← WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
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- [00:02]
Al Murray
Thank you for listening to we have ways of making you talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com we haveways.
- [00:25]
James Holland
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- [00:54]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [00:55]
James Holland
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- [01:16]
Giles Milton
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- [01:28]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [01:29]
Giles Milton
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- [02:01]
Ryan Reynolds
Achtung.
- [02:02]
Al Murray
Achtung. Welcome to we have ways of making you talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland. And to part two of our Potsdam con. We're having our own Big Three here, aren't we?
- [02:12]
Jim
Who's who? Well, you're obviously always Churchill.
- [02:15]
Al Murray
I think I shall take the role of Churchill. I think Charles is bossing this. So he's Stalin.
- [02:21]
Jim
That is me to be Truman. I'm quite happy with that.
- [02:23]
Al Murray
You've got the atomic bomb up your sleeve, Jim. But will Stalin be impressed?
- [02:27]
Ryan Reynolds
That's the question.
- [02:29]
Al Murray
Or does he already know? Let's just quickly recap. So Roosevelt's dead, of course. So this is the new Big three and he's replaced by Harry Truman. Harry S. Truman, who doesn't Want to go. I just love him saying, I'm getting ready to see Stalin and Churchill. It is a chore. I just think that's quite amazing as an attitude. Very strong, as we said, he's got the atomic bomb, the Trinity test. And this is one of the things that I think we got to remember is that the end of the war, in the American mind, they've got another two years of this stuff at least, and much more bloodshed to come. And obviously historians have argued about the projected casualty figures since for the invasion of mainland Japan, but let's be honest now, it's going to be a bloodbath if Okinawa's anything to go by. And people who've listened to those episodes we've just done will know that. So Churchill's still pm, but his wartime coalition has imploded, Parliament's been dissolved, general elections called, but because of everyone overseas, basically they've got to get the people's votes in. So they don't quite know the result yet. These things may be fated to us and resulted the Cold War, but they don't know if the bomb's going to work. Churchill doesn't know if is going to be pm, but what Stalin knows is that he's the winner at this stage. He's conquered countries that weren't even in his orbit, he's got new territories that are now part of his empire, if we're frank about it. And what are the Allies, Western Allies going to be able to do about that? And then of course, the cherry on the cake is that the French are not invited, which I think Jim in the last episode is pretty sympathetic to Stalin, say the French should be involved.
- [03:54]
Ryan Reynolds
But there we are.
- [03:55]
Al Murray
So we've set the scene just before the conference as people gather. What happens? What's going on, Giles?
- [04:02]
Ryan Reynolds
So they have to get. The Soviets, have to get the Sicilianoff palace ready. One thing they do is they plant. They get geraniums, red geraniums, and they plant a giant Soviet star in the flower bed outside. It's a bit like sort of a dog peeing on, on a lamppost just to mark their territory that this is ours, you know, and they've shipped in a huge round table and actually I was there not so long ago, it's closed at the moment because they're turning the palace into a hotel so people will be able to stay there. But they kept the conference room exactly as it was in the summer of 1940.
- [04:34]
Jim
And it's very atmospheric, isn't it?
- [04:35]
Ryan Reynolds
It is an amazing room. Yeah. With These sort of Tudor leaded windows and everything. Honestly, you feel like you're in medieval, you know, Elizabethan manor house. So this is a big brown table, they've got three big chairs, big heavy armchairs. One for Truman, one for Stalin, one for Churchill. Poor little Clement Attlee is sort of, you know, sitting in a little chair behind Churchill. And then you have the delegations, the interpreters are there. So everything is going to take place round this one big table. They filled the place with everything they need crystal glasses, you know, plates, porcelain, everything for these grand banquets they're going to have there. But one person, I read one account which was fantastic, saying that while they were shipping stuff in for the conference, Soviets Red army soldiers were looting the outhouses of the palace and taking still carting stuff away. So it's kind of quite extraordinary really. Each delegation is looking after itself. And there's a wonderful woman called Joan Bright who, or Joan Bright Astley as she became, who was really the conference organizer for the British delegation and wrote a wonderful book about her life at the top during the Second World War. She was PA to Pug Ismay, she worked alongside Churchill and she organized the British delegation of the Yalta and the Potsdam Conferences. And she describes, you know, they each have, the Churchill has his manor house that he's been given and likewise for Truman and Stalin. So they're going to live a life of unparalleled luxury while they're at the conference. There's going to be banquets, a lot of banquets. Food's been shipped in. You know, remember there's no food in Berlin at the time. Food. Berlin is a starving city and yet they shipping enough food, the Soviets to have lavish 25 course banquets, you know, fish, chickens, turkeys, whatever, champagne, the works. And these are going to be quite an important part of the conference because it's, they're not just doing business.
- [06:23]
Jim
So there is a real sense that it's the Soviets that are hosting it, that that's the vibe.
- [06:27]
Ryan Reynolds
Yes, as they want because they, you know, they're showing we're in control, we're mast masters of this situation. We've already said they were had all the shots really. And so, yeah, so the conference opened, Truman does meet with Churchill beforehand. They each meet each other to sort of, you know, get, get to know each other, as it were. But really the conference starts mid July. They're in this room, they're sitting around this table and they begin to hammer out all the key things that needed to be decided for the Planning of the post war world. You know, the, the war in the west has been won. The war in the east, as you've said, is still ongoing and ger. And a lot of Europe, but Germany particularly is in a terrible mess and they have to decide what they're going to do and how they're going to run the place.
- [07:11]
Al Murray
Yeah, Churchill and Truman do a sightseeing tour in Berlin, don't they? So they have a look. They do and are confronted with the destruction of the German capital. And did they take in Hitler's bunker? I mean, it just seems.
- [07:22]
Ryan Reynolds
Oh, yeah, that was a highlight of every tour was all the, you know, GIs, all the British troops, everyone wanted to go into the bunker and, and there's some pretty vivid descriptions of the bunker. So, you know, it had been bomb very, very heavily, both by Allied bombers. But then in the, in the final battle for Berlin as well, the place is in ruins. You go down into the sort of bowels of the, of the earth in Berlin. This magnificent structure, red marble everywhere, chandeliers, vast swastikas, you know, eagles and all. Everything is there, but it's all in ruins. Everything's on the ground, everything's been smashed to pieces. You know, they've been, the last days of the Third Reich have seen, you know, orgies taking place there. There are discarded champagne bottles everywhere. It's a real mess. And Churchill writes his own description of the place. He comes there and he's terribly depressed suddenly. And I think, and Truman as well, that they just see the utter destruction, you know, of course, Churchill seen, you know, London through the blitz. London's been very badly damaged to the blitz.
- [08:22]
Jim
This is on a completely different scale, isn't it?
- [08:24]
Ryan Reynolds
They can't quite believe the scale of destruction in Berlin. This is a city in absolute ruins, you know, and so hence, hence there in Potsdam, leafy Potsdam outside, which has been much less damaged. The Soviets first into the city, they have to. The first thing they have to do is clear some thoroughfares through the city. Who do they use to do that? There are no men in Berlin, you know, at this time. It's a city of women and children. And so women are put to work. They become known as the rubble women. And their job is clear the streets of bricks and rubble, you know, and really backbreaking work to try and at least get some sort of semblance of order into the city, at least get the main thoroughfares open. Now, of course, while you've got them doing that. And of course there's rape on an unprecedented, horrific scale. I think 60,000 Berlin women sought medical help, but that number is dwarfed by the. The actual number. Some people might know the book by Anonymous called A Woman in Berlin, which we now know was written by Martha Hillers, which sets out the. The full horror of what women went through. And so you've got that on one, on one side of the equation. On the other, you've got the Allied troops coming into Berlin in, you know, end of June, beginning of July, as fixtures as well. And they are masters of everything. They have unprecedented wealth. It's all black market. They've got cigarettes, they've got. They've got food as well, of course. So, you know, they see one guarantee against getting raped is to have a Western, you know, GI or soldier boyfriend who can fend off the Soviets, you know. Now this is, of course, completely not allowed by the. The Allied armies. They've said that there's to be no fraternization whatsoever. And There is a $65 fine for any soldier that fratern with German women. And that becomes known as the $65 question, you know, expression we're probably familiar with, is, is whether you're going to go and proposition a German woman. The other quip was that copulation without conversation is not fraternization. They would say, so you've got these Allied soldiers, they are masters of everything. There are two completely different universes taking place in Berlin. Starving Berliners, mainly women and children. And the allied soldiers. About 25,000 Brits in Berlin, about 25,000Americans, as the French aren't even in the city yet. They seem to be on the left, on the back foot for absolutely everything. So the, the Americans, the Brits are dominating the city. So that's a sort of scene in Berlin at the time of the conference.
- [10:58]
Jim
The rubber women thing is really, really interesting, I think, because obviously if the Americans were in Berlin, they'd have just brought in a bevy of bulldozers, you know, lend lease does, obviously doesn't extend to bulldozers. It only the tanks.
- [11:10]
Al Murray
But it's subjugation. Jim, why use bulldozers when you can make the Germans do it? It's about rubbing their noses in it. The Soviet occupation is about. It feels like conquest from another era. Yeah, doesn't it? And obviously they also think, you know, if it was good enough for them when they did it to us, it's good enough for us in return.
- [11:28]
Jim
Oh, completely. But I'm just saying that the Americans would come at it from a completely different approach, wouldn't they, oh no, I.
- [11:34]
Al Murray
Don'T disagree with that. But how you characterize what the Soviets are doing. You know, they could have the bulldozers if they wanted, but they'd rather rub German noses in it. The sort of subjugation and oppression is the way they do things rather than steal not flesh or whatever, you know, rather than getting some machines to do it for them.
- [11:49]
Jim
There's tremendous accounts of it all. There's also a brilliant novel by Joseph Cannon called the Good German. I don't know if you've ever come across that. I'd recommend that to anyone if they want a good novel on this subject.
- [11:59]
Ryan Reynolds
I think one thing we can't stress enough because it's going to be really, really important for the years, as the years unfold after the conference, is to remember that the western sectors of Berlin are a tiny little island surrounded by a sea of red. Berlin falls well within the Soviet occupied part of Germany. And this is going to, in the future spell significant. In fact, a major problem for the Americans and Brits in Berlin because the only access into Berlin is through one autobahn and one railroad that runs, you know, through Soviet occupied Germany into Berlin. And what no one seems to have realized at the Potsdam conference, which they really ought to have done, is that if things go wrong, if things go belly up with the Soviets, they only have to cut the railroad and the autobahn and bingo, you've got a siege situation where the Western powers are trapped in Berlin without any outside support. You know, I mean, this is moving things forward. But the, and the other factor that comes into play here is that Berlin traditionally was fed by farmland to the east of the city, which is also controlled by the Soviets. So essentially from day one, the Soviets control the food supply for Berliners. Now the Brits and the Americans and the French are responsible for two and a half million Berliners. They are responsible for feeding them and they are dependent on the Soviets to do that.
- [13:22]
Jim
And of course this will all come to a head at the Berlin airlift, won't it, in June 1948, which is.
- [13:27]
Ryan Reynolds
You know, an amazing one of the great achievements of the 20th century. But it's a really significant point that didn't seem to be taken on board at the conference because everyone was assuming the, the wartime relationship would continue with the Soviet Union. No one or very people spoke out loud said, but what happens if it breaks down? We're completely stuffed, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [13:49]
Al Murray
So Churchill and Truman, they meet before the conference, don't they? I mean, Truman, having tried to avoid Churchill basically is now forced into meeting him. And Churchill tries a number on him, doesn't he? Basically gives him praise and gushes with.
- [14:04]
Ryan Reynolds
Charm, you know, just as he tried to do with. With Roosevelt.
- [14:08]
Jim
Here.
- [14:08]
Ryan Reynolds
Here's Truman's diary. I've just got a couple of lines he says. He gave me a lot of hooey about how great my. And how he loved Roosevelt and how he intended to love me. And then Truman says in his diary, I'm sure we can get along if he doesn't try and give me too much soft soap. Churchill, you know, trying to. Trying to charm him, Mr. President, and it's kind of not really working like you. You already said, Al, you know, Truman doesn't even want to be there. He wants to get back to America as quickly as possible. Doesn't particularly want to, you know, make friends with Churchill. He wants to do the business and get out the businessman that he looks like, you know, in his natty suit.
- [14:45]
Al Murray
Yeah, well, and. And he wants Europe done because he's got the Pacific to deal with. And Jim and I have come to this sort of understanding that that's the thing. It doesn't get talked about because it's so hot baked in so hard to. The American attitude is that the Pacific.
- [14:57]
Jim
War is Pacific, Pacific, Pacific. Japan, Japan, Japan. Their work in Europe is done, and frankly, they don't really care anymore who has what in. In Europe. They've defeated Nazi Germany. That was always part of their deal.
- [15:07]
Ryan Reynolds
One thing that does get discussed at the conference, which is going to be absolutely vital not only to Germany, but to really the future of Western Europe, is so at the conference, the decision is, you know, reparations. Germany is going to be made to pay for the war. It's for the destruction it's caused. And also the German economy is going to be kept at a certain level. They don't want Germany to be a resurgent power again. And that's the common feeling between both the Western powers and the Soviet Union that effectively Germany is going to be kept pretty crushed, you know, and everything is going to change. Once the Western allies, once Truman realizes that actually Stalin is no longer an ally, that the Soviet Union can no longer be trusted, this is going to bring back about a dramatic shift in policy. You're going to have the Marshall Plan, which many people would be familiar with. You're going to have the Truman Doctrine. And this is going to essentially develop into the containment of communism. And the containment of communism is going to mean rebuilding the economy of western Germany, of the western sectors.
- [16:06]
Jim
Of Germany and indeed you know, rebuilding the economies of the democratic world. I mean that's the point is to vote. You know, it is going to be a new world order in the west and a new world order in Eastern Europe in the Soviet sphere, you know, behind the Iron Curtain. So yeah, this is pivotal moment and it's Truman makes this great play when he takes over from Roosevelt on the evening of the 12th of April, that he's going to keep same team, he's going to keep the same thing, he's going to continue with the same policies as Roosevelt and he does to an extent. But very quickly there is this big separation and the one is no more conciliation towards the Soviet Union. That there is as you point out, there is this acceptance that there is now us and there is them. And we're going to have to create this new world order in the sphere that we can influence. And the Soviet influence will just, they'll have to be contained as you say, on their little sphere as well.
- [16:56]
Al Murray
The complication with that though is that by then the UN has been formed and everyone's tangled up together.
- [17:01]
Ryan Reynolds
It is. But you mentioned George Kennan earlier. I think George Kennan is worth just reminding ourselves that this is a diplomat in Moscow in the American embassy, knows Stalin well, knows Stalin intimately. He knows the SOR. The Soviet system and everything. And in 1946, so we're talking not long after the conference has taken place, he writes his famous long telegram. His long telegram sets out the fact that the Soviets can't be trusted. This post war relationship should be shredded immediately and that the Soviets have to be contained. And his telegram contains the one sort of famous line he says Soviet power is impervious to the logic of reason and highly sensitive to the logic of force. And I mean one could bring that forward to Ukraine train these days, couldn't it? You know, I mean that sort of rings down the decades that that sentence. But of course none of this is known at the Potsdam Conference. They're still trading as allies if you like, but this is only a few months afterwards. So it's amazing how quickly the whole thing is going to unravel.
- [18:02]
Al Murray
So there are seven points as to what's going to happen to Germany and Poland which we've touched on a bit. But let's, let's rattle through these. So Germany's going to be demilitarized, denazified, democratized, decentralized, basically pulled to pieces and as we've already said, divided up into allied zones. All Nazi law is to be Abolished Germany and Austria to be divided into occupation zones as agreed at Yalta. But the capital is divided. Nazi war criminals to be tried. How that actually pans out, you do get, you get Nuremberg and you do get fair slice of people being tried. But also it presents you with an enormous problem, which is arrest everyone who was in the Nazi party. How can you do that, you know, if you want Germany to continue to exist? Germany, I mean, Germany's eastern border shifted westwards to the Oder Neisse, which is, shrinks Germany by 25%, creates an enormous refugee problem.
- [18:48]
Jim
I mean, 25% of the country gone.
- [18:50]
Al Murray
I know, I know. It's amazing, isn't it? And in sharp contrast to Versailles, where there's this sort of, you know, well meaning attempt to create, you know, self determination of peoples within, within Europe, within the collapsed Austro Hungarian Empire. So that is Stalin's attitude. I'm going to decide where the borders are. This is in his remit, isn't it, this new border?
- [19:09]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah. And now the scale of that, there's a great book by definitely Keith Lowe, who wrote a book called Savage Continent and it says, you know, I think it was 11 million ethnic Germans were kicked out of their, their hereditary homes. You know, and this was, you know, mass sort of movement of populations on an unprecedented scale. You know, lives absolutely ruined. Well, a lot of people didn't have much sympathy for these people, but nevertheless it was a staggering biblical sort of movement of populations.
- [19:38]
Al Murray
Yeah, Katya Hoya's written about, you know, people from Pruss essentially ending up in western Germany and they're like, who, who are you people? You're not welcome here. Your food's wrong. You know, you're a reminder of the war, of the disaster that befell Germany. All this and all this sort of stuff, that's a thing that, you know, hangs on for the decades that follow. You know, as much as anything else, people are strangers in their own country in a sense. And then these border shifts are accompanied by orderly, inhumane. And I did the magic inverted comma fingers, then expulsions of German populations from those eastern sectors. This millions and as you said, millions of people. And then reparations, which we talked about in the first episode, which are physical reparations. The Soviets, as far as they're concerned, they're actually going to take stuff as well as demand money. And I think part of the tone here is Versailles didn't work. That's one of how people understand the Nazi rise to power. And you know, the Versailles Treaty wasn't firm enough. Didn't put Germany in its place enough. This is very much characteristic of this, isn't it? It's to really let them know they've lost.
- [20:33]
Ryan Reynolds
Right, yeah. And I think that's part of the thing. You mentioned denazification, which is possibly one of the most absurd things that they tried to do. Every single German had to fill out this long questionnaire. Then they were ranked according to how Nazi they were. And if you, if you came out whiter than white, you were no personal sh. Because you're as much as personal washing powder. But the problem was, you know, you're managing tens of millions of people and it's being run by Americans and Brits, most, you know, who don't speak German. So I mean, this was, it was never going to work. It was a completely absurd. I mean, you know, maybe the, the intention was, was good, but it wasn't going to work. And it all fell apart quite, quite quickly.
- [21:15]
Al Murray
Well, and then the politics overtook things that once you need a western Germany on side, you're going to have to, you know, in as the Cold War emerges, you're just going to have to drop this, aren't you?
- [21:24]
Ryan Reynolds
And the Soviets did that from day one. The day that literally when they arrived in Berlin, they thought, well, he was a senior Nazi, we'll sort that, we'll, we'll take him anyway because he knows what he's doing, you know.
- [21:31]
Al Murray
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. And then the plan for Poland is a Soviet government, isn't it? Let's be honest now.
- [21:37]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah. I mean a Soviet government.
- [21:39]
Jim
We've also, we've moved border orders. That's the other really, really key point.
- [21:43]
Ryan Reynolds
This massively moved borders. Yeah. And the Soviet government has been formed by Stalin in Moscow. You know, he's, it's been up and running for some time and you know, the idea, or Churchill's idea, once he realizes the Polish government in exile in London is had its day, he then tries to, get, well, some of them into this new, you know, Stalin's new Soviet government. Even that doesn't work, you know, so you end up up with exactly what Stalin wanted and intended, which was, you know, to have a pro Soviet government in Poland and actually just to rewind it's worth something. One of the most cynical things that Stalin did, I think was calling on the population of Warsaw to rise up against their German masters, intimating that the Red army would go in and help them. And of course it did absolutely nothing, despite beggings and pleadings from the Western powers for the Red army, which was right there right by Warsaw to go in to help the upright. Stalin did nothing. Because for Stalin it was an extremely useful way of getting rid of all the sort of democratic forces, the forces that essentially like the West. Well, it was a very good way of getting them killed in advance of him taking control of Poland. It's unbelievably cynical and people like Avril Harriman and the British ambassador in utter despair going into Stalin and he would just. Would have nothing to do with it.
- [23:06]
Jim
Well, yeah, I mean you said right at the very beginning of this series, Giles, that he was the ultimate malevolent negotiator. We should probably a break and then when we come back we can just see how malevolent he was.
- [23:18]
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- [23:49]
Ryan Reynolds
The summer is heating up with Marvel Studios. The Fantastic Four. Light them up, Johnny. On July 25th. Time to save the planet. What's the plan?
- [24:00]
Al Murray
Trust me, I hate that.
- [24:01]
Jim
Bad plan.
- [24:02]
Ryan Reynolds
Come on. Terrible. That's a stupid plan. Prepare for fantastic.
- [24:06]
Al Murray
We will face this together as a family.
- [24:11]
Ryan Reynolds
Marvel Studios the Fantastic Four first steps only in Peter's July 25th made PG13. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. Get tickets now.
- [24:19]
Jim
If you went on a road trip.
- [24:20]
Ryan Reynolds
And you didn't stop for a Big.
- [24:21]
Jim
Mac or drop a crispy fry between the car seats or use your McDonald's.
- [24:26]
Ryan Reynolds
Bag as a placemat, then that wasn't a road trip.
- [24:28]
Jim
It was just a really long drive.
- [24:32]
Al Murray
At participating McDonald's. Welcome back to. We have ways to make you talk with the big three. Me, Jim and Giles. I'm definitely Churchill because I. I'm exhausted.
- [24:50]
Ryan Reynolds
I've had enough because I know I'm gonna win.
- [24:56]
Jim
You can bug out Al and we'll get Junior on and he could be Clement Attlee.
- [25:00]
Al Murray
You know, I don't mind handing over to a deputy. Well, my former deputy. So. So basically Stalin's negotiation start. You know, we've all. We have touched on this mentioning Putin.
- [25:10]
Ryan Reynolds
Let's.
- [25:10]
Al Murray
Let's Be honest now, is there is a Russian negotiation style which is a maximalist demand, isn't it? And then absolutely no concessions. That's the Russian negotiating styles, the Soviet negotiating style. It's Stalin's, isn't it?
- [25:24]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, you got it in a nutshell there. Basically, he knows what he wants. And the thing is, by 1945, he knows he's going to get it as well. I mean, he's already got. Got essentially what he wants, which is control of Eastern and Central Europe. So doesn't really need to throw his weight around too much because the work's already been done for him.
- [25:43]
Jim
And I love this line from Anthony Eden saying that if he had to pick a negotiating team, he picks Stalin to lead it. I mean, there's sort of grudging admiration there, isn't there?
- [25:52]
Ryan Reynolds
That's very funny. Avril Harriman, at the end of the war, he wrote an appraisal of the big three wartime leaders. And he said, without a doubt, Stalin was head and shoulders above Churchill and Roosevelt when it came to negotiating. He also said, and this will surprise some people, that Stalin in private was the most courteous, the most genteel, the politest person he'd ever dealt with. And Avril himself, he said, I found it really difficult, he said, to square this with the fact that I'm sitting opposite a mass murderer who's liquidated millions of his own people. And yet, yet to me personally, he was always a model of charm. And I think that's. It's fascinating because it gets the heart of Stalin, really, that here's this evil, monstrous dictator who could just switch on the charm whenever he needed to.
- [26:42]
Al Murray
That's fascinating. I mean, no one ever describes Hitler as charming, do they? No, but you know what I mean?
- [26:47]
Jim
Not even those who love him.
- [26:48]
Al Murray
Not even those who love him. Charm is never part of the package, is it? Junior, just asked on our little chat here, would you say Stalin is a sociopath? That's a modern term, right? I think sociopaths are Stalin's, aren't they? I think it's better. We're better off with it that way around, right?
- [27:02]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, it's so hard. You know, when I started researching this whole subject and everything, I had the, the. The sort of vision of Stalin that I think everyone has this idea that he was just this, you know, brutal mass murderer, drip, hands dripping in blood and everything. And actually it's much more nuanced. And he's much, you know, he, he was so intelligent in a very nasty way, you know, so Manipulative in a very clever way. He was so well read and, you know, he had a vast library of books and he annotated everything that he read, you know, and if he disagreed with something, he used to write piss off in the margin, which I rather liked. So this was this guy who'd been born into this impoverished Georgian family. You know, his father was an alcoholic who used to beat his wife and everything. He emerged into something very, very different. And I think this is what was so misunderstood. In the capitals of, you know, in Washington, in Whitehall, they didn't believe the diplomat saying, just be really careful. You're dealing with a genius in his own way, you know. And they kept saying, one Archie Clark, Clark Kerr, who was the British ambassador in Moscow. He said, you know, we're treating. He. He sort of saw the whole situation in. As a private gentleman's club, you know, and he's saying that we're sort of the doorman, not letting Stalin into the club. And he said, we should be letting him into the club. We should be sitting down and whining and dining with him. You know, we've got to treat this guy seriously and honestly. Time and time again, this coming through, the memos, the telegrams, going back to the capitals.
- [28:28]
Al Murray
It's fascinating though, because to get to the top of the Soviet union in the 1920s, you're not going to be an idiot, are you? It requires incredible cunning. And as you say, cynicism is the. Cynicism is really the key to him, isn't it?
- [28:41]
Jim
And just total ruthlessness.
- [28:43]
Al Murray
Yeah, and total ruthlessness.
- [28:45]
Ryan Reynolds
I read the Soviet diplomats accounts of the Potsdam Conference as well, and all of them, it's really interesting. They were united in their. Their. In their feeling that Stalin had played a blinder. Like they said, this was an absolute triumph for Soviet diplomacy, you know, that he got everything he wanted.
- [29:03]
Jim
And in contrast, Churchill's all over the place, isn't he? I mean, we touched on this earlier on, that he's drinking too much, he's rambling, he seems exhausted. But I think it's really interesting that Eden and Cadogan, who are big fans and, you know, been loyal colleagues and friends of his for a long time even they're in despair, right, aren't they?
- [29:20]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, I mean, they're letters home. You know, they would write letters to their wives about Churchill and say rather than the official documents, this is what they really felt, you know, and they are. They're in despair. They're just saying, oh, my God, he's just giving everything away. And you know, Stalin's stomping around going, I like that great man Stalin, you know, and, and they're just saying they really are in despair at his performance. And I think the one person who could have made a difference at this conference is the figure of Ernest Ben Bevin, who in my mind, you know, one of the great foreign secretaries of the, of the 20th century and a rather overlooked figure, I think, but Ernest Bevin, you, to paint a picture, you have Anthony Eden, the kind of eater, it's old Etonian, Oxbridge, educated, you know, always in his three piece suit and everything, you know, speaks this wonderful sort of eloquent English. And then you've got Ernest Bevin, former lorry driver from a very, very impoverished background. Anyway, he, he arrives at the conference and his first words were, I'll not have Britain barged about out. And he was, he was always called a pugnacious heavyweight. He was a pugnacious heavyweight. And get this, this is wonderful. At one point, he so disagreed with Molotov, what Molotov was saying, that he actually stood up and went to punch him in the face and he had to be held by his own team. And I just think that's sort of wonderful. That takes gunboat diplomacy to the ultimate limit, you know. So, so, so I think that, you know, had the results of the election come earlier and had the conference gone there with Ernest Bevan at the beginning of the conference, I think perhaps they might have made some difference. But the bottom line was that as we've said already, the Red army controls everything that Stalin wants. You know, it's a win, win for the Soviets.
- [31:07]
Jim
Yeah, and what about Truman then?
- [31:08]
Al Murray
Yeah, what about Truman?
- [31:10]
Ryan Reynolds
So Truman, we mentioned earlier, Truman has his ace card. He's received this news that the atomic bomb has worked. Now, now he doesn't know whether he should tell Stalin or not this news. And he talks, he talks it over with Churchill and Churchill says, oh yeah, I think, I think we should tell him, you know, and Truman says, okay, I'm going to do it, you know, tomorrow night or whatever. Churchill is going to be watching to see Stalin's expression when Truman tells him we've got an atomic bomb. So Truman goes over to Stalin, sidles up to him, doesn't say atomic bomb. He says, we've produced a weapon of unprecedented, you know, destructive force. Force. And he's expecting some sort of big reaction for Stalin. And Stalin just goes, oh, that's good. I hope you use it against the Japanese. And he's really surprised by this reaction, of course, what he doesn't realize is that Stalin knows absolutely everything about the American atomic program. He's had his spies have infiltrated the whole trinity.
- [32:03]
Jim
It's Ken Cross and everything, isn't it?
- [32:05]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, he knows, he knows everything. He knows everything.
- [32:08]
Jim
John Kercross is one of the Cambridge spies that's affected.
- [32:11]
Al Murray
But Stalin's been playing games with Truman anyway because he's told him that he thinks Hitler's not dead and has got away and is in western Germany, isn't it?
- [32:18]
Ryan Reynolds
That's an incredibly shocking thing that he says actually, if you, if you sort of think about it, Stalin knows for sure that Hitler's dead. You know, he's seen the dental records, he's seen the jawbone and everything. He knows that Hitler is dead and yet he intimates that the, that Hitler has escaped and is living in British occupied Germany. It's a fabulously nefarious accusation to make against your kind of allied, you know, your wartime ally.
- [32:44]
Jim
Those things continue, you know, for several years, you know, and quite often it's just a sort of a means of testing British and American intelligence systems and how they react and all the rest of it.
- [32:54]
Al Murray
Well, making them chase their tails, I mean, waste their time. We have banquets as the sort of core of the, of the event, don't we? Banquets with the big three, as you said before this. Everything's laid out, there's tables and it's lavish. Even though Berliners are starving. This is a really fantastic spread that's laid on. It's caviar, it's champagne, it's, it's all the trimming things.
- [33:17]
Ryan Reynolds
Right? Yeah. I mean, again Truman says, again he writes a letter home. He said Stalin gave his state dinner. It was a wow. They had a watermelon, champagne, smoked fish, fresh fish, venison, chicken, duck. I mean, you know, this is in a city like you say, that's starving.
- [33:31]
Jim
Well, and I also like the fact that Truman hosts, won the, the night before and has a, a pianist and a violinist. And then the following night at Stalin's turn and he has two, two pianists, two of each.
- [33:44]
Ryan Reynolds
And Truman writes back, back home and he says the, the musicians that Stalin brought in, they were two female musicians. He said they're rather fat and none too clean. Yeah.
- [33:57]
Jim
And, and Churchill's is the dud banquet, isn't it?
- [33:59]
Ryan Reynolds
Churchill's bored by these banquets, but he's particularly bored by Stalin's banquet. He says to try to get Truman to leave. He says, should we go now? And Truman says, well, actually, I'M quite enjoying myself. No, I don't want to leave. Leave. And Stalin, Churchill's Lynette, by now he's furious and he starts plotting his revenge. And he thinks, right, tomorrow night it's my turn. And he gets the RAF brass band to play. Throughout the banquet. No one can hear anything at all, you know, and he's just sitting there sniggering, thinking, well, you know, I got one up on them.
- [34:27]
Al Murray
Part of this, though, is the drinking, heavy drinking that goes with this sort of Russian style heavy drinking. Although Stalin doesn't drink, so keeps himself sober throughout. I mean, part of Churchill's distaste for this. He's been humiliated, hasn't he, in Tehran previously with toasts, where he feels the toasts are out of control and that, that Stalin's sort of snubbing him, isn't he? So he's got no, he's got no energy. But also he's had a bad experience before, hasn't he?
- [34:50]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, you're right to say, by the way, I. Stalin didn't drink vodka. So he had always had a vodka shot in front of him, but it was full of water. He drank Georgian wine, often diluted. So he was very, very happy to watch other people getting completely plastered, particularly if it was Churchill. But he always remained so sober himself. But yeah, he could always. I mean, Stalin could come out with some fabulously barbed comments, particularly when he was with Churchill. I mean, one of the, one of the ones I really loved because it was so fantastically rude and Churchill was so offended by it, was he started talking about the Gallipoli landings at one point and he said they failed because of stupidities in planning and execution. You know, said that directly to Winston Churchill, knowing obviously full well Churchill's role in them. So, you know, he was a master of the barbed comment. And they often came out at these, at these dinners. One of the most famous ones where Stalin said, at the end of the war, I think this was Tehran. It was, he said, at the end of the war, I think we should execute 50,000 German, you know, senior German military guys. And Churchill is horrified by this and so absolutely outrageous. And he's even more horrified when Roosevelt says, takes. Takes that line. And he says, maybe not 50,000. Why not? Why don't we do 49,000? So plays along with Stalin and that, that's another example of these. They're playing each other off against each other all the time. At one point, Roosevelt turns to Stalin and says, you know, I think the two of us can solve the problem of British India, you know, without Winston Churchill. So, I mean, it's pretty extraordinary stuff. We have this idea often that, you know, Roosevelt and, and Churchill were, had a common viewpoint and were coming to these conferences with the United Front. Not a bit of it. They're scoring points of each other all the time.
- [36:32]
Jim
Yeah, but there is this hiatus in the middle, which of course is the British election. And Churchill and Atlee go home on the 25th of July, and then, then Churchill stays there, Atlee comes back now obviously with Ernest Bevan as well, rather than Anthony Eden. So it's not just the Prime Minister that's changed, it's all the people around him. Is that a big turning point? I mean, you know, there's the conference wraps up on, on 2 August. You've also got the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July, which is aimed at, of course, at Japan. But it's kind of done and dusted really by the time Churchill goes, isn't it? I mean, you know, the big issues have been discussed and really there's not much to resolve because as you say, Stalin's in the driving seat and he's in the, he's in the Berlin, he's got his Red army troops throughout much of Eastern Europe. And what else can the Western Allies do except suddenly, you know, realize to their horror that they've got, they, they're not going to be able to progress into the New World Order with the alliance continuing. I mean, you know, this is it, this is the start of the Cold War, isn't it?
- [37:33]
Ryan Reynolds
You're right. And Joan Bright, the lady who helped set up the British delegation and organized the conference and everything, she actually writes in her memoirs, it's rather sort of touching line. She says, you know, Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin came back to the conference, she said, but it was not the Big three anymore. The magic had gone. You know, the big players, I mean, she felt Churchill was one of the big players, had gone. And you're right, all the major decisions have been taken. All war were going to happen by default because of the Red army in, in charge of Eastern Central Europe. I think Churchill is now in opposition and this is where his viewpoint begins to change and he begins to view Stalin not as his best buddy and wartime ally, but actually as the guy who is now turning, rapidly turning into the enemy. And remember, it's only, it's only months after the fin. The end of the Potsdam Conference. So if we wind forward to February 1946, 6 Churchill goes to Missouri, the Home state of president Truman and delivers in front of the world's media the.
- [38:35]
Jim
Iron curtain speech, isn't it?
- [38:37]
Ryan Reynolds
Speech from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic. An iron curtain has descended over the continent. This changes. This is a complete u turn in Churchill thinking, you know, the Soviet ally has gone first, has gone from being the Soviet ally to being the Soviet monster. Monster. And yeah, this is. There are a number of things that happen in fact at the very beginning of 1946 that is a key thing. Churchill's iron curtain speech. We've mentioned the. George Kennan's long telegram where he says, my God, we've got to contain this.
- [39:10]
Jim
Soviet beast because that's also delivered in 46 as well. I think that's February. Yes. And because the uncurten speech is March, isn't it? So canon comes in February.
- [39:20]
Ryan Reynolds
And there's a third thing that happens in the early spring of 1946 which is really important, is that Igor Gusenko, who's a Soviet cipher clerk in the Soviet embassy in Ottawa in Canada, he defects and he just must defect. He defects with a whole batch of documents proving that the Soviets have infiltrated the American atomic program. And this is an electrifying sort of piece of news.
- [39:49]
Jim
Yes, because it means that the Soviets are going to have an atomic bomb so soon to.
- [39:53]
Ryan Reynolds
It does mean that as well. But you know, this changes everything. And I think, you know, so where, you know, the question is often asked, when does the cold war start? Well, you could argue it starts in, in Berlin in 45. But I think really it begins. The cold war heats up, if you like, in the very beginning of 1946, everything's changed. The Soviet ally is no longer an ally. It's now increasingly seen as the enemy.
- [40:17]
Al Murray
I mean, are there any positives for the western allies in this? I mean, apart from, you know, the Soviet Stalin project promises that in 90 days time he'll get it. He'll come to the fight in the Japanese in Manchuku. And he does. Bang on time. Operation August storm starts exactly as promised. Ninety days after the end of the war. Europe will deploy and we'll attack the Japanese. And Truman writes in his diary, doesn't he? I've got him on board for Japan. I'm cock a hoop about this, doesn't he? Is that the crumb of comfort? And is that because the Americans, they want out of Europe, that's their priority. They, they want to get Japan done. And if they can get the Soviets to do it for them particularly they have equipped The Soviet army, after all, with Lend Lease. Is that the Western Allied win in all this?
- [41:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, it is in the sort of immediate aftermath of the conference. But I think really the big win, I would argue, is the Marshall Plan, the massive injection of American finance into Europe, the rebuilding the German economy, the introduction of a new currency into Germany which transforms the economic situation in West Germany. All of these come in the sort of aftermath of the Potsdam Conference. And if there's a win for the west, that's it, I would have thought.
- [41:29]
Jim
Yeah, it is remarkable because it is the first time ever that the victors have economically bailed out the vanquished. I mean, it is a remarkable thing that happens. The Marshall Plan, I mean, really, really extraordinary.
- [41:42]
Ryan Reynolds
And Al, of course, one other thing which we have to mention, I think is out of this chaos is born NATO, you know, and that's absolutely crucial, you know, with its Article 5, I think it is, which famously states an attack on one is an attack on all. This will prevent wars. For, you know, we're still living through this, you know, for it seems like history.
- [42:02]
Jim
We're recording this on the eve of the, of the latest NATO conference, so it'll be fascinating to see how that plays out.
- [42:08]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah. And then, of course, the formation of NATO then leads directly to the formation of the Warsaw Pact. And so there, you know, you have your two, your two blocks of the Cold War. The stage is set for, for the onset of the Cold War.
- [42:21]
Jim
Well, Charles, that's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you. That's a tour de force and brilliant to have you, have you back on the, on the show and, and thank you for that because I don't know about you, that's just absolutely fascinating, isn't it? And I'm, I'm obsessed with all this at the moment because of course, in the light of what's happening on, in, in the world stage at the moment and the shifting of, of tectonic plates as we, as we speak. So all of this is just fabulous background to that and, and context. And also I think it really. The sort of, you know, the long arm of the Second World War and how it affects us to this, this very day.
- [42:57]
Al Murray
Well, and also that contingency within an event can then cast great long shadows across the future when they arrive with various shopping lists, the general election, the fact it's not Roosevelt, the fact that, you know, all these things and that personality. And I think it's. There is an irony, isn't there, that the head of the Soviet Union, you know, which espouses an idea that history is not about individuals, it's about mass movement movements. His personality is key to the outcome of this conference. And that rather, yes, it's the mass might of the Soviet Union, but it's him. He's the immovable object at the head of the irresistible force that is the Soviet Union, and it's him, It's Stalin, it's his personality. It's absolutely key to this. Which sort of rather pulls the rug from under some of his thinking, perhaps, that he might espouse, which I think is fascinating.
- [43:45]
Ryan Reynolds
If I'm allowed. You can edit this out if you want to plug my book, Checkmate in Berlin. It covers all of these. This subject, the early work.
- [43:52]
Jim
Can you.
- [43:52]
Ryan Reynolds
Years of the. Of the Cold War from the Berlin perspective.
- [43:54]
Jim
Well, chat mate of Berlin, also, the Stalin affair. And I also would recommend listeners to your Ministry of Secrets podcast series. You did Jaz, which I was completely obsessed with when it came out. It was completely brilliant about the. The mystery of the naval diver, Buster Crab. It's just an amazing Cold War story. Khrushchev. Khrushchev in. In arriving in the South Korean coast and in Portsmouth and all sorts of stuff. I mean, whoever knew? I mean, just incredible. Mountbatten's involved all sorts of, you know, secrets and people under the. Under the carpets and the floorboards. It's just incredible.
- [44:30]
Al Murray
Come on, Charles. Did Buster Crab defect? Come on.
- [44:33]
Ryan Reynolds
Oh, you'll have to listen. But the big question is, why is the current government still refusing to release the Buster Crab papers where it's all revealed in the podcast?
- [44:43]
Al Murray
Fantastic. Well, thanks very much, Charles. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll see you again very soon. Thanks.
- [44:48]
Ryan Reynolds
Cheerio.
- [44:48]
Jim
Cheerio.
- [44:49]
Ryan Reynolds
Bye.