 00:51:16.239 interesting story, and I thought it'd be a great way to end today if 732 00:51:16.239 --> 00:51:20.239 you could tell us a little bit about that and how it ill how sort 733 00:51:20.280 --> 00:51:24.000 of plays into those two aspects. The B thirty six bomber was the bomber 734 00:51:24.039 --> 00:51:28.239 that would eventually be superseded a few years later by the B fifty two, 735 00:51:28.519 --> 00:51:30.960 The B fifty two, which is still with us and still, you know, 736 00:51:30.039 --> 00:51:34.400 an important part of America's arsenal and obviously very famous from its role in 737 00:51:34.480 --> 00:51:38.239 Vietnam and swam. Now, the B thirty six was a lumbering monstrosity of 738 00:51:38.239 --> 00:51:42.920 an aeroplane. It wasn't a jet. It was powered by six great, 739 00:51:42.920 --> 00:51:46.000 big piston engines, and it had the longest wingspan of any combat aircraft ever 740 00:51:46.039 --> 00:51:50.519 built before or since. Huge thing. It had an enormous range. It'd 741 00:51:50.519 --> 00:51:52.800 fly ten thousand miles, and that was the important thing about it, which 742 00:51:52.880 --> 00:51:55.760 was the fact that it was intended to be the primary mechanism for delivering the 743 00:51:55.800 --> 00:52:00.239 atom bomb against the Sovietian or maybe one day China. So it was the 744 00:52:00.280 --> 00:52:07.159 core of America's strategic nuclear defense or another as Strategic Air Command as it was 745 00:52:07.199 --> 00:52:09.679 known. Trouble with the B thirty six was that, as I say, 746 00:52:09.719 --> 00:52:13.760 it was a lumbering monsoss even aircraft. It was slow, it was comebersome, 747 00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:15.400 and the realities it was never used in action. It couldn't have been 748 00:52:15.440 --> 00:52:17.840 used in action because if it had been used in action, it would have 749 00:52:17.840 --> 00:52:21.800 been shot down by the Soviets almost immediately. The Soviets already had a fighter 750 00:52:21.800 --> 00:52:24.360 called the Mid fifteen, which they were testing in ninety forty nine and nineteen 751 00:52:24.400 --> 00:52:28.559 fifty, which is just about to enter service, and the mid fifteen would 752 00:52:28.559 --> 00:52:31.159 have shot the B thirty six out of the sky almost immediately. So the 753 00:52:31.320 --> 00:52:34.280 thirty six was a bit useless. Actually, in fact we used called it 754 00:52:34.280 --> 00:52:37.320 Elemon, but it had almost expensive and the controversy about it in the fall 755 00:52:37.360 --> 00:52:44.039 of nineteen forty nine was a huge feud in public between the United States Navy 756 00:52:44.079 --> 00:52:45.920 and the United States Air Force. Now, and it wasn't just the kind 757 00:52:45.920 --> 00:52:50.559 of usual interservice rivalry that you get in the Pentagon. It was already serious 758 00:52:50.639 --> 00:52:53.440 argument. The point was this. The United States Navy believe in the aircraft 759 00:52:53.519 --> 00:52:58.119 carrier because it would have happened in World War Two, because of the Battle 760 00:52:58.119 --> 00:53:00.280 of Midway, because of the Battle of the other Great Battles of World War 761 00:53:00.320 --> 00:53:04.199 Two, because of the role of the aircraft carriers in the defeat of Japan. 762 00:53:04.880 --> 00:53:08.480 The United States Navy believed in the aircraft carrier as a huge and almost 763 00:53:08.480 --> 00:53:13.679 the primary mechas and proper projecting American power around the world. The Air Force, 764 00:53:13.760 --> 00:53:15.480 of course, didn't believe in the aircraft craft carry and the aircraft believed 765 00:53:15.480 --> 00:53:19.320 in the B thirty six and one day the B fifty two of Strategi Air 766 00:53:19.360 --> 00:53:22.000 Command based in Omaha, Nebraskrons on. They believe that was the essential, 767 00:53:23.280 --> 00:53:29.599 the core component of America's defensive arsenal, and the two clashed in public in 768 00:53:29.639 --> 00:53:32.840 the fall of ninety forty nine, very public. Indeed, various admirals, 769 00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:37.440 the chad of the US Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations gouged Admiral Dental 770 00:53:37.480 --> 00:53:43.000 actually end up getting fired for this by Truman earlier the following year. Basically, 771 00:53:43.000 --> 00:53:45.800 the argument on the part of the Navy was, well, if you 772 00:53:45.920 --> 00:53:50.119 rely entirely on the aircraft of B sixty thirty six and on the atom bombs 773 00:53:50.159 --> 00:53:52.199 they carry. First of all, you may make atomic warfare more likely. 774 00:53:52.679 --> 00:53:57.000 You're going to make yourself very inflexible. You're going to be over committed to 775 00:53:57.039 --> 00:53:59.880 that arm and you're going to leave the way open for the Soviets door kinds 776 00:53:59.880 --> 00:54:02.480 of things which you didn't want to respond to with atom bombs, and they'll 777 00:54:02.519 --> 00:54:05.840 be free to kind of take over parts of the world because you haven't got 778 00:54:05.880 --> 00:54:08.320 aircraft carriers, so you can send the Air Force the Navy off to meet 779 00:54:08.360 --> 00:54:12.199 them. The Air Force, on the other hands, said oh, yes, 780 00:54:12.199 --> 00:54:14.559 but we've got to have these aircraft because the Soviet is going to get 781 00:54:14.599 --> 00:54:16.920 them. And also the Air Force pointed out, well, actually it's cheaper. 782 00:54:17.719 --> 00:54:21.920 The argument on part of the Air Force was that having a defense based 783 00:54:21.960 --> 00:54:24.519 on great, big strategic bombers carrying atom bombs will end up being a lot 784 00:54:24.599 --> 00:54:30.400 cheaper in terms of the federal budget than having huge conventional forces navian army and 785 00:54:30.400 --> 00:54:34.119 so on. And that argument, of course was designed to appeal to people 786 00:54:34.159 --> 00:54:37.880 like the fiscal conservatives in Congress, people like Walter George we mentioned earlier, 787 00:54:37.960 --> 00:54:42.119 who were fiscal consertis who didn't want to spend too much on the armed forces, 788 00:54:42.159 --> 00:54:45.679 and therefore they were much more interested in having an expensive but not as 789 00:54:45.760 --> 00:54:50.679 expensive air force, an air force not as expensive as the Navy and the 790 00:54:50.760 --> 00:54:53.679 Army, because that would be the economical way of running America's defense. And 791 00:54:53.760 --> 00:54:57.519 this argument at me thirty six, it was very public, but it had 792 00:54:57.559 --> 00:55:01.159 one very important impact politically in his Doorcally and he had you with President Eisenhower 793 00:55:02.039 --> 00:55:06.880 or the future President Eisenhow, because Eisenhow at this point in ninety forty nine, 794 00:55:06.920 --> 00:55:08.800 was out of military service. He was still a general because of coause 795 00:55:08.800 --> 00:55:12.280 you can't retire. You're always at once a generally, always a general in 796 00:55:12.320 --> 00:55:15.760 America, he was still a general, but he was actually president of the 797 00:55:15.840 --> 00:55:19.559 university, President of Columbia, University of New York. But what they would 798 00:55:19.559 --> 00:55:22.800 do is they would summon him back to Washington whenever there was a problem to 799 00:55:22.880 --> 00:55:24.800 try and help out and try and smooth things over and come with a solution. 800 00:55:25.239 --> 00:55:29.400 And so he was involved in Congress and giving testimony at the time of 801 00:55:29.440 --> 00:55:32.280 these hearings during this great big feud between the Army and the Navy. And 802 00:55:32.320 --> 00:55:36.280 one of the things that happened was that Eisenhower became of this period more and 803 00:55:36.280 --> 00:55:39.440 more exascerbated with the Truman administration. He was more and more unhappy with the 804 00:55:39.440 --> 00:55:43.239 way the Truan administration was treating the armed forces. He was more and more 805 00:55:43.320 --> 00:55:45.199 unhappy with the budget limitations that were putting on them. He's more and more 806 00:55:45.280 --> 00:55:50.480 uhappy with what he saw was the damage to military and naval morales occurring during 807 00:55:50.519 --> 00:55:52.119 this great big row between the Navy and the eir foros So, this was 808 00:55:52.159 --> 00:55:57.360 one of the peerers in which Eisenhower started to think seriously about becoming or running 809 00:55:57.400 --> 00:56:00.960 for president in nineteen fifty two, he was gradually inching towards that decision. 810 00:56:00.159 --> 00:56:04.920 And this period and then again the period reading up to and during the Korean 811 00:56:04.920 --> 00:56:07.320 Religi started the Korean War, was when he really kind of clinched his view 812 00:56:07.360 --> 00:56:09.960 that he should run for president at some stage. Wouldn't decide for a long 813 00:56:09.960 --> 00:56:15.360 time yet in a definitive way, But during this situation in the fall of 814 00:56:15.440 --> 00:56:19.320 ninety forty nine, he was entering into that period of kind of preparation for 815 00:56:19.480 --> 00:56:24.639 becoming a presidential candidate. Well, and it's fascinating the way that sometimes what 816 00:56:24.800 --> 00:56:34.760 looks like a relatively small aspect of history turns into something enormous because Eisenhower's presidency 817 00:56:34.840 --> 00:56:37.960 is obviously going to usher and watershed moments of its own. It's, i 818 00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:43.760 mean, maybe the first time a Republican had seized control of the presidency in 819 00:56:43.880 --> 00:56:47.880 decades, So you know, and the fact that you know, and the 820 00:56:47.960 --> 00:56:52.599 other thing that is worth pointing out here is again it all kind of comes 821 00:56:52.639 --> 00:56:57.039 back to this idea of how important Congress is and the changing nature of all 822 00:56:57.119 --> 00:57:00.400 that because Congress sets the budget and Congress is the one that decides what gets 823 00:57:00.440 --> 00:57:05.760 made. And of course another aspect that every Congressman and senator is going to 824 00:57:05.760 --> 00:57:07.159 think about as well, where is this getting made? Is this getting made 825 00:57:07.199 --> 00:57:09.119 in my district? Is part of this is going to help me out? 826 00:57:09.440 --> 00:57:19.599 And those are questions that don't necessarily have immediate military strategic implications, and that's 827 00:57:19.639 --> 00:57:22.719 important as well. But well, this has been great, it's been a 828 00:57:22.760 --> 00:57:29.000 wonderful interview. We have barely scratched the surface of the book. I don't 829 00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:32.199 think we made it past nineteen fifty four at any point, and barely even 830 00:57:32.239 --> 00:57:38.199 talked about that. So there's obviously worlds more. We only hardly mentioned favorite 831 00:57:38.239 --> 00:57:43.960 Senator from my home state of Wisconsin. Joseph McCarthy is an interesting character in 832 00:57:43.960 --> 00:57:47.000 and of himself, and you know, there's just a lot more to do 833 00:57:47.079 --> 00:57:51.559 here. So I hope people pick up the book. But thank you so 834 00:57:51.639 --> 00:58:04.760 much for the talk. It's been illuminating.