Invisible Hands: The American Century: 2. The Prophet

Summary

The History Podcast (BBC Radio 4)

Invisible Hands: The American Century – Ep. 2: The Prophet

Date: August 4, 2026
Host: David Dimbleby

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Episode Overview

This episode, "The Prophet," explores the pivotal story of George Kennan, the American diplomat whose insights fundamentally transformed America's post-war foreign policy—ushering in the Cold War’s doctrine of "containment." Starting with Kennan’s chilling experiences in Stalinist Moscow, the episode contrasts his vision to that of Roosevelt and Harry Dexter White, who dreamed of a postwar world united in peace with the Soviets. Through archival voices and expert historians, the podcast details the ideological rift that split the globe and set the stage for American leadership in the new world order.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Chilling Reality of Stalinist Moscow (01:06–04:28)

• George Kennan’s eye-witness account of the infamous Soviet show trials in 1937 deeply marked him, illustrating the terror and brutality of Stalin’s regime.
  • Kennan describes the "pale faces, twitching lips, evasive eyes" of the accused—men he had recently dined with, now making forced confessions. (02:04–03:19)
  • Quote (Kennan): "These were the faces of men who had been, if not tortured, then terrified in many ways and often by threats to take it out on their families if they didn’t confess." (03:19)
• The realization for Kennan: The Soviet Union was a terrifying, untrustworthy power—appearing to bend truth entirely to the will of Stalin.
• David Dimbleby: Kennan sounded the alarm that would "echo around the world," painting him as a prophetic figure. (04:05–04:34)

2. The Postwar Dream: Unity or Rivalry? (05:33–12:15)

• At the close of WWII, American leadership (notably President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Dexter White) aspired to a harmonious world order, with the USA and USSR as partners.
  • Roosevelt envisioned a world “striving for freedom and for peace” with America in a leadership role but not as an imperial power. (05:41–07:31)
• The Yalta Conference (Feb 1945): Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill negotiate the postwar map, with Roosevelt showing more affinity for Stalin than for Churchill—seeing the USSR as necessary allies.
  • Quote (Sir Frank Roberts): "He was playing up to Stalin, as we are not imperialists and galerists, unlike our friend Winston here." (10:05)
• Despite warnings, Roosevelt and his team are optimistic about future cooperation with the USSR, a view not shared by Kennan.

3. Kennan’s Dissent: From Margins to Influence (12:15–19:29)

• Kennan’s background: Midwest outsider, orphaned young, drawn to Russian culture—yet disturbed by its harsh realities under Stalin.
  • John Lewis Gaddis (biographer): Highlights Kennan’s enduring sense of alienation and search for belonging, revealed in his "dream diary." (13:02–13:57)
• Kennan's diplomatic career gives him an intimate, critical view of Stalin’s totalitarianism.
  • Quote (Kennan): "What happened in Stalin’s time was absolutely nightmarish. It was totalitarianism at its most hideous and horrible." (16:36)
• Repeated attempts to warn Roosevelt—letters cautioning against trusting Stalin—go unheeded as the US remains optimistic.

4. Turning Point: The Long Telegram (19:29–26:59)

• Roosevelt’s death in April 1945 brings Truman to power, but official optimism about US–USSR relations persists.
• Stalin’s 1946 Bolshoi Theater speech (19:52–20:48): Highly militant, dispelling notions of postwar partnership; Communism is now explicitly positioned as rival to capitalism.
• Kennan seizes his moment: Despite illness, he dictates his famous "Long Telegram"—5,000 words direct from Moscow to Washington, defying bureaucratic inertia.
  • Scene: Martha Moutner, embassy code officer, reluctantly debugs the lengthy message, unknowingly transmitting a document that would alter US foreign policy. (22:11–23:30)
  • Kennan’s core thesis: There’s no partnership possible with Stalin. The USSR seeks only to spread communism; containment, not cooperation, is essential.
    • Quote (Kennan, 1975): "I must say that some of us had a lively horror of what was going to happen if the Russians took them under their control." (24:43)
  • His fears of the "domino theory": one state falling to communism would draw others in its wake, particularly in a vulnerable, postwar Western Europe. (24:52–25:49)
• The Telegram spreads rapidly through Washington; its length and urgency ensure it cannot be ignored.

5. Crisis and Triumph: The Truman Doctrine (26:59–31:26)

• A year later, the British, financially exhausted, inform the US they can no longer support anti-communist forces in Greece.
  • Quote (Ben Steele): "We can’t bear this burden anymore. Greece is yours. Do with it what you may." (28:03)
• This crisis proves precisely what Kennan warned: the imminent threat of communist expansion.
  • The US responds, replacing Britain as the bulwark against communism in Europe with aid, not arms.
• President Truman’s 1947 speech to Congress, asking support to "contain" communism, marks the official adoption of Kennan’s doctrine, later known as "the Truman Doctrine."
  • Archival Quote: "If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world, and we shall surely endanger the welfare of this nation." (29:25)
• Result: The vision of America "at the head of one world" is supplanted by the reality of America leading "the free world" in opposition to totalitarian communism.
  • Ben Steele: "Within a few years after Bretton Woods, you have a very, very different model of world order. Almost a complete repudiation of all these years of one world efforts." (30:47)
• Yet, Kennan himself warns about over-extending containment—raising long-term questions about the wisdom of taking responsibility for "defending the free peoples of the world" everywhere.
  • John Lewis Gaddis: "The problem was, how far do you go with it? ... How do you decide what that line is going to be, what do you do with the countries that are left on the other side of that line?" (31:26)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• George Kennan:
  "These were the faces of men who had been, if not tortured, then terrified in many ways and often by threats to take it out on their families if they didn’t confess." (03:19)
• Sir Frank Roberts:
  "He was playing up to Stalin, as we are not imperialists and galerists, unlike our friend Winston here." (10:05)
• George Kennan (1998):
  "I don't think FDR was capable of conceiving of a man of such profound iniquity as Stalin. He had never met such a creature." (17:54)
• George Kennan (1975):
  "I must say that some of us had a lively horror of what was going to happen if the Russians took them under their control." (24:43)
• Ben Steele:
  "If the United States doesn't do something and Greece goes communist, then we're going to see what is, in effect, domino theory." (28:19)
• Ben Steele:
  "Within a few years after Bretton Woods, you have a very, very different model of world order. Almost a complete repudiation of all these years of one world efforts." (30:47)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:06 – Kennan observes 1937 Moscow show trials
• 03:19 – Kennan’s assessment: the terror behind Soviet justice
• 10:05 – Roosevelt sides with Stalin at Yalta over Churchill
• 16:36 – Kennan: Stalin’s regime as “absolute nightmare”
• 19:52 – Stalin’s 1946 militant Bolshoi Theater speech
• 22:34 – Martha Moutner on coding the Long Telegram
• 24:43 – Kennan voices his early "domino theory" fears
• 29:25 – Truman’s “containment” speech to Congress
• 30:47 – The repudiation of a ‘one world’ postwar vision

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Tone and Language

The episode blends reflection, drama, and urgency. Dimbleby’s narration offers gravitas and clarity, while archival voices and expert interviews add authenticity and scholarly insight. Kennan’s own words are measured, haunted, and prophetic, often delivered with a sense of melancholy and warning.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode vividly recounts how a single determined diplomat, through his unique vantage point and unflinching warnings, redirected American foreign policy and reframed the global order after WWII. The episode captures both the drama of Kennan’s personal journey and the seismic global consequences of his "Long Telegram," illuminating the birth of America’s Cold War stance and the lasting challenge of defining the limits of its intervention in the name of freedom.

Transcript

[David Dimbleby]

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[David Dimbleby]

It's January 1937. Moscow is gray and frozen. Hundreds of spectators file into the ornate chamber of the October hall in the city center. One man, thin, elegant, already balding at 32, takes a spot towards the back. His name is George Kennan, and he's an American diplomat here to observe a trial. A hush falls across the room as the judge rises. The judge declares the military collegium of the supreme court of the USSR is now open. 17 men are in the dock, and George Kennan realizes he recognizes them.

[George Kennan]

I could see them there with their pale faces, their twitching lips, their evasive eyes.

[David Dimbleby]

That's Kennan himself, talking to CNN in the 1990s. He'd been at dinner with a few of the accused only weeks before. Until recently, there'd been Communist Party officials, close members of Joseph Stalin's team. But now they're charged with plotting to overthrow the Soviet Union. Kennan watches one of the men stand as the charges against him are read out. Sabotage, espionage, conspiracy, treason against the Soviet state. The judge asks if the accused pleads guilty. Yes, I do. It's the same for each of the others. Kennan understands that this is not a trial. It's theat.

[George Kennan]

These were the faces of men who had been, if not tortured, then terrified in many ways and often by threats to take it out on their families if they didn't confess.

[David Dimbleby]

The prosecutor delivers his closing speech. They deserve only one punishment. Shoot them like dogs. And in that moment, standing at the back of that courtroom, George Kennan realizes just how dangerous the Soviet Union is. That here truth bends to power and that he needs to warn his own government that the Soviets are a threat to world peace.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

Later on, Kennan was regarded, I think quite justifiably as a prophet.

[David Dimbleby]

This prophet, George Kennan, will be the first to sound the alarm. An alarm that would echo around the world.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has

[John Lewis Gaddis]

descended across the continent.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

We face a long period of world tension and great international danger.

[David Dimbleby]

It was an alarm that would help create a new raison d' etre for America to protect freedom above anything else.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.

[David Dimbleby]

I'm David Dimbleby and from the history podcast and BBC Radio 4, this is invisible Hands, the American Century. The story of how the United States became a superpower at the head of a new global order and the invisible hands that guided it. Episode 2 the Prophet. We ended the last episode in 1944 in the New Hampshire resort of Bretton woods, where Harry Dexter White achieved something truly remarkable.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

Representatives of 44 nations here in Bretton woods are taking steps to prevent a repetition of the currency chaos which is usually followed in the wake of war.

[David Dimbleby]

He persuaded, by hook or by crook, 44 countries to agree to a new international monetary system, a new system pegged to the dollar. America would be the leader of this new world, replacing the old empires like Britain. And in Harry's mind, America would be very different from those empires. He believed World War II offered an opportunity for everyone to come together as one united world. A world striving for freedom and for peace. As Harry's granddaughter Claire Pinkham put it, I think he believed that cooperation is what makes humans great.

[Angie Hicks]

I think he wanted to create a better world.

[David Dimbleby]

And that included the Soviets. Yes. Harry even managed to get the Soviet Union to sign up. Eventually, Harry's dealings with the Soviets would have him branded as a traitor by his own government. We'll come back to this in the next episode. But back in 1944, the USA and the USSR were actually allies. Two countries founded on opposing beliefs. Communism against capitalism had been allies during World War II and Harry White thought they could be allies in peacetime as well. And White was not alone in this, not by a long way. His beliefs were shared by the most powerful man in the country, the American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

The best interests of each nation, large and small, demand that all freedom loving nations shall join together in a just and durable system of peace.

[David Dimbleby]

Franklin Delano Roosevelt or FDR for short, had been president for 12 years by this point. He'd seen his country through a miserable economic crisis, the Great Depression, the financial

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

house of cards collapses and the over inflated stock market plunges into a great depression.

[David Dimbleby]

It forged a radical new welfare program out of it, the New Deal.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people.

[David Dimbleby]

He was at the helm during the first attack on American soil at Pearl

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

harbor yesterday, a date which will live in infamy.

[David Dimbleby]

And he saw the US into and through the world war and wanted to see it out of it too.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

We believe that the Nazis and the fascists have asked for it and they're going to get it.

[David Dimbleby]

In February 1945, a few months before the end of the war in Europe, FDR went to the Crimean resort of Yalta to meet the other big two allied leaders, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

Hoping to solve intricate problems of war and peace, President Roosevelt reaches in the

[David Dimbleby]

faded grandeur of the Tsar's old summer palace. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, three men all born in the late 19th century, sat together to decide the future of the post war world.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

The conference is to seal Hitler's fate and establish lasting peace. The host arrives. Joseph Stalin, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

[David Dimbleby]

Winston Churchill's aim was for Britain to keep as much of her power as she could to prove Britain still had a deciding role to play in world affairs and he thought that Roosevelt would be on his side. But Roosevelt had very different intentions.

[Sir Frank Roberts]

He took the view that Churchill wanted to rebuild the British empire and that Roosevelt, of course, had no sympathy with imperialist and colonialist ideas.

[David Dimbleby]

That's from my interview with Sir Frank Roberts from my series An Ocean Apart. He was Churchill's advisor at Yalta and he says that from the minute Churchill arrived at the conference, it was clear Roosevelt wasn't going to play ball because instead he had eyes for someone else.

[Sir Frank Roberts]

He was playing up to Stalin, as we are not the imperialists and galerists, unlike our friend Winston here.

[David Dimbleby]

Joseph Stalin, a Georgian revolutionary who'd ruled the Soviet Union since 1924 and had helped defeat the Nazis and crush Hitler. Stalin, it turned out, was much more to Roosevelt's liking than the old imperialist Churchill. And Roosevelt and Stalin spent the whole conference cozying up to each other and ganging up on Churchill.

[Sir Frank Roberts]

And Winston got jolly angry and one time he got up at the table, I mean in anger, to walk out. And it was Stalin who had to come round and said, no, no, no, we were only joking. And we much admire you, et cetera, et cetera. But Roseville had already decided for the future of the world. It was to be the two big boys who had to settle it.

[David Dimbleby]

The two big boys, Roosevelt for the United States and Stalin for Russia. They were the future, and Churchill and Great Britain was the past. And so at Yalta, they agreed to split Germany into four and most importantly, let Stalin and the Soviet Union keep its sphere of influence over Eastern Europe. Roosevelt thought this was inevitable, given all the Russians had done to help us in the war. Roosevelt came home with nothing but optimism.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

I come from the Crimea conference with a firm belief that we have made a good start on the road to a world of peace.

[David Dimbleby]

A world of peace might seem crazy now, but back then this was the post war policy of the United States. Roosevelt, and alongside him, Harry Dexter White, wanted America to lead the world hand in hand with the Soviet Union. One world united. But there was one man who was about to turn all that on its head.

[George Kennan]

I must say that some of us had a lively horror of what was going to happen if the Russians took them under their control.

[David Dimbleby]

A small time American diplomat stationed in Moscow, a Midwesterner in love with Russian culture, George Kennan.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

So in the last years of his life, I would get phone calls and messages from George apologizing for not dying.

[David Dimbleby]

John Lewis Gaddis is Kennan's biographer and professor of history at Yale. He spent many years researching his subject and then a few more because Kennan said his book couldn't be published until he was dead. And Kennan lived to be 101 and

[John Lewis Gaddis]

thereby delaying the biography.

[David Dimbleby]

Over the years, Gaddis got to know his subject really, really well.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

Almost the last time I saw him, he pulled out a big file drawer and said, these are the diaries, personal diaries from 1970 to the present. And on top of it was a little black book. And I said, what's that? And he said, it's my dream diary. And it was a record of dreams that he had had over 50 years or so.

[David Dimbleby]

Dreams of a man who was there for the whole lifespan of the American century. Dreams of a man who maybe more than anyone else, shaped what America was to become. To understand how, we have to start at the beginning. George Frost Kennan, born in 1904 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he never felt he quite belonged.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

He was very much affected by the death of his mother when he was only two months old. And I think he felt alone, as kids do who have that experience.

[David Dimbleby]

In his dream diary, Cannon Frequently records glimpses of a lost mother fleetingly seen right up to his death. He was still dreaming about her.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

And so that uncertainty was always there. He always felt that he was misunderstood.

[David Dimbleby]

He spent his whole life trying to escape the Midwest. First he went to University of Princeton, where he read history. But he felt awkward among the worldly Ivy league elites. Then he went into the foreign service. There he was assigned to study a country whose culture was about as far as you could get from his upbringing in Milwaukee. The Soviet Union.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

On a fine autumn day, Moscow holds its huge youth parade. And to the spectacle comes, of course, comrade Stalin.

[David Dimbleby]

Supported by Dimitrov, Kennan was sent to Moscow to help set up the first American embassy. He couldn't have been more excited.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

He certainly loved Russian, the Russian people. He loved the language, he loved the culture.

[David Dimbleby]

He spent his time attending balls, going to Chekhov plays, even meeting Chekhov's widow backstage. For Kennan, Moscow seemed like a dream come true.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

Parachutists, acrobats. Finally there is a display of figure gymnastics on a huge scale which almost fills the square.

[David Dimbleby]

But the longer he stayed, the more he saw of ordinary life. His love affair with the country began to source. He began to see that behind the Soviet rhetoric there was a harsh reality. Forced labor camps, mass starvation. And then, in 1937, he witnessed something that would change his life forever. The show trials. As we heard them at the beginning of this episode, they were men that Kennan knew. He saw the hollow looks in their eyes. They'd obviously been tortured, forced to confess that they'd plotted to overthrow the Soviet Union and sentenced to die. And Kennan realized something, that his romantic dream of the country of Chekhov had turned into a nightmare. And all because of one man.

[George Kennan]

What happened in Stalin's time was absolutely nightmarish. It was totalitarianism at its most hideous and horrible.

[David Dimbleby]

Joseph Stalin, he was the cause of this. He was starving his people, imprisoning them, having his colleagues murdered. So when Kennan hears that Roosevelt's on his way to Yalta to strike a deal with Stalin, a deal to remake the post war world, Kennan knows he has to act, to do anything he can to stop this from happening. And so he started writing first an eight page letter to one of Roosevelt's key advisors telling him, don't trust Stalin. He wants power over Europe. It landed on deaf ears. Roosevelt returned from Yalta triumphant.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

He was only able to make one speech, which he made before the congress as soon as he got back. It's the only time he spoke from a Wheelchair. And he said, we have achieved a lasting peace. We can trust the Russians.

[David Dimbleby]

Kennan couldn't believe what was coming out of the US President's mouth. Here he is speaking in 1998.

[George Kennan]

I don't think FDR was capable of conceiving of a man of such profound iniquity as Stalin. He had never met such a creature.

[David Dimbleby]

But then, only two months after his return from Yalta, from his beloved second

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

home at Warm Springs, Georgia, the body of Franklin Delano Roosevelt moves on the first stages of its journey to his final resting place.

[David Dimbleby]

On April 13, 1945, George Kennan walks into the room of his nine year old daughter and tells her journey. The President is dead. In Roosevelt's place came his Vice President, Harry Truman. He was a man from the Midwest, a former dirt farmer, as they're called, a man who ploughed the fields himself. And it seemed as though he was determined to continue in Roosevelt's footsteps.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

The supreme need of our time is for men to learn to live together in peace and harmony.

[David Dimbleby]

But Kennan was undeterred. He started writing letter after letter warning Truman about the danger facing America from Stalin.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

He had bombarded Washington with ideas on this.

[David Dimbleby]

Remember, of course, he's still a fairly low level bureaucrat in Moscow. He's not even the ambassador.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

Nobody in Washington had paid the slightest attention to what he said.

[David Dimbleby]

And it was at this moment, with Kennan unable to reach the President or those in power, that something happened in Moscow that would change everything. In February 1946, Stalin stood up in the Bolshoi Theater to give a speech.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

And it was a highly militant speech. It was Marxism, Leninism, unadulterated.

[David Dimbleby]

He claimed the credit for winning World War II. He said it was a victory for the Soviet system. Gone was the idea of two worlds working together for the betterment of mankind. Instead, according to Stalin, the future was the Soviet Union. The future was communism. Capitalism is destined to eat itself and die. Whispers about Stalin's speech made their way back to Washington. And it's here that Kennan is given an opportunity. Kennan had spent years warning Washington about Stalin, but his messages had disappeared into the bureaucracy. This time, he was determined to send a message that it would be impossible for the powerful to ignore.

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[David Dimbleby]

Just under two weeks after Stalin gave that speech at the Bolshoi, Kennan made a decision. It was deepest winter, and Kennan was sick.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

He was not having a good time in Moscow. He had the flu, he had a toothache, he had ulcers.

[David Dimbleby]

But he knew now was the time to act. Except this time he wasn't going to send a letter. He was going to do something much more direct. So, feverish with the cold and with nightmares of Stalin and communism going round and round in his head, he dragged himself out of his sickbed in the American Embassy and headed downstairs to the code room.

[Martha Moutner]

I, unfortunately or fortunately, had the night duty at the code room.

[David Dimbleby]

When the BBC and CNN covered this moment for the TV series Cold War, they actually found Martha Moutner, who was

[Martha Moutner]

on duty that evening, and was rather perturbed about it because I happened to have a very heavy date that night. There was a dance at one of the other embassies, and I wanted to get out as early as possible.

[David Dimbleby]

But she didn't end up making the dance because Kennan was determined. He wanted her to send an urgent telegram straight to Washington. And Martha Moutner would have to code

[John Lewis Gaddis]

it, because this went over open wires. And the Russians could, of course, intercept whatever was broadcast.

[David Dimbleby]

Of course, nobody sends telegrams these days, but I remember sending them. And the key to them was they had to be short because they were charged by the word. There was even a kind of language called telegram ease, like interview, done, homeward, coming dimbleby, keep it brief. But that absolutely wasn't Kennan's idea.

[Martha Moutner]

And I took a look at it and said it was nice, but let's not send it out. Let's wait till tomorrow. And I tried to talk him into not sending it. He said, washington wants it, they're going to get it, and you stay here and do it.

[David Dimbleby]

So Martha Moutner started coding a text that, unknown to her, would end up changing American foreign policy for the next 50 years. I apologize in advance for this burdening of the telegraphic channel, but questions involved are of such urgent importance that our answers to them, if they deserve attention at all, seem to me to deserve it at once. Here Kennan laid out his vision of the world, a vision forged in those freezing winters in the Soviet Union. It was a vision that tried to turn US foreign policy on its head. Kennan said the whole Mantra of men like Harry Dexter White and Roosevelt was wrong. The US could never work with the USSR to build a better and united world. That Stalin wasn't interested in that at all. What Stalin wanted, in Kennan's view, was to spread communism all over the world. Here he is talking about this to CBS in 1975.

[George Kennan]

And I was afraid, I must say, at that time, and I think with some reason then of what is today called the domino theory.

[David Dimbleby]

East Germany, Poland, Albania, Hungary, Romania were already under communist control. But Kennan was worried that Stalin wanted to expand communism across Western Europe.

[George Kennan]

Western Europe, as the war ended, was in a sorry state. People were disoriented, discouraged, apprehensive, frightened by the experiences of the war. And it would not have been too difficult in those days for Italy or for France if they had lost their confidence in us then really to turn to the Soviet Union.

[David Dimbleby]

He warned that Stalin would take advantage of Western Europe's weakness. That Stalin wasn't interested in cooperation. He was interested in winning the grand battle of ideas in communism, defeating capitalism.

[George Kennan]

It seemed to me that this was important for them, for Europe, for, for us and in the long running for the Russians, that this should not happen.

[David Dimbleby]

On and on the telegram went, Kennan was desperate to get his message across that friendship with the Soviet Union threatened the entire American post war project. The brave new world America was building with the USSR was all based on a L. By the time Kennan had finished, his telegram had run to more than 5,000 words. Still feverish, he went back to bed.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

He fully expected to be fired the next morning.

[David Dimbleby]

But when Kennan woke the next day, it turned out he was anything but fired.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

They caught fire. You know, within the bureaucracy, the fact of the telegram coming in at such an outrageous length forced people to read it. And it quickly, once they read it, went to the top. It went to the Secretary of State, it went to the Secretary of War, it went to the White House.

[David Dimbleby]

It even got its own name, the long telegram. And it was a bombshell because it completely went against establishment thinking that the US was friends with the Soviets. But his ideas were still just that, ideas. And then one February morning in 1947, the British ambassador walked into the US State Department begging for help. He said, we have a massive problem. The communists are threatening to take over the government in Greece and the Soviets are backing them. And we don't have the resources to help the Greek army fight back.

[Ben Steele]

All the pillars of British power, it's all collapsing at once.

[David Dimbleby]

This is Ben Steele, author of the Marshall Plan, dawn of the cold war,

[Ben Steele]

and this is just too much of a financial burden.

[David Dimbleby]

The ambassador explained Britain was in dire straits.

[Ben Steele]

We can't bear this burden anymore. Greece is yours. Do with it what you may.

[David Dimbleby]

When Kennan hears about this, his alarm bells ring. This is exactly what he'd warned his government about a year ago.

[Ben Steele]

If the United States doesn't do something and Greece goes communist, then we're going to see what is, in effect, domino theory.

[David Dimbleby]

That one after another, the countries of Europe would fall to communism.

[Ben Steele]

We cannot let Greece fall. We have to take action quickly to support it.

[David Dimbleby]

Kennan urged the US to replace British aid to Greece and push back the Soviets, not with arms, but with aid. This was how to combat communism, meet it head on wherever it was and offer a better way. And on March 12, 1947, the US

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

government acted in Washington. The gravest international crisis since the war flares into the open. President Truman drives to the capitol to report to an extraordinary session of both houses of congress on the growing problems in Greece and Turkey.

[David Dimbleby]

President Truman stood up before congress and

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

declared, the free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world, and we shall surely endanger the welfare of this nation.

[David Dimbleby]

Truman was asking Congress to approve spending money on preventing Greece from going communist. But more importantly, he was asking them to back a new vision of the world in which the United States would contain communism. Kennan's vision.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

Today, grave issues of international leadership rest upon the Congress. An historic change in U.S. foreign policy toward the maintenance of peace and order may well shape the future. Desperate of all the peoples of the world,

[David Dimbleby]

In just three years, George Kennan had transformed Harry Dexter White's vision of America's role. The vision of America at the head of one world, everyone working together, was gone, Replaced by a vision of America as the head of the free world, fighting against a great evil, a great threat, communism.

[Ben Steele]

People like Kennan, these were the founders of what I would call two worlds. So within a few years after Bretton woods, you have a very, very different model of world order. Almost a complete repudiation of all these years of one world efforts.

[David Dimbleby]

But just as Kennan's idea had triumphed, at the very moment he became America's most important policy thinker, he began to worry. Truman's speech talked about defending the free peoples of the world.

[John Lewis Gaddis]

The problem was how far you go with it. You can't contain threats everywhere. Where do you draw the line? How do you decide what that line is going to be what do you do with the countries that are left on the other side of that line? It was sort of a joke how

[David Dimbleby]

you can get the Americans to do

[John Lewis Gaddis]

anything if you just say communism.

[David Dimbleby]

That's next time. Invisible Hands the American Century is a samizdat audio production for BBC Radio Film and the History podcast. It's hosted by me, David Dimbleby. The producer is Red Z Bernard. The executive producers are Joe Sykes and Dasha Licitsina. Story editing by Joe Sykes, Dasha Licitsina and Peggy Sutton. Sound design by Jeff Emtman. The historical consultant is David Milne and the commissioning editor at Radio 4 is Dan Clark.

[Angie Hicks]

It is 10 years since the Brexit referendum.

[David Dimbleby]

The British people have voted to leave the European Union.

[Narrator/Archive Footage (Various Historical Figures)]

Let June 23 go down in our history as our Independence Day.

[Angie Hicks]

The UK result leaves me deep disappointed and profoundly concerned.

[David Dimbleby]

Brexit means Brexit. We're going to get Brexit done.

[Angie Hicks]

I'm Alex Forsyth, a BBC correspondent who's covered Brexit from both Brussels and Westminster. A decade after the decision to leave the eu, what impact has it had on various aspects of public and political life 10 years after Brexit? Listen first on BBC Sounds.

[Asma Khalid]

President Trump has described the surge of migrants into Spain as an invasion. But what really happened in the tiny Spanish enclave known as Ceuta? I'm Asma Khalid and I host the Global Story podcast on the BBC. Last week, tens of thousands of migrants from Morocco streamed into CEO. It ignited a political storm in Europe and even here in the us. But who is really to blame? For more, listen to the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.