Invisible Hands: The American Century: 2. The Prophet
About this episode
The episode explores how George Kennan's insights and actions shaped American foreign policy and the onset of the Cold War.
A man wakes up in the middle of the night in Moscow. He is sick. Shivery. Feverish. But he has a mission. A mission that will end up changing the course of world history. After World War Two was over, America was ready for peace. And to continue working with their ideological adversary, the Soviet Union. Franklin Delano Roosevelt even flew to Crimea to make a deal with Churchill and Stalin. But there was one man who was sounding the alarm, all the way from a freezing Moscow winter. A Chekhov-obsessed diplomat called George Kennan who’s witnessed Stalin’s repressions first hand and would live to 101. More than anyone else, he will set the trajectory of American foreign policy in the 20th Century - with a telegram. A telegram he would come to deeply regret. This is the story of how the US and USSR went from allies to enemies. And the man who made this happen - starting what would come to be called the Cold War. David Dimbleby tells the story of how in the middle of the 20th Century one country - America - became a superpower and shaped the world around it. It began with a vision. A vision born out of the ashes of World War Two. A vision of a world shaped not by war but by peace…
People in this episode
Host: David Dimbleby
Topics covered
- American foreign policy
- Cold War origins
- post-World War Two
- George Kennan
- US-Soviet relations
- superpower dynamics
Keywords
- George Kennan
- Cold War
- American foreign policy
- World War Two
- superpower
- USSR
- Moscow
Mentioned in this episode
Places: Moscow
More episodes of The History Podcast
- The Hitler Diaries Scandal: Trailer
- Invisible Hands: The American Century: 6. America First!
- Invisible Hands: The American Century: 5. Wolfie
- Invisible Hands: The American Century: 4. Rolling Thunder
- Invisible Hands: The American Century: 3. Operation Ajax
- Invisible Hands: The American Century: 1. Mr Nobody
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