0:00:02 > 0:00:05MUSIC: "Our Day Will Come" by Patti Page
0:00:10 > 0:00:13# Our day will come
0:00:15 > 0:00:20# And we'll have everything
0:00:20 > 0:00:24# We'll share the joy... #
0:00:24 > 0:00:28It's easy to forget that for five of the last eight decades,
0:00:28 > 0:00:30Britain was at war.
0:00:30 > 0:00:35# No-one can tell me that I'm too young to know... #
0:00:38 > 0:00:41It was a war that framed all our lives.
0:00:43 > 0:00:47# And you love me... #
0:00:47 > 0:00:50Welcome to Cold War Britain.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02This was a war between us, the democratic, capitalist West,
0:01:02 > 0:01:07and them, the Communist, totalitarian East.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13It was a war of high-stakes diplomacy...
0:01:15 > 0:01:17..secrets and paranoia...
0:01:18 > 0:01:23..in which we lived every day in the shadow of Armageddon.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28And yet it was also so much more.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32The Cold War was also fought in our families,
0:01:32 > 0:01:34in our shopping centres,
0:01:34 > 0:01:36in our culture
0:01:36 > 0:01:38and in our heads.
0:01:53 > 0:01:58UPBEAT JAZZ MUSIC
0:01:58 > 0:02:01On 13th November 1945,
0:02:01 > 0:02:03here in West London,
0:02:03 > 0:02:06thousands of fans were gathering to watch
0:02:06 > 0:02:08a simply extraordinary game of football.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16By the time the gates at Chelsea Football Club clanged shut,
0:02:16 > 0:02:20more than 75,000 tickets had changed hands.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27Locked out here were 15,000 people,
0:02:27 > 0:02:29determined that, by hook or by crook,
0:02:29 > 0:02:32they were going to see the game.
0:02:33 > 0:02:38All up and down the Fulham Road was a biblical tide of humanity.
0:02:38 > 0:02:40People even tried to ram their way through
0:02:40 > 0:02:42the gates of Stamford Bridge.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47And the reason for all this frenzied excitement?
0:02:47 > 0:02:49The Russians were coming.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55That summer, British and Soviet soldiers had come together
0:02:55 > 0:03:00to celebrate the end of their long struggle against Nazi Germany.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04The Red Army had lost almost 10 million men,
0:03:04 > 0:03:07but they'd broken the back of Hitler's forces.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13NEWSREEL: The first Soviet football team ever to visit Britain
0:03:13 > 0:03:14lands at Croydon from Moscow.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17Russia's crack 11, the Dynamos, brought several hundredweight
0:03:17 > 0:03:21of special diet with them in their two red-starred Dakota aircraft.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27To celebrate the triumphant unity of East and West,
0:03:27 > 0:03:32Britain's football authorities invited Russia's top team,
0:03:32 > 0:03:35Moscow Dynamo, on a national tour.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38The Russians' courage had won them plenty of admirers
0:03:38 > 0:03:42and waves of goodwill rolled down through the excited crowds.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46Chelsea's fans crowded the goalmouths,
0:03:46 > 0:03:48they perched on the stands
0:03:48 > 0:03:50and they even waved red flags.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56And as the two teams lined up before kick-off, Dynamo's players
0:03:56 > 0:04:01presented their counterparts with bunches of flowers.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04The Chelsea players didn't know where to look.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09But the Russians did things differently.
0:04:09 > 0:04:12For one thing, they warmed up on the pitch,
0:04:12 > 0:04:15which was something no British team ever did.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17CROWD ROARS AND RATTLE CLICKS
0:04:17 > 0:04:20When the match kicked off, it was show time.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25MUSIC: "Kalinka"
0:04:25 > 0:04:29The Russian game was fast and fluid, with short passes.
0:04:29 > 0:04:33They called it "passovochka" and the crowd loved it.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41For an encounter between old wartime allies,
0:04:41 > 0:04:45the match ended in a suitably diplomatic three-all draw.
0:04:49 > 0:04:51And the British press seemed delighted.
0:04:51 > 0:04:53"Dynamo", said one paper,
0:04:53 > 0:04:57"are the greatest club to have visited these islands."
0:04:57 > 0:05:00NEWSREEL: The inspired singing of Land Of Our Fathers
0:05:00 > 0:05:02was the prelude to football's...
0:05:02 > 0:05:05The rest of the Dynamos' tour included thrilling football,
0:05:05 > 0:05:10dense fog and even the odd punch-up.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13And here are the classified results.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17Cardiff City 1-10 Dynamo.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21Arsenal 3-4 Dynamo.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24Glasgow Rangers 2-2 Dynamo.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31The tour looked like a goal-packed, crowd-pleasing success.
0:05:33 > 0:05:36But off the pitch, there were growing tensions.
0:05:37 > 0:05:42The Russians seemed secretive, surly and suspicious.
0:05:42 > 0:05:46They were, after all, the team of the Soviet secret police.
0:05:47 > 0:05:50The papers were getting suspicious
0:05:50 > 0:05:52of these silent, mysterious Russians
0:05:52 > 0:05:56and there was growing criticism of their supposedly rough tactics.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59The Daily Express even ran an open letter
0:05:59 > 0:06:02to Dynamo's captain, Mikhail Semichastny,
0:06:02 > 0:06:05explaining why the British fans had started booing him.
0:06:05 > 0:06:10"Shirt-pulling and pushing", it said, "are not English customs."
0:06:10 > 0:06:13At the end of the tour, Semichastny got his own back.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17"The British teams' tactics", he said, "were stuck in the past."
0:06:17 > 0:06:20They were merely "elementary."
0:06:20 > 0:06:23But there was more to this than handbags at ten paces.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27There was a growing sense of discord between the Russian officials
0:06:27 > 0:06:29and their British counterparts,
0:06:29 > 0:06:31a sense that this "goodwill tour"
0:06:31 > 0:06:34was turning into a political minefield.
0:06:38 > 0:06:40Almost a month after they had landed,
0:06:40 > 0:06:43the Russian invasion was over.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46MUSIC: "They Can't Take That Away from Me" by Fred Astaire
0:06:49 > 0:06:53You helped us to write another page in the history of football.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57We're glad you came. Sorry we didn't see you play more matches,
0:06:57 > 0:07:00but it won't be long, we hope, before we play another.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07But the fond farewells told only part of the story.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10The Dynamos hadn't come to make friends.
0:07:10 > 0:07:12They'd come to make a point.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15"We are the new superpower,
0:07:15 > 0:07:17"on the pitch and in the world."
0:07:28 > 0:07:31And one writer in particular put his finger on it.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35"Now that the brief visit of the Dynamos has come to an end",
0:07:35 > 0:07:39he said, "it is possible to say publicly what many thinking people
0:07:39 > 0:07:44"were saying privately before the Dynamos even arrived
0:07:44 > 0:07:49"and that is that sport is an unfailing cause of ill will,
0:07:49 > 0:07:51"and that if such a visit as this
0:07:51 > 0:07:55"had any effect at all on Anglo-Soviet relations,
0:07:55 > 0:08:00"it could only be to make them slightly worse than before."
0:08:00 > 0:08:03His name was George Orwell.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10For years, Orwell had been warning
0:08:10 > 0:08:14about the ruthless ambitions of the Soviet Union.
0:08:14 > 0:08:16And in the months following the war,
0:08:16 > 0:08:19his prophecies seemed to be coming true.
0:08:19 > 0:08:24Across Eastern Europe, Soviet-backed communists were seizing power
0:08:24 > 0:08:27and strangling their fledgling democracies.
0:08:28 > 0:08:32Millions of people were now falling under the shadow of Stalinism.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37Many people assumed that with victory won against the Germans
0:08:37 > 0:08:41and the Japanese, we could all settle down to a lifetime of peace.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45But Orwell knew that we were already facing a new kind of conflict,
0:08:45 > 0:08:47an armed standoff
0:08:47 > 0:08:52against the totalitarian empire of the Soviet Union
0:08:52 > 0:08:56and in October 1945, in the pages of the left-wing magazine Tribune,
0:08:56 > 0:08:59he gave this conflict its name -
0:08:59 > 0:09:01not the Third World War,
0:09:01 > 0:09:02but the Cold War.
0:09:05 > 0:09:08CHEERING
0:09:09 > 0:09:15Orwell wasn't alone in his horror of Soviet communism.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19There was one politician more than any other who had been trying
0:09:19 > 0:09:24for decades to alert the British people to the threat of Bolshevism,
0:09:24 > 0:09:29what he called "The poisoned peril from the East."
0:09:29 > 0:09:32That man was Winston Churchill.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40BLUES MUSIC
0:09:46 > 0:09:51In the spring of 1946, Winston Churchill took a holiday.
0:09:51 > 0:09:53He'd been having a bit of a rough time.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56Despite his wartime heroism, the voters had kicked him out
0:09:56 > 0:09:58of Downing Street and for the past few months,
0:09:58 > 0:10:01Churchill had been in a deep depression,
0:10:01 > 0:10:05so he decided to come somewhere where people still loved him -
0:10:05 > 0:10:06America.
0:10:06 > 0:10:09And as his train rattled through the night,
0:10:09 > 0:10:12he and his travelling companion cracked open the cards
0:10:12 > 0:10:14and started knocking back the bourbon.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22But Churchill's drinking partner wasn't just anybody.
0:10:22 > 0:10:25It was a man called Harry S Truman,
0:10:25 > 0:10:27President of the United States.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30And there was more to Churchill's holiday than met the eye,
0:10:30 > 0:10:33because when his train met its destination, he was planning
0:10:33 > 0:10:37to deliver a very particular message to the American people.
0:10:39 > 0:10:42MUSIC: "Don't Fence Me In" by Roy Rogers
0:10:48 > 0:10:50Churchill had been invited to speak
0:10:50 > 0:10:54at a small liberal arts college in Fulton, Missouri,
0:10:54 > 0:10:57the home state of President Truman.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00It was meant to be an off-duty speech,
0:11:00 > 0:11:03but as Churchill admitted to Truman,
0:11:03 > 0:11:06he wanted his words to be heard across the world.
0:11:06 > 0:11:09"Under your auspices", Churchill said,
0:11:09 > 0:11:13"anything I say will command attention."
0:11:18 > 0:11:21While Churchill was travelling across America, he wrote home
0:11:21 > 0:11:24to Britain's new Labour Prime Minister, Mr Clement Attlee
0:11:24 > 0:11:27and casually mentioned he might be giving a speech
0:11:27 > 0:11:31very similar to the one he'd already given at Harvard two years before.
0:11:31 > 0:11:35But that wasn't entirely true. This was going to be something different.
0:11:35 > 0:11:38In fact, in Washington, Churchill had asked Harry Truman
0:11:38 > 0:11:39to help him write it.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42"It's your speech", Truman said, "you write it yourself."
0:11:42 > 0:11:44He even refused to read a draft.
0:11:44 > 0:11:48But that night on the train, a few stiff drinks down the line,
0:11:48 > 0:11:50Truman changed his mind,
0:11:50 > 0:11:53and when he put the speech down, he said it was "admirable".
0:11:53 > 0:11:56"It will do nothing but good", he added,
0:11:56 > 0:11:58"although it would make a stir."
0:11:58 > 0:12:00That was putting it mildly.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04For Joseph Stalin and for many others, this was the moment
0:12:04 > 0:12:06when the Cold War began.
0:12:10 > 0:12:12Churchill and Truman were shown
0:12:12 > 0:12:14into Westminster College's spruced-up gym,
0:12:14 > 0:12:18the only place large enough to cram everyone in.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21And it's one of the great privileges of my lifetime
0:12:21 > 0:12:25to be able to present to you that great world citizen,
0:12:25 > 0:12:26Winston Churchill.
0:12:26 > 0:12:29APPLAUSE
0:12:34 > 0:12:37From Stettin in the Baltic
0:12:37 > 0:12:40to Trieste in the Adriatic
0:12:40 > 0:12:44an iron curtain has descended across the continent.
0:12:44 > 0:12:50Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states
0:12:50 > 0:12:53of Central and Eastern Europe
0:12:53 > 0:12:56and all are subjects, in one form or another,
0:12:56 > 0:12:59not only to Soviet influence,
0:12:59 > 0:13:00but to a very high
0:13:00 > 0:13:05and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.
0:13:06 > 0:13:08An iron curtain that dropped around Poland,
0:13:08 > 0:13:10Hungary,
0:13:10 > 0:13:11Yugoslavia,
0:13:11 > 0:13:12Bulgaria...
0:13:14 > 0:13:17In this Iron Curtain speech,
0:13:17 > 0:13:21Churchill was the first Western statesman to single out
0:13:21 > 0:13:25the Soviet Union as the greatest threat to world peace.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28And he also gave us a three-word phrase
0:13:28 > 0:13:31that we're still arguing about to this day.
0:13:32 > 0:13:37A special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire
0:13:37 > 0:13:40and the United States of America.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43APPLAUSE
0:13:43 > 0:13:45Churchill himself was half-American
0:13:45 > 0:13:49and he passionately believed that Britain's security
0:13:49 > 0:13:53and prosperity depended on closer ties with our American cousins.
0:13:55 > 0:13:57Britain's finances were in ruins.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00The empire was in trouble and in Asia and the Middle East,
0:14:00 > 0:14:05our age-old rival, the Russian bear, was flexing its muscles.
0:14:05 > 0:14:08So in this gym in the Missouri heartland,
0:14:08 > 0:14:11he set out to woo his listeners, to persuade them
0:14:11 > 0:14:13to stick with the Western alliance
0:14:13 > 0:14:18and to stand by Britain in the face of a new and terrible enemy.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22MUSIC: "A Taste Of Honey" by Julie London
0:14:26 > 0:14:30Back at home, many ordinary people were already enjoying
0:14:30 > 0:14:34a special relationship with all things American.
0:14:41 > 0:14:43In the late 1940s, the United States
0:14:43 > 0:14:46seemed the land of jitterbugs and jazz,
0:14:46 > 0:14:49fresh fashions and Coca-Cola,
0:14:49 > 0:14:53a paradise of high living, popular culture
0:14:53 > 0:14:54and mass consumerism.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02BOYS' CHOIR
0:15:06 > 0:15:10But not everybody was so enthused by the American dream.
0:15:10 > 0:15:16Some idealists still preferred the stark rigours of Soviet realism.
0:15:21 > 0:15:23Canterbury Cathedral,
0:15:23 > 0:15:26for centuries the magnificent heart of the Church of England.
0:15:27 > 0:15:33It hardly looks like a hotbed of communism, but from 1931 to 1963,
0:15:33 > 0:15:38that's exactly what it was, thanks to the activities of just one man,
0:15:38 > 0:15:40the Very Reverend Hewlett Johnson,
0:15:40 > 0:15:42the Red Dean of Canterbury.
0:15:42 > 0:15:47Cordial and warm welcome to our cathedral church.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51Like Winston Churchill, Johnson was a Victorian.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55They were even born in the same year, 1874,
0:15:55 > 0:15:58but while Churchill looked at the Soviet Union
0:15:58 > 0:16:00and saw the work of the Devil,
0:16:00 > 0:16:04Hewlett Johnson thought he saw the kingdom of heaven.
0:16:08 > 0:16:13I read as widely as I could and communism struck me
0:16:13 > 0:16:17at once as both Christian and practicable.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20MUSIC: "Trouble Of The World" by Mahalia Jackson
0:16:27 > 0:16:28As a young man,
0:16:28 > 0:16:33Johnson had campaigned for the rights of poor workers
0:16:33 > 0:16:36and when he became Dean of Canterbury, he visited China
0:16:36 > 0:16:40and Russia, where he fell in love with communism in action.
0:16:42 > 0:16:44You know, the thing about Hewlett Johnson is that he was
0:16:44 > 0:16:48absolutely typical of a whole generation of high-minded,
0:16:48 > 0:16:49well-meaning intellectuals,
0:16:49 > 0:16:54who in the 1930s had convinced themselves that Soviet communism
0:16:54 > 0:16:58represented not just economic but spiritual salvation.
0:17:04 > 0:17:05And these are his sermon notes,
0:17:05 > 0:17:10in which he tried to reconcile Christianity and communism
0:17:10 > 0:17:14to show, I suppose, that Jesus and Lenin and Stalin
0:17:14 > 0:17:17are basically just saying the same thing.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21"Jesus called for universal brotherhood and meant it.
0:17:21 > 0:17:25"Communism calls for a world brotherhood and means it.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28"Jesus challenged class as class.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32"Communism builds the classless society."
0:17:32 > 0:17:36And all of that made him probably the single best-known mouthpiece
0:17:36 > 0:17:39for Soviet communism in the whole Western world.
0:17:42 > 0:17:48Johnson's promotional efforts did not go unnoticed in the Kremlin.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52MUSIC: "Mad About The Boy" by Patti Page
0:17:59 > 0:18:03In 1945, Hewlett Johnson came here to Moscow
0:18:03 > 0:18:07for an extraordinary meeting with Joseph Stalin himself.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10Now, Johnson was something of a Stalin fan.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15There was no cruelty, he thought, in Stalin's face,
0:18:15 > 0:18:20just a steady purpose and a kindly geniality.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24Nothing could have been more unlike the faces of Mussolini or Hitler.
0:18:24 > 0:18:28Now, for his part, Stalin wanted to use the meeting
0:18:28 > 0:18:31as a way of sending two messages to the West.
0:18:31 > 0:18:35First of all, it was a capitalist lie that he was anti-religion,
0:18:35 > 0:18:37because people here in Moscow, he said,
0:18:37 > 0:18:41had complete freedom of worship and freedom of conscience,
0:18:41 > 0:18:45and secondly, it was also a lie that he was anti-Western
0:18:45 > 0:18:49or anti-British, because all he wanted was world peace.
0:18:49 > 0:18:53CHEERING
0:18:53 > 0:18:56Not even the tensions of the Cold War
0:18:56 > 0:18:58could shake the strange romance
0:18:58 > 0:19:02between the Soviet tyrant and the Anglican priest.
0:19:05 > 0:19:10In 1951, Hewlett Johnson won perhaps the ultimate accolade -
0:19:10 > 0:19:13this splendidly embossed prize.
0:19:13 > 0:19:15He was only the second person to win it, you know.
0:19:15 > 0:19:18The first was Pablo Picasso.
0:19:18 > 0:19:19And what was it?
0:19:20 > 0:19:25It was the International Stalin Peace Prize!
0:19:25 > 0:19:28Even illustrated with a lovely picture of the man himself.
0:19:35 > 0:19:39The honour that has been given to me today...
0:19:40 > 0:19:43..is the greatest honour
0:19:43 > 0:19:46that any country could give...
0:19:48 > 0:19:50..to any man.
0:19:50 > 0:19:52This peace award...
0:19:52 > 0:19:55..the portrait,
0:19:55 > 0:19:58that greatest fighter for peace...
0:19:59 > 0:20:00..Stalin.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06As the Red Dean fondly gazed at his Soviet bauble,
0:20:06 > 0:20:11the truth about life in Stalin's Russia was already emerging.
0:20:11 > 0:20:13Far from being a workers' paradise,
0:20:13 > 0:20:20the Soviet Union was in many ways just as cruel as Hitler's Germany.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23But the terrible revelations of Stalin's show trials
0:20:23 > 0:20:27and labour camps never shook Hewlett Johnson's faith
0:20:27 > 0:20:31in the Soviet Union or the communist ideal
0:20:31 > 0:20:33and although MI5 kept a vague eye on him,
0:20:33 > 0:20:36Johnson stayed in his Canterbury post,
0:20:36 > 0:20:40tolerated and even cherished by the Anglican hierarchy.
0:20:41 > 0:20:46Perhaps the best tribute I can pay to him is to say
0:20:46 > 0:20:51that he is loved and respected by many people who detest his politics.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57So, was Hewlett Johnson a bad man?
0:20:57 > 0:20:58Well, let's be generous.
0:20:58 > 0:21:01Let's just say that maybe like so many fellow travellers
0:21:01 > 0:21:05he was just naive and stubborn, self-deluded.
0:21:05 > 0:21:09The great irony, though, is that while MI5 were keeping tabs
0:21:09 > 0:21:15on the Red Dean, the real traitors were right under their noses.
0:21:16 > 0:21:20MUSIC: "Too Young" by Nat King Cole
0:21:23 > 0:21:29One evening in May 1951, at a house on the edge of the North Downs,
0:21:29 > 0:21:32a young pregnant woman was cooking a slap-up dinner
0:21:32 > 0:21:36to celebrate her husband's 38th birthday.
0:21:36 > 0:21:38But as they were sitting down to eat,
0:21:38 > 0:21:41they were interrupted by a knock at the door.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49The man on the doorstep was called Roger Styles.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56They invited him in. He stayed for dinner
0:21:56 > 0:22:00and then the birthday boy said that he and the mysterious Mr Styles
0:22:00 > 0:22:03had to leave for a pressing engagement,
0:22:03 > 0:22:05but they wouldn't be long.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07He never came back.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10NEWSREADER: This is the BBC Home Service
0:22:10 > 0:22:11and here is the news.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14Mr Morrison has made a statement in the House Of Commons
0:22:14 > 0:22:18about the disappearance of the two Foreign Office officials.
0:22:18 > 0:22:22He said there had been no confirmed news of their whereabouts
0:22:22 > 0:22:24since they landed in France on 26th May...
0:22:31 > 0:22:33The runaway husband's name was Donald Maclean
0:22:33 > 0:22:36and he was the head of the American department
0:22:36 > 0:22:37at the Foreign Office.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41As for the mysterious Roger Styles, he too was a diplomat,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44and his real name was Guy Burgess.
0:22:44 > 0:22:46He'd put together his alias
0:22:46 > 0:22:48from the titles of two Agatha Christie books.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51Burgess and Maclean were two members
0:22:51 > 0:22:55of the soon-to-be notorious Cambridge spy ring.
0:22:55 > 0:22:57They had been playing a long game,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00but by 1951, their luck had run out.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03Fearing exposure, they had fled to the continent,
0:23:03 > 0:23:05bound eventually for Moscow,
0:23:05 > 0:23:08And they had left behind not just Maclean's pregnant wife,
0:23:08 > 0:23:11but a host of unanswered questions.
0:23:16 > 0:23:18To the bewildered British public,
0:23:18 > 0:23:20the defections of Burgess and Maclean
0:23:20 > 0:23:22came as a terrible shock.
0:23:26 > 0:23:2950s Britain was a land of deference and decorum.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32These men were pillars of the establishment -
0:23:32 > 0:23:34upper class and well-educated.
0:23:36 > 0:23:41Yet now they of all people stood exposed as communist traitors.
0:23:41 > 0:23:45In the Cold War, it seemed, nobody could be trusted.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49But the roots of Burgess and Maclean's betrayals
0:23:49 > 0:23:52went all the way back to their student days together,
0:23:52 > 0:23:56at Cambridge University in the 1930s.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00It is in this atmosphere
0:24:00 > 0:24:03that an undergraduate lives his three years at Cambridge.
0:24:03 > 0:24:07It is a life with opportunities for friendship and comradeship,
0:24:07 > 0:24:10where one meets all types of men,
0:24:10 > 0:24:11where new ideas are formed
0:24:11 > 0:24:13and olds ones discarded or strengthened.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20While these young Cambridge men were sitting up late into the night,
0:24:20 > 0:24:22putting the world to rights,
0:24:22 > 0:24:27Britain was gripped by the Great Depression.
0:24:27 > 0:24:28They saw capitalism in ruins
0:24:28 > 0:24:31and millions of ordinary British families,
0:24:31 > 0:24:35poor and starving, paying the heavy price.
0:24:37 > 0:24:42They saw fascism on the march, not just in continental Europe,
0:24:42 > 0:24:43but in Britain itself.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50And for some of these undergraduate idealists,
0:24:50 > 0:24:51there was only one answer.
0:24:53 > 0:24:55Marxism.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01It may sound odd to us now,
0:25:01 > 0:25:05but to these young, well-educated, privileged students,
0:25:05 > 0:25:07Britain's democratic parties,
0:25:07 > 0:25:10the old men of their parents' generation,
0:25:10 > 0:25:13had palpably failed to deal with the economic trauma
0:25:13 > 0:25:15of the Great Depression.
0:25:15 > 0:25:17Here in Cambridge in the 1930s,
0:25:17 > 0:25:20the red flag looked like a beacon of hope
0:25:20 > 0:25:22and the Soviet Union, a promised land,
0:25:22 > 0:25:26where poverty and inequality would become things of the past.
0:25:26 > 0:25:28As another Cambridge student put it,
0:25:28 > 0:25:31Russia looked like "terra incognita" -
0:25:31 > 0:25:34a land of mystery, and for some, infinite promise,
0:25:34 > 0:25:36where dreams would come true
0:25:36 > 0:25:40and the evils of contemporary society be corrected.
0:25:48 > 0:25:50But it wasn't just Marxism
0:25:50 > 0:25:52that occupied the Cambridge students.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58Guy Burgess was openly and flamboyantly gay
0:25:58 > 0:26:00and rumours of homosexual activities
0:26:00 > 0:26:04swirled around the entire Cambridge spy ring.
0:26:05 > 0:26:09This was an age when homosexuality was still illegal.
0:26:09 > 0:26:10Sleeping with another man
0:26:10 > 0:26:15involved a level of discretion, deception, even subterfuge.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18That was no bad preparation for a life in the shadows.
0:26:18 > 0:26:21When the Cambridge spies were finally exposed,
0:26:21 > 0:26:25their sexuality became a central part of the story.
0:26:25 > 0:26:29Many people assumed that treachery and homosexuality
0:26:29 > 0:26:31were just two sides of the same coin.
0:26:31 > 0:26:35Perhaps they thought sexual deviancy and political deviancy
0:26:35 > 0:26:37went hand in hand.
0:26:37 > 0:26:41Perhaps all homosexuals were potential traitors.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48In 50s Britain, to be different was to be suspect.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51This was a deeply conformist society,
0:26:51 > 0:26:53both politically and socially.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57To many people, rich and poor, young and old,
0:26:57 > 0:27:02homosexuality seemed frightening, dangerous, even subversive.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05And after the flight of Burgess and Maclean,
0:27:05 > 0:27:08the Tory politician Lord Hailsham spoke for many
0:27:08 > 0:27:13when he described homosexuality as "a proselytising religion,
0:27:13 > 0:27:18"contagious, incurable and self-perpetuating."
0:27:18 > 0:27:23It's surely no accident that between 1950 and 1954,
0:27:23 > 0:27:29the annual prosecution rate of gay men rose by 50%
0:27:29 > 0:27:32All of this only added to the climate of suspicion.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36In this unsettling new Cold War Britain,
0:27:36 > 0:27:43nothing was as it seemed, and perhaps nobody could be trusted.
0:27:46 > 0:27:50At a time of intense public anxiety about national security,
0:27:50 > 0:27:54Britain's homosexuals made very convenient scapegoats.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58Find the homosexual, find the spy - so went the reasoning.
0:27:58 > 0:28:03"There has, for years", said the Sunday Pictorial in 1955,
0:28:03 > 0:28:06"existed within the Foreign Office service
0:28:06 > 0:28:09"a chain or clique of perverted men."
0:28:09 > 0:28:12The Civil Service even drew up official guidelines
0:28:12 > 0:28:15for identifying suspected homosexuals
0:28:15 > 0:28:17as security risks.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19But, you know, I don't think Burgess and Maclean
0:28:19 > 0:28:22betrayed Britain because they were gay.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25I think they did it because they were true believers -
0:28:25 > 0:28:28they genuinely thought that Moscow was right
0:28:28 > 0:28:31and that communism was the future.
0:28:35 > 0:28:40Many people were deeply disturbed to see how intellectual idealism
0:28:40 > 0:28:43could turn into spying and subterfuge.
0:28:44 > 0:28:47And with the British way of life apparently under threat,
0:28:47 > 0:28:52some ardent democrats felt driven to desperate measures.
0:28:54 > 0:28:57March, 1949.
0:28:57 > 0:29:00A dying man lies in a sanatorium bed,
0:29:00 > 0:29:03desperately scribbling a list of names.
0:29:03 > 0:29:04And when he's finished,
0:29:04 > 0:29:09he hands the list to a friend who works for the government.
0:29:09 > 0:29:10On the list were the names of people
0:29:10 > 0:29:12he believed were a danger to the country,
0:29:12 > 0:29:15potential agents of the Soviet Union.
0:29:15 > 0:29:16The friend worked
0:29:16 > 0:29:20for the Foreign Office's new Covert Political Warfare department,
0:29:20 > 0:29:23the Information Research division.
0:29:23 > 0:29:27And the man in the bed was George Orwell.
0:29:27 > 0:29:29A year later, in this building,
0:29:29 > 0:29:32Orwell finally lost his long battle with TB.
0:29:32 > 0:29:33He was just 46.
0:29:36 > 0:29:41Just as the Civil Service later identified suspected homosexuals
0:29:41 > 0:29:43as security risks,
0:29:43 > 0:29:48so Orwell's list named the people he thought untrustworthy -
0:29:48 > 0:29:50fellow travellers who might betray
0:29:50 > 0:29:54their native land to the Soviet Union.
0:29:54 > 0:29:58Here was one of democracy's greatest modern champions.
0:29:58 > 0:30:01So terrified of the threat of totalitarianism
0:30:01 > 0:30:06that in his final months, he was prepared to turn informer.
0:30:06 > 0:30:12It might have been a scene from his greatest novel, 1984.
0:30:22 > 0:30:27This, in 1984, is London.
0:30:27 > 0:30:28Chief city of Airstrip One,
0:30:28 > 0:30:32a province of the state of Oceania.
0:30:44 > 0:30:47The Ministry of Truth was startlingly different
0:30:47 > 0:30:49from any other object in sight.
0:30:49 > 0:30:51It was an enormous pyramidal structure
0:30:51 > 0:30:53of glittering white concrete
0:30:53 > 0:30:58soaring up terrace after terrace 300 metres into the air.
0:30:58 > 0:31:01From where Winston stood, it was just possible to read,
0:31:01 > 0:31:05picked out on its white face in elegant lettering,
0:31:05 > 0:31:07the three slogans of the party.
0:31:07 > 0:31:11War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery,
0:31:11 > 0:31:13Ignorance is Strength.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20And here it is, the University of London's Senate House,
0:31:20 > 0:31:23Britain's Ministry of information during WWII
0:31:23 > 0:31:28and the model for George Orwell's Ministry of Truth.
0:31:30 > 0:31:34It's here that we meet 1984's hero, Winston Smith.
0:31:34 > 0:31:39His job, to rewrite history in the name of a one-party state
0:31:39 > 0:31:44dedicated to controlling every aspect of human existence.
0:31:44 > 0:31:48Mind, body and soul.
0:31:51 > 0:31:53Are you guilty?
0:31:53 > 0:31:55Of course I am.
0:31:55 > 0:31:58You don't think the party would arrest an innocent man, do you?
0:31:58 > 0:32:00Thoughtcrime's a dreadful thing.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03It gets a hold of you without you even knowing it!
0:32:03 > 0:32:06I talked in my sleep. Do you know what they heard me say?
0:32:06 > 0:32:10"Down with Big Brother," over and over and over again!
0:32:10 > 0:32:12Oh, I'm glad they've got me.
0:32:12 > 0:32:14Saved me.
0:32:14 > 0:32:15For British readers,
0:32:15 > 0:32:211984 was a terrifying vision of a totalitarian future.
0:32:21 > 0:32:24In an age of perpetual war between rival power blocks,
0:32:24 > 0:32:27even individual dreams have been sacrificed
0:32:27 > 0:32:29to the demands of the party.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33The thought police watch your every movement
0:32:33 > 0:32:35and they listen to your every word.
0:32:35 > 0:32:39This is a world of total state control.
0:32:39 > 0:32:42A world of total terror.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49At the heart of Orwell's chilling vision
0:32:49 > 0:32:53was a very British horror of ideological extremism.
0:32:53 > 0:32:56Now, Orwell himself was an old Etonian
0:32:56 > 0:33:00who had chosen to spend his life fighting for the poorest
0:33:00 > 0:33:03and most downtrodden people in the country.
0:33:03 > 0:33:05But like the great majority of his fellow Britons,
0:33:05 > 0:33:08he had a deep, even visceral distaste
0:33:08 > 0:33:12for grand ideological projects that claimed to be improving humanity,
0:33:12 > 0:33:16but cared nothing for the common man.
0:33:16 > 0:33:21Now, in 1984, Orwell's chief target is Stalin's Russia.
0:33:21 > 0:33:25A regime that preached a gospel of peace, but had murdered millions.
0:33:28 > 0:33:31And for a generation of British readers,
0:33:31 > 0:33:361984 became their image of the Soviet Union.
0:33:42 > 0:33:43But there's a bit more to it than that.
0:33:43 > 0:33:491984 is, after all, a portrait of a totalitarian Britain.
0:33:49 > 0:33:51A vision of what could happen right here,
0:33:51 > 0:33:54in the heart of Britain's green and pleasant land.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57As a result, many readers assumed
0:33:57 > 0:34:01that Orwell's real target lay closer to home.
0:34:01 > 0:34:04So in June 1949, six months before he died,
0:34:04 > 0:34:08Orwell issued a statement through his publisher.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12"My recent novel..." he said, "..is not intended as an attack on socialism.
0:34:12 > 0:34:14"Labour's older men..." he thought,
0:34:14 > 0:34:18"..were safe, but the younger generation is suspect
0:34:18 > 0:34:21"and the seeds of totalitarian thought
0:34:21 > 0:34:23"are probably widespread among them."
0:34:23 > 0:34:26For Orwell, that made it all the more urgent
0:34:26 > 0:34:29that Labour tackle what he called
0:34:29 > 0:34:31the hard problems of post-war Britain.
0:34:31 > 0:34:33We got one little bit of steak on Friday
0:34:33 > 0:34:36and blimey, we've had it for the rest of the week then.
0:34:36 > 0:34:38What does a man live on?
0:34:38 > 0:34:4011 pence of meat? Disgusting!
0:34:41 > 0:34:44This was an age of grim austerity.
0:34:44 > 0:34:48Despite the end of the war, rationing was tighter than ever.
0:34:50 > 0:34:53No cigarettes. No matches. Not today.
0:34:53 > 0:34:55I'm afraid not. No eggs. No!
0:34:55 > 0:34:59# Don't know why
0:34:59 > 0:35:02# There's no sun up in the sky
0:35:02 > 0:35:06# Stormy weather. #
0:35:06 > 0:35:08Ordinary life was bleak and pinched.
0:35:08 > 0:35:12The perfect breeding ground, some feared, for communism.
0:35:14 > 0:35:17# Can't go on
0:35:17 > 0:35:20# Everything I had is gone... #
0:35:20 > 0:35:24In the aftermath of the Second World War, Clement Attlee's Labour Party
0:35:24 > 0:35:27had won a stunning landslide victory.
0:35:27 > 0:35:30Now, Attlee himself was an eminently practical man.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33"People..." he once said, "..are converted more
0:35:33 > 0:35:35"by what they see socialists are
0:35:35 > 0:35:38"than by what they hear them say."
0:35:38 > 0:35:41And he was determined to deliver not just better schools
0:35:41 > 0:35:44and more jobs and rising living standards,
0:35:44 > 0:35:48but what he called security for all against a rainy day.
0:35:48 > 0:35:51What we know as the Welfare State.
0:35:51 > 0:35:54You'll be getting a booklet like this.
0:35:54 > 0:35:56Although it's quite small, it affects one and all.
0:35:56 > 0:35:58Every Master and Mrs and Miss.
0:35:58 > 0:36:02Put it safely away. You may need it one day.
0:36:02 > 0:36:06Then you can read what to do. Right? Ha-Ha! You lucky people!
0:36:07 > 0:36:10As Attlee saw it, the Welfare State
0:36:10 > 0:36:14would be a crucial weapon in the war against international extremism.
0:36:14 > 0:36:16Give people a safety net.
0:36:16 > 0:36:17Give them faith in the system
0:36:17 > 0:36:20and there'll be no need for them to look elsewhere.
0:36:20 > 0:36:24"Communists find opportunity..." Attlee said in 1950,
0:36:24 > 0:36:26"..wherever poverty prevails.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30"We are trying to remove such conditions."
0:36:30 > 0:36:34Attlee confronted one of the greatest challenges
0:36:34 > 0:36:36any British government has ever faced.
0:36:36 > 0:36:40How to harness the power of democratic capitalism
0:36:40 > 0:36:43to rebuild a shattered society.
0:36:43 > 0:36:47# Blue skies smiling at me... #
0:36:47 > 0:36:48And for millions of people,
0:36:48 > 0:36:52his Welfare State offered a glimpse of a better world.
0:36:55 > 0:36:59By 1950, new homes for 9,000 people
0:36:59 > 0:37:04were being built on a bomb-damaged area in east London.
0:37:04 > 0:37:07A couple of royal labourers even lent a hand.
0:37:09 > 0:37:14This building site was effectively a front in the Cold War.
0:37:14 > 0:37:17A showcase for Western capitalism.
0:37:18 > 0:37:20The new Lansbury neighbourhood,
0:37:20 > 0:37:22which will be a complete little town when ready,
0:37:22 > 0:37:25welcomes the first tenant, Mr Albert Snoddy,
0:37:25 > 0:37:27to its first completed block of flats.
0:37:31 > 0:37:33With developments like the Lansbury estate
0:37:33 > 0:37:36came a renewed sense of optimism.
0:37:39 > 0:37:42And all the time, the Government's public information films
0:37:42 > 0:37:46tried to explain to people what they could now expect
0:37:46 > 0:37:48from Britain's Welfare State.
0:37:48 > 0:37:50How old are you?
0:37:50 > 0:37:52If you're as old as him,
0:37:52 > 0:37:55you'll have found a big increase in your old-age pension.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58Now 26 shillings for a single person, 42 shillings for a married couple.
0:37:58 > 0:38:01The scheme is comprehensive.
0:38:01 > 0:38:03It's not only to help you when you're ill,
0:38:03 > 0:38:06but to help keep you when you're well.
0:38:06 > 0:38:07And, of course,
0:38:07 > 0:38:10the younger generation will stand to gain the biggest benefits of all.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14These reforms weren't just meeting real human needs,
0:38:14 > 0:38:19they were sending a very clear message - you don't need communism.
0:38:19 > 0:38:23Because with social democracy, you get all of the benefits
0:38:23 > 0:38:24and none of the terror.
0:38:26 > 0:38:29CANNON BOOMS
0:38:29 > 0:38:30In the summer of 1950,
0:38:30 > 0:38:36the battle of ideas escalated into a genuine battleground.
0:38:38 > 0:38:42When communist North Korea invaded its southern neighbour,
0:38:42 > 0:38:46British troops were sent to hold the line against the red menace.
0:38:50 > 0:38:54And in a tight-lipped radio address to the nation,
0:38:54 > 0:38:57Attlee warned that the fighting in Korea
0:38:57 > 0:39:00could have devastating consequences at home.
0:39:00 > 0:39:04ON RADIO: The fire that's been started in distant Korea.
0:39:04 > 0:39:05may burn down your house.
0:39:06 > 0:39:12I would ask you all to be on your guard against the enemy within.
0:39:12 > 0:39:16There are those who would stop at nothing to injure our economy
0:39:16 > 0:39:18and our defence.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23The price of liberty is still eternal vigilance.
0:39:25 > 0:39:27Fire!
0:39:27 > 0:39:29BOOM
0:39:35 > 0:39:37Exchange? Hello, exchange?
0:39:38 > 0:39:40Exchange...?
0:39:40 > 0:39:44Every fire engine and ambulance you can get to pier 47.
0:39:44 > 0:39:49The battle lines in the Cold War were now unmistakably drawn.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52Western democracy versus Soviet communism.
0:39:52 > 0:39:58It seemed clear cut - you were either one of us or one of them.
0:39:58 > 0:40:03Beneath the surface, seditious forces were plotting our downfall.
0:40:03 > 0:40:08In High Treason, British film-goers saw a shadowy network planning
0:40:08 > 0:40:13a sabotage campaign, in preparation for an Eastern European-style coup.
0:40:14 > 0:40:17Many of the plotters in High Treason are precisely
0:40:17 > 0:40:21the kind of people you'd expect - foreigners, pacifists,
0:40:21 > 0:40:23intellectuals, schoolteachers -
0:40:23 > 0:40:26all the traditional villains of the British imagination.
0:40:26 > 0:40:31But some members of their sinister little cell seem perfectly normal.
0:40:31 > 0:40:35There are local government officers, civil servants, even shopkeepers.
0:40:35 > 0:40:38The hidden menace at the heart of the high street.
0:40:41 > 0:40:44If further action in Europe is to take place,
0:40:44 > 0:40:46plan X23 has got to be a success.
0:40:46 > 0:40:48We intend to destroy the eight great power producing
0:40:48 > 0:40:50centres in this country.
0:40:50 > 0:40:52Three of them are in London,
0:40:52 > 0:40:55of which Battersea here is our own particular concern.
0:40:55 > 0:40:59When High Treason went on general release in 1952,
0:40:59 > 0:41:02the critics hailed it as a tense and topical thriller.
0:41:02 > 0:41:04But it was by no means the only British picture to be
0:41:04 > 0:41:07steeped in the anxieties of the Cold War.
0:41:08 > 0:41:10May I have the pleasure?
0:41:11 > 0:41:14Melinda, I'd like you to meet... Yes, thank you.
0:41:14 > 0:41:15..Major Curragh.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18Major Curragh, I don't believe you know Miss Greyton.
0:41:18 > 0:41:20'As early as 1949,
0:41:20 > 0:41:24'one 17-year-old starlet got her first big adult role'
0:41:24 > 0:41:27in a film called Conspirator, in which she played the gullible
0:41:27 > 0:41:32young bride of a British officer, who turns out to be a Soviet agent.
0:41:33 > 0:41:35I'm glad you found out about this.
0:41:36 > 0:41:39I've been too alone - you don't know how alone.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42You don't know what it is to keep a constant watch over yourself because of a belief.
0:41:42 > 0:41:45You're a traitor!
0:41:45 > 0:41:46You're a traitor and a spy.
0:41:46 > 0:41:48Those are just unpleasant words.
0:41:48 > 0:41:52I'm a loyal supporter of the greatest social experiment in the world.
0:41:52 > 0:41:54What Conspirator and High Treason have in common
0:41:54 > 0:41:59is the idea of communism as a secretive, insidious threat.
0:41:59 > 0:42:03A kind of alien virus, seeping into British life
0:42:03 > 0:42:05and polluting everything it touches.
0:42:05 > 0:42:08And that view was even more pronounced across the Atlantic,
0:42:08 > 0:42:11where many Americans already believed that some of the most
0:42:11 > 0:42:15famous men in the world had fallen victim to the Marxist plague.
0:42:15 > 0:42:18# When the moon hits your eye
0:42:18 > 0:42:25# Like a big pizza pie, that's amore
0:42:25 > 0:42:27# When the world seems to shine
0:42:27 > 0:42:31# Like you've had too much wine, that's amore... #
0:42:31 > 0:42:36September, 1952, and on board the Queen Elizabeth is
0:42:36 > 0:42:40one of the most famous men in the world.
0:42:40 > 0:42:42For the first time in more than 20 years,
0:42:42 > 0:42:45Charlie Chaplin is heading back to Britain.
0:42:48 > 0:42:51Chaplin was enjoying a typically convivial lunch
0:42:51 > 0:42:53when one of has friends handed him a note.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56It was a telegram, and as Chaplin read it,
0:42:56 > 0:42:59the colour drained from his face.
0:42:59 > 0:43:00In Washington DC,
0:43:00 > 0:43:03the Attorney General had just announced that Charlie Chaplin
0:43:03 > 0:43:06was barred from returning to American shores -
0:43:06 > 0:43:10unless he appeared before an immigration board of enquiry
0:43:10 > 0:43:16to answer charges of a political nature and/or moral turpitude.
0:43:16 > 0:43:19Chaplin's now en route to England. He is a British subject.
0:43:19 > 0:43:21Although he lived here for years and grew rich,
0:43:21 > 0:43:23he never became a citizen.
0:43:28 > 0:43:31As one of the greatest performers in the world,
0:43:31 > 0:43:35Chaplin had the ultimate rags-to-riches story.
0:43:35 > 0:43:37From grinding poverty in a London workhouse,
0:43:37 > 0:43:40to fame and fortune in the Hollywood sunshine,
0:43:40 > 0:43:44Chaplin seemed the very embodiment of the American dream.
0:43:45 > 0:43:47But for the American authorities,
0:43:47 > 0:43:51he had dangerously unconventional views.
0:43:51 > 0:43:53And this was no time to be a non-conformist.
0:43:55 > 0:43:59Are you a member of the Communist Party? Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
0:43:59 > 0:44:00Are you a member of the Communist Party?
0:44:00 > 0:44:05# Children, have you ever met the Bogeyman before? #
0:44:05 > 0:44:10Since the late 1930s, the House Un-American Activities Committee,
0:44:10 > 0:44:14or HUAC, had been investigating allegations of communist subversion.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19But in the starkly polarized climate of the Cold War,
0:44:19 > 0:44:24American suspicion and paranoia had reached extraordinary heights.
0:44:24 > 0:44:32They are lying, dirty, shrewd, Godless, murderous,
0:44:32 > 0:44:38determined and it is not an American political party like any other.
0:44:38 > 0:44:42It's an international criminal conspiracy.
0:44:45 > 0:44:47'Nobody was above suspicion.
0:44:47 > 0:44:53'And by 1947, HUAC's attentions had moved to Hollywood.'
0:44:53 > 0:44:57My name is Gary Cooper. I live in Los Angeles, California.
0:44:57 > 0:45:03Ronald Reagan, 9137 Cordell Drive, Los Angeles 46.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08'The committee's members had become convinced that Hollywood -
0:45:08 > 0:45:13the great American dream factory - had become a hotbed of communism.
0:45:13 > 0:45:14The reds, they thought,
0:45:14 > 0:45:19were brainwashing the masses through the silver screen.
0:45:19 > 0:45:22But HUAC's answer - show trials and blacklists,
0:45:22 > 0:45:25looked like something from Orwell's 1984.
0:45:26 > 0:45:31Chaplin was appalled by the very idea of a committee to investigate
0:45:31 > 0:45:33un-American activities.
0:45:33 > 0:45:37"It was a dishonest phrase to begin with," he said later,
0:45:37 > 0:45:41"Elastic enough to wrap around the throat and strangle the voice
0:45:41 > 0:45:46"of any American citizen whose honest opinion is a minority one."
0:45:46 > 0:45:49All his life, Chaplin had been the great champion of the underdog,
0:45:49 > 0:45:53but now he found himself part of a left wing,
0:45:53 > 0:45:55unorthodox and vulnerable minority.
0:45:57 > 0:46:01For decades there had been rumours that Chaplin was a communist.
0:46:01 > 0:46:05He first came to the attention of the FBI in 1922.
0:46:05 > 0:46:11And in 1941, an FBI report described Chaplin's closing speech in his film
0:46:11 > 0:46:17The Great Dictator, as nothing more than subtle communist propaganda.
0:46:17 > 0:46:20You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful,
0:46:20 > 0:46:23to make this life a wonderful adventure.
0:46:23 > 0:46:28In the name of democracy, let us use that power, let us all unite!
0:46:28 > 0:46:32# You are my sunshine, my only sunshine... #
0:46:34 > 0:46:39The FBI collected a staggering 2,000 files on Chaplin,
0:46:39 > 0:46:41some of which hint at what he really thought.
0:46:44 > 0:46:48# Please, don't take my sunshine away... #
0:46:48 > 0:46:50So, was Charlie Chaplin a communist?
0:46:50 > 0:46:52Well, I'm not so sure.
0:46:52 > 0:46:54In the early 1940s he did say he thought there was
0:46:54 > 0:46:56a lot of good in communism.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59But when he was interviewed by immigration officials in 1948,
0:46:59 > 0:47:01he gave a slightly more qualified answer.
0:47:01 > 0:47:04"I'm a liberal..." he said, "..and I'm interested in peace,
0:47:04 > 0:47:08"but by no means am I interested in communism."
0:47:08 > 0:47:10What about, was he a communist sympathiser?
0:47:10 > 0:47:13"During the war, everybody was a communist sympathiser.
0:47:13 > 0:47:16"By that I mean the communists of Russia.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19"I naturally felt..." and he's talking about the war again,
0:47:19 > 0:47:21"I naturally felt they put up a very good cause.
0:47:21 > 0:47:24"I've always felt grateful because they helped us get ready
0:47:24 > 0:47:27"and to prepare our own way of life."
0:47:27 > 0:47:30The tragedy for Chaplin, is that those words alone,
0:47:30 > 0:47:32for many people, were enough to damn him.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40As the Queen Elizabeth approached Southampton in 1952,
0:47:40 > 0:47:44Chaplin was still in shock at the news of his American ban.
0:47:48 > 0:47:52But in London, the crowds greeted him as a returning hero.
0:47:52 > 0:47:57In the end, he decided not to fight the ban, but to stay in Europe.
0:47:57 > 0:48:01He settled quietly in Switzerland and for the next five years,
0:48:01 > 0:48:04he didn't make a single film.
0:48:05 > 0:48:09When he did return to the cinema, it was with a British picture,
0:48:09 > 0:48:13that mocks the excesses of the red scares.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18The committee cites this witness for contempt of Congress!
0:48:18 > 0:48:20That's very unsporting-like on your part.
0:48:22 > 0:48:23SCREAMING
0:48:34 > 0:48:37Charlie Chaplin's fame couldn't protect him
0:48:37 > 0:48:39from the creeping paranoia of the Cold War.
0:48:41 > 0:48:46This climate of suspicion threw up new and disturbing moral dilemmas.
0:48:46 > 0:48:50What and whom would we sacrifice to protect democracy?
0:48:50 > 0:48:54And just how far would we go just to preserve our own liberties?
0:48:56 > 0:49:00But preserving our own liberties meant confronting the biggest
0:49:00 > 0:49:05moral dilemma of the modern age - to bomb, or not to bomb?
0:49:17 > 0:49:22June 1942, the aircraft carrier HMS Campania set sail from this
0:49:22 > 0:49:27jetty, to accompany a ship called HMS Plym for thousands of miles
0:49:27 > 0:49:29across the world.
0:49:29 > 0:49:33For the men on board, this would be a voyage like no other.
0:49:33 > 0:49:35As one of Britain's military chiefs put it,
0:49:35 > 0:49:40"Any right-minded man could look forward to a grand experience,
0:49:40 > 0:49:42"combined with all the fun of a picnic."
0:49:44 > 0:49:46BOOM
0:50:09 > 0:50:13So why had Britain decided to build its own nuclear weapons?
0:50:13 > 0:50:16Well, on the surface, it looks a purely defensive decision -
0:50:16 > 0:50:21the bomb as the ultimate safeguard against Soviet attack.
0:50:21 > 0:50:23I think there was rather more to it than that.
0:50:23 > 0:50:26This wasn't just a question of keeping the Russians at bay,
0:50:26 > 0:50:29it was also a question of Britain's position in the world and,
0:50:29 > 0:50:33once again, of our relationship with the Americans.
0:50:34 > 0:50:38# You never know how much I loved you... #
0:50:38 > 0:50:41The Americans had had the bomb since 1945.
0:50:41 > 0:50:47And if we wanted them to take us seriously, we'd have to go nuclear.
0:50:47 > 0:50:50# You give me fever... #
0:50:50 > 0:50:53Not all of Attlee's ministers were convinced that we needed our own
0:50:53 > 0:50:55atomic bomb.
0:50:55 > 0:51:00And at a crucial meeting in 1946, they lined up to question the costs.
0:51:00 > 0:51:04But then, Attlee's foreign secretary Ernest Bevin burst in late.
0:51:04 > 0:51:09"We've got to have this thing over here, whatever it costs," he said.
0:51:09 > 0:51:12"And we've got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it."
0:51:14 > 0:51:16BOOM
0:51:16 > 0:51:19In an evermore insecure, frightening world,
0:51:19 > 0:51:24the bomb looked like Britain's ticket to a place at the top table.
0:51:27 > 0:51:30When the news of the British bomb got back home,
0:51:30 > 0:51:33many people were absolutely delighted.
0:51:33 > 0:51:37"Today..." said the Daily Mirror, "..Britain is Great Britain again."
0:51:37 > 0:51:40And it wasn't just Fleet Street's finest who thought so.
0:51:40 > 0:51:44A few days later, one Mr Robins of Edmonton wrote into the paper
0:51:44 > 0:51:47to say that Britain's bomb was a wonderful thing.
0:51:47 > 0:51:49"It has exploded at last..."
0:51:49 > 0:51:54he said, "..the inferiority complex from which we were suffering."
0:51:54 > 0:51:56You see, for most ordinary people,
0:51:56 > 0:52:00the British bomb was all about our national virility.
0:52:00 > 0:52:04It was a kind of atomic Viagra, restoring our political manhood,
0:52:04 > 0:52:07and it sent a very clear message to the rest of the world -
0:52:07 > 0:52:12to Moscow and to Washington - don't mess with Britain.
0:52:12 > 0:52:18# Don't they know, it's the end of the world? #
0:52:19 > 0:52:22At a time of unprecedented austerity,
0:52:22 > 0:52:25nuclear weapons were extraordinarily expensive.
0:52:28 > 0:52:32When Churchill returned to power in 1951, he discovered that
0:52:32 > 0:52:38Attlee had secretly spent ?100 million on atomic hardware.
0:52:39 > 0:52:42To its critics, the real problem with Britain's bomb
0:52:42 > 0:52:46wasn't that it was expensive, it was that it was wrong.
0:52:46 > 0:52:51Even Churchill himself, in his last great Commons speech in 1955,
0:52:51 > 0:52:54acknowledged the moral dilemmas of the nuclear age.
0:52:56 > 0:53:00"By a process of sublime irony..." he said, "..we have reached
0:53:00 > 0:53:05"a stage where safety will be the sturdy child of terror,
0:53:05 > 0:53:09"and survival, the twin brother of annihilation."
0:53:12 > 0:53:15By the mid-'50s, Britain was promising its children longer
0:53:15 > 0:53:18and healthier lives than ever.
0:53:18 > 0:53:20And yet, it was also preparing for Armageddon.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30Here was the central paradox of Cold War Britain.
0:53:30 > 0:53:32High hopes of a better future,
0:53:32 > 0:53:36beside a terrible dread that we might all be doomed anyway.
0:53:38 > 0:53:43But while the world still turned, one thing seemed certain -
0:53:43 > 0:53:46the bomb had put Britain back in the top rank
0:53:46 > 0:53:48of the world's great powers.
0:53:53 > 0:53:58# Wonderful, it's marvellous
0:53:58 > 0:54:03# You should care for me... #
0:54:03 > 0:54:08October 1956, and here outside Covent Garden's Royal Opera House,
0:54:08 > 0:54:11people had been queuing for three days
0:54:11 > 0:54:13for the hottest tickets in town.
0:54:15 > 0:54:18It's amazing. We've been doing this for about ten years at Covent Gardens,
0:54:18 > 0:54:20so we're quite used to it.
0:54:20 > 0:54:22But we've never had a three-day queue.
0:54:22 > 0:54:26For London's culture vultures, this was an evening not to be missed.
0:54:26 > 0:54:30A rare British appearance by the Bolshoi Ballet.
0:54:30 > 0:54:34Well, I think it's the only way of getting to see the Russians.
0:54:34 > 0:54:38As I've said before, if they're going to come all the way from Moscow,
0:54:38 > 0:54:40the least I can do is make an effort to see them.
0:54:40 > 0:54:42I should never like to go there to do it.
0:54:44 > 0:54:47The performance even had the royal seal of approval.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54The Bolshoi was Russian culture at its most glorious -
0:54:54 > 0:54:56glittering and exotic.
0:54:56 > 0:55:00It was also a shiny example of Soviet soft power -
0:55:00 > 0:55:02art in the service of communism.
0:55:04 > 0:55:08But even as the dancers were gliding across the London stage,
0:55:08 > 0:55:11another European capital was experiencing another
0:55:11 > 0:55:13different kind of Russian visit.
0:55:18 > 0:55:19DRAMATIC CLASSICAL MUSIC
0:55:21 > 0:55:24The night the Bolshoi captivated London has
0:55:24 > 0:55:28gone down in history as Bloody Thursday.
0:55:28 > 0:55:29Because hundreds of miles
0:55:29 > 0:55:34away on the Great Hungarian Plain, Soviet tanks were rumbling
0:55:34 > 0:55:40towards Budapest in a raw display of old-fashioned hard power.
0:55:44 > 0:55:47In 1956 the people of Hungary had risen
0:55:47 > 0:55:50up against their communist masters.
0:55:50 > 0:55:54The Kremlin promptly sent in the tanks, and even as the Bolshoi
0:55:54 > 0:55:58lit up London, the Red Army opened fire on the Budapest crowds.
0:56:03 > 0:56:05NEWSREEL: Hungarians began a heroic bid for freedom with
0:56:05 > 0:56:09a fight for life against red oppression.
0:56:09 > 0:56:10By the end of the uprising,
0:56:10 > 0:56:14thousands of Hungarians had lost their lives.
0:56:14 > 0:56:18Never had there been a more brutal or a more spectacular
0:56:18 > 0:56:23demonstration of the Soviet Union's determination to crush all
0:56:23 > 0:56:26dissent behind the Iron Curtain.
0:56:26 > 0:56:29But here in London, Hungary wasn't even the first
0:56:29 > 0:56:33item on the agenda for Sir Anthony Eden's Conservative government.
0:56:33 > 0:56:35Because, at the every moment the Red Army was
0:56:35 > 0:56:39rumbling into Budapest, British tanks were taking
0:56:39 > 0:56:42part in an equally controversial military adventure.
0:56:42 > 0:56:48# Please, please, please, please... #
0:56:48 > 0:56:51Months before, the Egyptian Government had nationalised
0:56:51 > 0:56:52the Suez Canal -
0:56:52 > 0:56:57long thought vital to Britain's imperial interests.
0:56:57 > 0:57:00Now, Eden was trying to snatch it back.
0:57:02 > 0:57:06But his timing couldn't have been worse.
0:57:06 > 0:57:11As the crises of Suez and Hungary unfolded side-by-side,
0:57:11 > 0:57:15the limits of British power were painfully exposed.
0:57:17 > 0:57:21In Hungary, The Kremlin ignored the West's hand-wringing protests
0:57:21 > 0:57:25and mercilessly throttled a popular revolution.
0:57:25 > 0:57:29But at Suez, the Americans refused to back our little show
0:57:29 > 0:57:34of military strength and Britain was forced into a red-faced withdrawal.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41For the British people, the events of 1956 were a humiliating
0:57:41 > 0:57:46lesson in the harsh new realities of the Cold War world.
0:57:51 > 0:57:55Out of the ashes of the Second World War, Britain found itself in
0:57:55 > 0:57:57a new and deadly global struggle.
0:57:59 > 0:58:03We dreamed that our children would inhabit a better world.
0:58:03 > 0:58:06Richer, cleaner and safer than ever.
0:58:06 > 0:58:10But Cold War Britain was a land of nightmares.
0:58:10 > 0:58:12And in the future,
0:58:12 > 0:58:15we would live every day on the brink of apocalypse.
0:58:15 > 0:58:18BOOM
0:58:25 > 0:58:27Next time...
0:58:27 > 0:58:31Britain gets more prosperous, the world gets more dangerous
0:58:31 > 0:58:35and the Cold War becomes a morally murky business.
0:58:39 > 0:58:42Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd