0:00:05 > 0:00:08# You go to my head
0:00:09 > 0:00:13# And you linger like a haunted refrain
0:00:15 > 0:00:19# And I find you spinning round in my brain...
0:00:19 > 0:00:21Just over 20 years ago,
0:00:21 > 0:00:25Britain came to the end of one of our longest wars in our history.
0:00:27 > 0:00:29# You go to my head...
0:00:31 > 0:00:34It was a war that made our Britain.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43This is Cold War Britain.
0:00:48 > 0:00:50In the last years of the Cold War,
0:00:50 > 0:00:53the world seemed a dark and dangerous place.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57The West rediscovered its crusading spirit.
0:00:59 > 0:01:01The East collapsed into crisis
0:01:01 > 0:01:06and British culture was inspired by terror and freedom.
0:01:09 > 0:01:13But there was more to the Cold War than shadows and secrets.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18It was a war in which we all played a part.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23A war between two very different visions of the future.
0:01:24 > 0:01:28A war of material dreams and atomic nightmares.
0:01:55 > 0:02:00This was once the front line of the war against Communism.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08It was here that the battle of ideas raged.
0:02:11 > 0:02:16And it was here that the West made its last decisive stand
0:02:16 > 0:02:18against the Soviet Empire.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32Welcome to Brent Cross.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35# Good morning world, it's a brand new day
0:02:37 > 0:02:39"Brent Cross, this temple of consumerism,
0:02:39 > 0:02:43may well determine the future style of British shopping habits in years to come."
0:02:43 > 0:02:47When this opened in north London in 1976,
0:02:47 > 0:02:50it was the biggest, the most modern
0:02:50 > 0:02:53and the most exciting shopping centre in the country.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57But it also represented a new front in the Cold War
0:02:57 > 0:03:02because at its heart the struggle between East and West was an ideological competition,
0:03:02 > 0:03:05a contest to see who could give their people
0:03:05 > 0:03:09the economic security and the creature comforts they wanted.
0:03:13 > 0:03:16I think it's one of the best precincts or shopping centres I've been in.
0:03:18 > 0:03:19- MAN:- But it cost a lot of money.
0:03:19 > 0:03:22Certainly must have cost a lot of money but it's well worth it.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26With a £25 million price tag,
0:03:26 > 0:03:31Brent Cross was Britain's first American-style shopping mall
0:03:31 > 0:03:34and we loved it.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37Very good. I've just been in Marks, it's very, very nice
0:03:37 > 0:03:40and it will save us all the journey up the West End.
0:03:41 > 0:03:43You know you can judge the state of a country
0:03:43 > 0:03:46by what you can or can't buy on its shelves
0:03:46 > 0:03:50and in 1976, Britain's shelves were overflowing.
0:03:50 > 0:03:52# All right
0:03:54 > 0:03:57# Different labels and the different brands
0:03:58 > 0:04:00# Reaching across the land
0:04:00 > 0:04:02# Different colours in the different states
0:04:03 > 0:04:07From cassette recorders and calculators to hot pants and high heels,
0:04:07 > 0:04:11the Western economy was now delivering the kind of things
0:04:11 > 0:04:13that most ordinary Russians could barely dream about.
0:04:14 > 0:04:18By the late 1970s, the underlying pattern was clear.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22Capitalism simply gave you more.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25# Well, I walked to the mall and I walked up and down
0:04:25 > 0:04:28# I got tired so I got sat down
0:04:36 > 0:04:39Across the iron curtain, things were very different.
0:04:39 > 0:04:45By the late 1970s, Communist utopianism had given way to the grim reality
0:04:45 > 0:04:50of food shortages, empty shelves and stagnant living standards.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54In the Soviet Union, queuing not consumerism
0:04:54 > 0:04:56had become the national pastime.
0:04:59 > 0:05:01There's an old Soviet joke.
0:05:01 > 0:05:03A man goes off to buy a car,
0:05:03 > 0:05:06he hands over his money and he fills in a form
0:05:06 > 0:05:09and he fills in another form and he fills in another form
0:05:09 > 0:05:12and at last the dealer says to him,
0:05:12 > 0:05:15"It's yours, come back in ten years to pick it up,"
0:05:15 > 0:05:18and the man says, "OK, morning or afternoon?"
0:05:18 > 0:05:21"It's ten years away," says the dealer, "what do you care?"
0:05:21 > 0:05:25And the man says, "Well, I've got the plumber coming in the morning."
0:05:26 > 0:05:28Jokes like this captured a bleak reality.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34The Soviet economy could no longer compete with Western capitalism.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38For 30 years after the Second World War,
0:05:38 > 0:05:42Soviet planners had dreamed of overtaking the West
0:05:42 > 0:05:47but by 1976 they were falling steadily behind
0:05:47 > 0:05:49and they couldn't cover it up any longer.
0:05:51 > 0:05:57One of the chief causes was on parade every May, here in Red Square.
0:06:00 > 0:06:02The Kremlin's enormous military spending
0:06:02 > 0:06:05was bankrupting their country.
0:06:05 > 0:06:10Proportionately, they spent three times as much as the Americans
0:06:10 > 0:06:12and four times as much as Britain.
0:06:13 > 0:06:15It was simply unsustainable
0:06:15 > 0:06:19and in the dying days of the 1970s,
0:06:19 > 0:06:23our different priorities were thrown into stark relief.
0:06:25 > 0:06:27# God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
0:06:29 > 0:06:34"Entertainment for all the family, this Christmas on BBC One."
0:06:34 > 0:06:39"Snow Time Special features our host of stars against a spectacular Alpine setting."
0:06:39 > 0:06:42On Christmas Day 1979,
0:06:42 > 0:06:45while millions of Britons were opening their presents,
0:06:45 > 0:06:47the Red Army was on the move.
0:06:49 > 0:06:51"The number of Soviet troops in Afghanistan
0:06:51 > 0:06:53has risen over the past few days
0:06:53 > 0:06:55to about six and a half thousand."
0:06:56 > 0:06:59While we slept off our turkey,
0:06:59 > 0:07:01the Soviet Union went to war,
0:07:01 > 0:07:07sending tanks and troops thundering into their southern neighbour, Afghanistan.
0:07:09 > 0:07:15The Kremlin claimed they were supporting a government under attack from tribal insurgents
0:07:15 > 0:07:17but the West was horrified.
0:07:20 > 0:07:26Afghanistan came to symbolise a dramatic decline in East-West relations.
0:07:27 > 0:07:30The 1970s had been the era of detente,
0:07:30 > 0:07:35when the nuclear super powers talked of peaceful co-existence.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40But now on the cusp of a new decade, the Cold War was back.
0:07:41 > 0:07:46Could Afghanistan even be the trigger for a Third World War?
0:07:48 > 0:07:52To the leaders of the West, it seemed an unpardonable act of Communist aggression.
0:07:52 > 0:07:56It was time, they thought, to stand up to the Kremlin
0:07:56 > 0:08:01and the front line, in this new confrontation, was down there.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07The 1980 Olympics would be the battleground.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14And in Moscow's Olympic stadium, before the eyes of the world,
0:08:14 > 0:08:19sport and politics would collide as never before.
0:08:22 > 0:08:24For millions of British families,
0:08:24 > 0:08:29the most compelling clash on the world stage wasn't East versus West,
0:08:29 > 0:08:31it was a purely domestic affair,
0:08:31 > 0:08:34the biggest rivalry in world sport.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37They were both British, they were both middle distance runners
0:08:37 > 0:08:42and in 1980, this was their battlefield.
0:08:46 > 0:08:50They were, of course, Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53They were from different backgrounds and had different styles.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57They were compared to the Beatles and the Stones.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00This was a golden era for British athletics.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04Coe was the man you'd want your daughter to marry,
0:09:04 > 0:09:08Ovett the man you'd want on your side in a fight.
0:09:10 > 0:09:12At middle distance running, they were unequalled.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15They broke world records for fun.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18They held four between them and took it in turns to break each other's
0:09:18 > 0:09:23but before the Moscow Olympics, they'd only gone head to head once
0:09:23 > 0:09:25in international competition.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28This was the race everyone wanted to see.
0:09:29 > 0:09:31Steve is a very talented athlete.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35No, there isn't a great deal more to say, is there?
0:09:36 > 0:09:38And here in Moscow's Olympic stadium,
0:09:38 > 0:09:41in front of 100,000 spectators,
0:09:41 > 0:09:46they were planning to go head to head, not once but twice.
0:09:48 > 0:09:49For most British viewers,
0:09:49 > 0:09:51these weren't the Moscow Olympics,
0:09:51 > 0:09:54they were the Coe-Ovett Olympics.
0:09:54 > 0:09:56It was a duel that divided the nation,
0:09:56 > 0:09:59and when they went head to head in this stadium,
0:09:59 > 0:10:03almost 20 million people were watching back home.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06This was one of history's greatest sporting showdowns
0:10:06 > 0:10:09and yet it very nearly never happened.
0:10:09 > 0:10:12I have notified the Olympic Committee
0:10:12 > 0:10:15that with Soviet invading forces in Afghanistan
0:10:15 > 0:10:18neither the American people nor I
0:10:18 > 0:10:21will support sending an Olympic team to Moscow.
0:10:22 > 0:10:24When the Americans pulled out,
0:10:24 > 0:10:29Margaret Thatcher was adamant our athletes must do the same.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32One way to bring home to the Russian people
0:10:32 > 0:10:37the enormity of what has happened by their government invading Afghanistan
0:10:37 > 0:10:39is to boycott the Olympic Games
0:10:39 > 0:10:42and that could in fact bring it home to the Russian people
0:10:42 > 0:10:44more forcefully than anything else.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48Just seven months into her job as prime minister,
0:10:48 > 0:10:51she saw this as her first opportunity
0:10:51 > 0:10:55to flex her muscles against the Soviet menace.
0:10:57 > 0:10:59But she had a fight on her hands.
0:10:59 > 0:11:04My attitude is very simple, that sport should not be the first line in foreign policy.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07I think it's dangerous if it does become that.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11There's almost been a vendetta where the athletes have been singled out.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14It seems very strange that if things are that serious
0:11:14 > 0:11:18that the government is not trying to put pressure on other parts of society.
0:11:18 > 0:11:23Do you personally find the invasion of Afghanistan morally repugnant?
0:11:23 > 0:11:25I don't answer that question.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27Not even as a citizen?
0:11:27 > 0:11:31I'm speaking as chairman of the British Olympic Association, not as a citizen.
0:11:31 > 0:11:33I'm sure everyone would love to know.
0:11:33 > 0:11:35- I'm sure they would. - Your opinion as a citizen.
0:11:35 > 0:11:38- I'm sure they would. - Why won't you reveal it?
0:11:38 > 0:11:40Because I'm speaking as chairman.
0:11:40 > 0:11:43You're not speaking to me as Denis Follows.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47You're speaking to me as chairman of the British Olympic Association or you wouldn't be here.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50The Olympic boycott issue aroused fierce passions
0:11:50 > 0:11:52up and down the country.
0:11:52 > 0:11:55This is a letter from a member of the public to Sir Denis Follows.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59"Why don't you belt up, you old pompous fool," it begins.
0:11:59 > 0:12:04"You and the others must be seniley demented if you think that politics
0:12:04 > 0:12:07must not be allowed to interfere with sports."
0:12:07 > 0:12:09Satisfyingly robust.
0:12:09 > 0:12:12But Britain's athletes were no less robust.
0:12:12 > 0:12:15"Britain's Olympic hopefuls defy Mrs Thatcher.
0:12:15 > 0:12:19Most say they will accept an invitation to go to the Moscow Games."
0:12:19 > 0:12:23Mrs Thatcher has again intervened to stop British athletes going to Moscow.
0:12:24 > 0:12:25GUNFIRE
0:12:28 > 0:12:30Mrs Thatcher wasn't finished yet.
0:12:30 > 0:12:32She hated to think of the Kremlin
0:12:32 > 0:12:37using our sporting superstars as a propaganda coup,
0:12:38 > 0:12:41so she gave one of her ministers a new responsibility.
0:12:41 > 0:12:44To frustrate the Olympic Games.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47We're trying in lots of ways to get the Russians out of Afghanistan
0:12:47 > 0:12:49where they have no right to be.
0:12:51 > 0:12:56And one of his efforts took place in a minister's office, behind closed doors.
0:12:57 > 0:13:03So who was it that Douglas Hurd was meeting in secret here at the Foreign Office?
0:13:03 > 0:13:05Was it perhaps a top Olympic official,
0:13:05 > 0:13:07the secretary general of the United Nations, maybe?
0:13:07 > 0:13:11Perhaps even the Soviet ambassador himself?
0:13:12 > 0:13:14Well, actually, it was Seb Coe's dad,
0:13:14 > 0:13:18the thinking being that Peter Coe might be able to put pressure on his son,
0:13:18 > 0:13:20the golden boy of British athletics,
0:13:20 > 0:13:23to pull out of the Moscow Games.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27Unfortunately, though, the meeting didn't quite go according to plan.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38This is Douglas Hurd's memo of that momentous meeting.
0:13:38 > 0:13:43Peter Coe, he reported, "was strongly opposed to a boycott of Moscow.
0:13:43 > 0:13:48He spoke with some bitterness and at length on largely familiar lines.
0:13:48 > 0:13:52He was naturally concerned about the degree of sacrifice
0:13:52 > 0:13:54that we're asking of athletes like his son,
0:13:54 > 0:13:59and I do not think that I had any success in altering his views."
0:13:59 > 0:14:03Douglas Hurd said later that his mission
0:14:03 > 0:14:07to frustrate the Moscow Olympics was the most foolish task
0:14:07 > 0:14:09in which I was ever entrusted as a minister.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12Foolish, perhaps it was,
0:14:12 > 0:14:14but it was certainly a failure.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20Almost all the British team flew out to Moscow,
0:14:20 > 0:14:25but they promised to take no part in the opening and closing ceremonies.
0:14:25 > 0:14:30For British medallists, there'd be no Union Jack and no National Anthem.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36And as for that great showdown,
0:14:37 > 0:14:40it became part of Olympic legend.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46The first battle was the 800 metres.
0:14:46 > 0:14:48Coe was the favourite but Ovett won it.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52"Steve Ovett coming to take the gold medal for Great Britain.
0:14:52 > 0:14:54To beat Sebastian Coe there."
0:14:54 > 0:15:00Then came the 1500 where Ovett was the favourite but Coe settled the score.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02CHEERING
0:15:09 > 0:15:13Despite the public enthusiasm, there were no official celebrations.
0:15:13 > 0:15:18The battle with the government had left a bitter taste.
0:15:18 > 0:15:23Not even sport was immune from the rising tensions of the Cold War.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29For Mrs Thatcher, her stand over Afghanistan
0:15:29 > 0:15:35was a powerful statement of intent in her fight against Communism.
0:15:35 > 0:15:38It signalled a stark new approach to the Cold War.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41Now Britain's gloves were off.
0:15:43 > 0:15:46Afghanistan shattered the illusion of detente.
0:15:46 > 0:15:52Here at number 10, Margaret Thatcher saw the Soviet invasion as a historic turning point.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55She wasn't surprised though because as she later put it,
0:15:55 > 0:15:58she'd always known the nature of the beast.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00But, you know, she needed the beast.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04Indeed in many ways, it was the beast that made her name.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12Margaret Thatcher had risen from provincial obscurity
0:16:12 > 0:16:17to become the first female leader of the Conservative Party.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20There's a little bit sticking up there. You can see it.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25But at first, she'd had a bumpy ride.
0:16:25 > 0:16:29Many, even on her own side, thought she was a fluke,
0:16:29 > 0:16:31an aberration who'd soon go away.
0:16:33 > 0:16:35But one evening in 1976,
0:16:35 > 0:16:38she gave a speech that changed her image forever.
0:16:45 > 0:16:47At 8.30 on the day of the speech,
0:16:47 > 0:16:51Margaret Thatcher came to her favourite salon to have her hair done,
0:16:51 > 0:16:54and then she cleared her diary for the rest of the morning
0:16:54 > 0:16:58to work on this, the text of her speech.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01This was something that meant a lot to her
0:17:01 > 0:17:07and that evening in a voice that her critics have compared to a cat sliding down a blackboard,
0:17:07 > 0:17:11she told her audience, "The Russians are bent on world dominance.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14They put guns before butter
0:17:14 > 0:17:17while we put just about everything before guns.
0:17:18 > 0:17:20They know that they're a super power
0:17:20 > 0:17:23in only one sense, the military sense.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27They are a failure in human and economic terms.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38In Britain the speech made little impact,
0:17:39 > 0:17:42but 2000 miles away, in Moscow,
0:17:42 > 0:17:47one man read the speech with horrified fascination.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51A young soldier called Yuri Gavrilov
0:17:51 > 0:17:56was working as a journalist for the Red Army newspaper, Red Star,
0:17:56 > 0:18:00and after reading Margaret Thatcher's uncompromising words,
0:18:00 > 0:18:04he gave her a nickname that has never gone away.
0:18:05 > 0:18:07And here it is, Gavrilov's article,
0:18:07 > 0:18:11and the ominous title, "Iron Lady frightens."
0:18:11 > 0:18:14"The Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher," he says,
0:18:14 > 0:18:17"recently gave a spiteful anti-Soviet speech
0:18:17 > 0:18:22at Kensington Town Hall, pretentiously entitled 'Wake up England'.
0:18:23 > 0:18:25In her hysterical speech,
0:18:25 > 0:18:27the Russians are trying to take over the world,
0:18:27 > 0:18:29and according to Mrs Thatcher,
0:18:29 > 0:18:33the English people are asleep and oblivious to the danger,
0:18:33 > 0:18:35which only she can see."
0:18:36 > 0:18:38You know, the funny thing about Gavrilov's article
0:18:38 > 0:18:42is that he meant those words Iron Lady as an insult,
0:18:42 > 0:18:44but of course from that day on
0:18:44 > 0:18:48Margaret Thatcher wore them with defiant pride.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51I stand before you tonight,
0:18:51 > 0:18:55in my red star chiffon evening gown...
0:18:55 > 0:18:57LAUGHTER
0:19:04 > 0:19:06..my face softly made up
0:19:06 > 0:19:09and my fair hair gently waved,
0:19:13 > 0:19:17the Iron Lady of the Western world.
0:19:17 > 0:19:18APPLAUSE
0:19:21 > 0:19:23A Cold War warrior,
0:19:24 > 0:19:27an Amazon philistine,
0:19:28 > 0:19:31even a Peking plotter.
0:19:31 > 0:19:32LAUGHTER
0:19:32 > 0:19:34Well, am I any of these things?
0:19:34 > 0:19:36- ALL:- No!
0:19:37 > 0:19:40Well, yes, if that's how they...
0:19:40 > 0:19:42LAUGHTER
0:19:42 > 0:19:45Yes, I am an Iron Lady.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49Margaret Thatcher had found her mission.
0:19:50 > 0:19:52A few days after her Iron Lady speech,
0:19:52 > 0:19:57she visited the British Army of the Rhine and drove a tank.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00This was Thatcherism at full strength,
0:20:00 > 0:20:04leading the crusade against world Communism.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09But she couldn't win this fight on her own.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13She needed a partner, someone to stand beside her on the front line.
0:20:13 > 0:20:18And in June 1982, riding over the crest,
0:20:18 > 0:20:21came a hero of Hollywood's old west.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27You wanted law and order in this town, you've got it.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30I'll shoot the first man who starts for those steps.
0:20:30 > 0:20:31Come on!
0:20:31 > 0:20:36This was Ronald Reagan's first visit to Britain as president of the United States.
0:20:37 > 0:20:38He stayed at Windsor Castle,
0:20:38 > 0:20:42and it was, he wrote in his diary, "a fairytale experience".
0:20:43 > 0:20:47Early the next morning in the calm before the storm,
0:20:47 > 0:20:52Reagan saddled up his horse and went for a ride here at Windsor Great Park.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54With him was his trusty sidekick,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57on this occasion, the Queen.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07But he wasn't here just to show us how to ride a horse, Western style.
0:21:07 > 0:21:12Reagan had come to make a speech in which he would present his vision
0:21:12 > 0:21:15of the Soviet Union's inevitable demise.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21The president spoke in Parliament's Royal Gallery,
0:21:21 > 0:21:24dwarfed by paintings of Waterloo and Trafalgar,
0:21:24 > 0:21:28great British victories over another evil empire.
0:21:35 > 0:21:38And one phrase in particular captured Reagan's confidence
0:21:38 > 0:21:40that Communism was doomed.
0:21:41 > 0:21:45The march of freedom and democracy which will lead Marxism,
0:21:45 > 0:21:47Leninism on the ash heap of history,
0:21:47 > 0:21:49as it has left other tyrannies,
0:21:49 > 0:21:53which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of people.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03This speech was Ronald Reagan's manifesto for winning the Cold War.
0:22:03 > 0:22:06At its heart was a sense of moral certainty
0:22:06 > 0:22:11that the Communists were wrong and we in the West were right.
0:22:11 > 0:22:13In many ways, Reagan was echoing another speech
0:22:13 > 0:22:16made by a great international statesman on foreign soil,
0:22:16 > 0:22:21Winston Churchill's speech of Fulton, Missouri in 1946.
0:22:21 > 0:22:24Now that was the speech in which Churchill coined the phrase
0:22:24 > 0:22:25"the iron curtain",
0:22:25 > 0:22:29and it's often seen as the moment that the Cold War began.
0:22:29 > 0:22:32And now, here in the Palace of Westminster,
0:22:32 > 0:22:37Reagan took the great man's career as an inspiration for victory.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41During the dark days of the Second World War,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44when this island was incandescent with courage,
0:22:44 > 0:22:49Winston Churchill exclaimed about Britain's adversaries,
0:22:49 > 0:22:53"What kind of a people do they think we are?"
0:22:53 > 0:22:55It was classic Reagan
0:22:55 > 0:22:59and all the more impressive because he seemed to be speaking without a single note.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03Afterwards, Mrs Thatcher congratulated him on his actor's memory.
0:23:03 > 0:23:08Reagan admitted that he had been using a British invention called an autocue.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12Or as his aides used to call it, the sincerity machine.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21Afterwards, at a Number 10 lunch in the president's honour,
0:23:21 > 0:23:26Mrs Thatcher told Reagan that she thought his speech magnificent.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30He had, she said, written a new chapter in our history.
0:23:31 > 0:23:35It was time, they thought, to say what we really believed,
0:23:35 > 0:23:39time to take on the Soviet Union and beat it.
0:23:40 > 0:23:42For Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher,
0:23:42 > 0:23:45a status quo was no longer an option.
0:23:46 > 0:23:48Their mission wasn't to contain Communism,
0:23:48 > 0:23:50it was to roll it back,
0:23:50 > 0:23:54to exploit its weaknesses and to assert our strengths.
0:23:54 > 0:24:00Free markets, free speech and above all military strength.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04So to Reagan's critics, his image of the ash heap of history
0:24:04 > 0:24:06is disturbingly appropriate.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09He didn't need to be a card-carrying CND supporter
0:24:09 > 0:24:13to appreciate this fantastic poster.
0:24:13 > 0:24:16"She promised to follow him to the end of the earth.
0:24:16 > 0:24:18He promised to organise it."
0:24:19 > 0:24:21To the satirists, Reagan was a gift.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24A royal defence strategist has announced that he has analysed
0:24:24 > 0:24:27the reason for the current behaviour of the USA.
0:24:27 > 0:24:31He says the Americans are trying to make up for the fact that they were late for the last two world wars
0:24:31 > 0:24:33by being really punctual this time.
0:24:34 > 0:24:39You know, Ed, I know a city, once proud, reduced to ruins.
0:24:39 > 0:24:42I have information that the Russians are there in huge numbers,
0:24:42 > 0:24:45building, controlling, arming.
0:24:45 > 0:24:50That is why today I'm sending the marines into Leningrad.
0:24:50 > 0:24:53What? Oh no, not that, no, Mr President,
0:24:53 > 0:24:55please, we have to have an excuse first.
0:24:56 > 0:24:58Ed, it's too late.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03To many people, Reagan's rhetoric was unsettlingly aggressive
0:25:03 > 0:25:07and there was an anxious edge to the satirists' mockery.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11Cheese and crackers, the president's brain is missing!
0:25:11 > 0:25:16And there was now a fearsome new addition to the Americans' nuclear arsenal.
0:25:21 > 0:25:26"It was just before nine o'clock that the plane bringing the first cruise missiles to Britain
0:25:26 > 0:25:29came into land at the end of its overnight flight across..."
0:25:29 > 0:25:33George Orwell's 1984 had imagined Britain as Airstrip One,
0:25:33 > 0:25:37the forward strike base for a great military empire
0:25:37 > 0:25:40and to critics of the new cruise missiles,
0:25:40 > 0:25:45Britain had become Ronald Reagan's nuclear launch pad.
0:25:48 > 0:25:54Protests stretched from Greenham Common feminists to earnest fashionistas.
0:25:55 > 0:26:00I was wondering when we were getting someone walking in here, now one moment.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08Oh, I see, it's not... That's meant to be...
0:26:08 > 0:26:11We don't have any Pershing here, dear. They're cruise here.
0:26:12 > 0:26:16Cruise breathed new life into CND.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19Not since the Cuban missile crisis of the early 60s
0:26:19 > 0:26:25had the clouds of nuclear catastrophe seemed darker or more threatening.
0:26:25 > 0:26:29But protest was now infused with a very 80s paranoia.
0:26:29 > 0:26:35Britain's popular culture often seemed gripped with a deep suspicion of American power.
0:26:37 > 0:26:40Two bars of weapons-grade plutonium.
0:26:43 > 0:26:46I know how close we came to a nuclear disaster.
0:26:48 > 0:26:50But amid all the gloom and doom
0:26:50 > 0:26:52a group of Scousers with attitude
0:26:52 > 0:26:54would have us dancing into doomsday.
0:26:54 > 0:26:57MUSIC: "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood
0:26:58 > 0:27:00When you hear the air attack warning
0:27:00 > 0:27:02You and your family must take cover
0:27:04 > 0:27:06# Ow, ow, ow
0:27:08 > 0:27:09# Ow, ow
0:27:12 > 0:27:14# Let's go
0:27:14 > 0:27:16# Oh
0:27:17 > 0:27:18When two tribes go to war
0:27:18 > 0:27:22# A point is all that you can score
0:27:24 > 0:27:26Written by the band's lead singer, Holly Johnson,
0:27:26 > 0:27:30the song was inspired by Ronald Reagan,
0:27:30 > 0:27:33the post-apocalyptic film Mad Max 2,
0:27:33 > 0:27:36and an unholy amount of marijuana.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40This is where Frankie Goes To Hollywood's producer, Trevor Horn,
0:27:40 > 0:27:45turned Two Tribes into the most successful anti-war record ever made.
0:27:45 > 0:27:47We'll give it a try, right?
0:27:47 > 0:27:50Now if it goes wrong, if you miss a cue, we'll just stop it and do it again.
0:27:50 > 0:27:56But the song's unique sound also owed a great deal to of all people, CND.
0:28:04 > 0:28:05# Oh
0:28:05 > 0:28:07# When two tribes go to war
0:28:07 > 0:28:10# A point is all that you can score
0:28:11 > 0:28:12# Let's go to war
0:28:12 > 0:28:14# When two tribes go to war
0:28:14 > 0:28:17# A point is all that you can score
0:28:17 > 0:28:20It was this, the 12-inch version of the song,
0:28:20 > 0:28:22the Annihilation Mix,
0:28:22 > 0:28:24that really captured the paranoia of the time.
0:28:24 > 0:28:28On a sleeve you've got this image of the Lenin mural in Moscow
0:28:28 > 0:28:30and on the back of it,
0:28:30 > 0:28:33very fetching photograph of Ronald Reagan and Mrs Thatcher.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36There's also lots of facts and figures about the Cold War
0:28:36 > 0:28:39and they'd been given to the band's management by CND.
0:28:39 > 0:28:43So for example a table of where the new US missiles would be stationed.
0:28:44 > 0:28:47But CND also gave the band something else.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50They gave them a leaked copy of the secret government film
0:28:50 > 0:28:54that was meant to be broadcast to the nation
0:28:54 > 0:28:58if the worst happened and Britain was facing a nuclear attack.
0:28:58 > 0:28:59SIREN
0:29:04 > 0:29:05"When you hear the attack warning,
0:29:05 > 0:29:09you and your family must take cover at once.
0:29:10 > 0:29:12Do not stay out of doors.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16If you are caught in the open, lie down."
0:29:16 > 0:29:20The last voice we'd ever hear belonged to Patrick Allen.
0:29:20 > 0:29:26His reputation as TV's grandfather of the voiceover had made him a minor celebrity.
0:29:26 > 0:29:31If you cannot reach home in ten minutes, take cover in the nearest building.
0:29:31 > 0:29:35If there is no building nearby, try to find some solid cover.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39Struck by the power of the apocalyptic narration,
0:29:39 > 0:29:41Trevor Horn wanted to re-use it
0:29:41 > 0:29:44but he was worried about the Official Secrets Act
0:29:44 > 0:29:47so he asked Allen to do it again.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51While Patrick Allen was with Trevor Horn in the studio,
0:29:51 > 0:29:53lines kept coming back to him
0:29:53 > 0:29:55that he had originally recorded for the government film
0:29:55 > 0:29:58but were thought a bit too bleak for broadcast.
0:29:58 > 0:30:02Lines like "If your grandmother or any other member of the family
0:30:02 > 0:30:06should die while in the shelter..."
0:30:06 > 0:30:08..from contamination, put them outside
0:30:08 > 0:30:12but remember to tag them first for identification purposes.
0:30:16 > 0:30:19..or any other member of the family should die whilst in the shelter,
0:30:19 > 0:30:24put them outside but remember to tag them first for identification.
0:30:24 > 0:30:26Accompanying the song was a controversial video,
0:30:26 > 0:30:30which featured a Reagan lookalike fighting the Soviet premier,
0:30:30 > 0:30:34also a lookalike, while the UN looked on.
0:30:35 > 0:30:37The BBC banned it.
0:30:46 > 0:30:49Two Tribes reflected one of the great ironies of the Cold War,
0:30:49 > 0:30:54that in the Western democracies people often used their free speech
0:30:54 > 0:30:56to rail against their own side
0:30:56 > 0:30:58rather than the Communist East.
0:30:59 > 0:31:05I was only ten at the time, a schoolboy here at Birchfield near Wolverhampton,
0:31:05 > 0:31:09but even as children in this leafy corner of the West Midlands,
0:31:09 > 0:31:12we couldn't escape the shadow of the Cold War.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19For children like me growing up in the 1980s,
0:31:19 > 0:31:23war was something that you read about in the history books.
0:31:23 > 0:31:25I was part of a generation who had never felt
0:31:25 > 0:31:26the thump of a bomb dropping,
0:31:26 > 0:31:30who'd never heard the wail of an air raid siren,
0:31:30 > 0:31:33who'd never seen a war plane streaking overhead.
0:31:33 > 0:31:38Yet somehow a fear of war remained very real.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42It even invaded the sanctity of my childhood classroom.
0:31:53 > 0:31:55And nothing captured that fear better
0:31:55 > 0:31:59than a short children's book about a nuclear war.
0:32:00 > 0:32:02"East is East and West is West
0:32:02 > 0:32:06and maybe it was a difference of opinion or just a computer malfunction.
0:32:06 > 0:32:08Either way, it set off a chain of events
0:32:08 > 0:32:11that nobody but a mad man could have wanted
0:32:11 > 0:32:15and which nobody, not even the mad men, could stop."
0:32:16 > 0:32:19This is Brother In The Land by Robert Swindells.
0:32:19 > 0:32:21It was published in 1984.
0:32:21 > 0:32:24It must be the bleakest children's book ever written.
0:32:24 > 0:32:26It's the story of a boy called Danny.
0:32:26 > 0:32:28A young lad from the north of England
0:32:28 > 0:32:31who's caught up in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse.
0:32:31 > 0:32:34Now things don't go entirely swimmingly for poor old Danny.
0:32:34 > 0:32:36His mother was killed in the blast
0:32:36 > 0:32:38and they have to wrap her in polythene,
0:32:38 > 0:32:41his dad is blown up on the back of a truck,
0:32:41 > 0:32:45his brother Ben, at the end of the book, Ben's seven, dies of radiation sickness.
0:32:45 > 0:32:48All in all, it's not exactly Enid Blyton.
0:32:49 > 0:32:50Now I was ten when I read this
0:32:50 > 0:32:54and I vividly remember the day that our teacher brought it into class.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58I remember too our growing sense of desolation
0:32:58 > 0:33:00as we worked our way towards the end,
0:33:00 > 0:33:03and I also remember something else.
0:33:03 > 0:33:07A dread that one day fiction might become fact.
0:33:10 > 0:33:15Indeed a poll in April 1980 found that four out of ten people
0:33:15 > 0:33:19thought nuclear war was coming in the next ten years.
0:33:26 > 0:33:28- MAN:- What would you do if you heard a warning?
0:33:28 > 0:33:30I don't know, run for it.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33Honestly I don't know. I'd be totally unprepared.
0:33:35 > 0:33:36Waste of time, isn't it, going anywhere.
0:33:37 > 0:33:39You've had it, ain't you?
0:33:40 > 0:33:41Had it, ain't you?
0:33:41 > 0:33:43- MAN:- Would you take any preparations at all?
0:33:43 > 0:33:45What preparations? You've had it, ain't you?
0:33:45 > 0:33:47You've had it, ain't you? No good messing about, is it?
0:33:47 > 0:33:49You've had it, ain't you?
0:33:49 > 0:33:52No point crying over spilt milk, is there?
0:33:52 > 0:33:53- Hello, Alison. - GIRL:- Hello.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56In the event of a nuclear war, where will you be?
0:33:56 > 0:33:58LAUGHTER
0:33:58 > 0:34:01Oh my goodness me, I shall be in London.
0:34:01 > 0:34:04In your own bunker or something?
0:34:07 > 0:34:10Everybody knew there were secret underground nuclear bunkers
0:34:10 > 0:34:13for Britain's political masters,
0:34:13 > 0:34:17but what about the rest of us, what sort of future could we expect,
0:34:17 > 0:34:22if the worst happened and the bombs started falling?
0:34:22 > 0:34:24Well, the government had prepared a booklet to be sent out
0:34:24 > 0:34:27when nuclear attacks seemed imminent.
0:34:28 > 0:34:30However, there was a problem with the timing.
0:34:30 > 0:34:36"The government intends to print and distribute this booklet to every home in the country.
0:34:36 > 0:34:41But while the planners are banking on three weeks' warning of nuclear attack,
0:34:41 > 0:34:46Her Majesty's stationery office say it will take at least four weeks just to print the booklet."
0:34:48 > 0:34:52Under growing pressure from people who wanted to see this nuclear survival guide,
0:34:52 > 0:34:56the Home Office finally agreed to publish it.
0:34:56 > 0:34:59It cost 50p and it was called Protect and Survive
0:34:59 > 0:35:02and ironically it convinced many people
0:35:02 > 0:35:06that preparing for survival was a waste of time.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10This booklet was supposed to reassure people.
0:35:10 > 0:35:12Unfortunately it had quite the opposite effect.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16"First priority is to provide shelter within your home
0:35:16 > 0:35:18against radioactive fallout.
0:35:18 > 0:35:21Your best protection is to make a fallout room
0:35:21 > 0:35:23and build an inner refuge within it."
0:35:23 > 0:35:27Do you have to dig a hole like the old Anderson shelters in the war?
0:35:27 > 0:35:31No dear, that's all old-fashioned. With modern scientific methods,
0:35:31 > 0:35:34you just use doors with cushions and books on top.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37Seriously, we ought to do something about this bomb.
0:35:38 > 0:35:43I'm going upstairs to get the incredibly helpful and informative Protect and Survive manual.
0:35:44 > 0:35:46Nobody better touch this while I'm gone.
0:35:49 > 0:35:51LAUGHTER
0:35:52 > 0:35:57Here, Oppenheimer, listen, if the bomb was to drop round here,
0:35:57 > 0:36:00how long would we have to stay inside this thing here?
0:36:00 > 0:36:04Well, it depends upon the degree of contamination in the air outside,
0:36:04 > 0:36:07cos we're in a very vulnerable position here being so close to the docks,
0:36:07 > 0:36:10but I would say roughly,
0:36:10 > 0:36:14give or take a week or two, about two years.
0:36:14 > 0:36:17- BOTH:- Two years?!
0:36:17 > 0:36:19Yeah, give or take a week or two.
0:36:19 > 0:36:23If you think I'm staying in a lead-lined Nissen hut with you and Grandad
0:36:23 > 0:36:26and a chemical bloody kazi, you got another think coming.
0:36:38 > 0:36:42But in 1984, the BBC made a feature-length drama
0:36:42 > 0:36:46about the outbreak and aftermath of a nuclear war
0:36:46 > 0:36:48and no one was laughing.
0:36:48 > 0:36:53Threads depicted a nuclear attack on this city in South Yorkshire.
0:37:02 > 0:37:05Now there had been plenty of post-apocalyptic TV dramas
0:37:05 > 0:37:08but there's never been one quite as hard-hitting as Threads.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11It was filmed here, in Sheffield,
0:37:11 > 0:37:13and they used mainly local people as the actors.
0:37:13 > 0:37:18The director told them, come as badly looking as you dare, or worse.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21Threads was exceptionally realistic,
0:37:21 > 0:37:26it was unrelentingly bleak and it was very, very disturbing.
0:37:26 > 0:37:28I was too young to watch it at the time
0:37:28 > 0:37:32but I vividly remember the front cover of the Radio Times.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35Even this gave me nightmares.
0:37:35 > 0:37:38In a statement issued by the Pentagon in Washington,
0:37:38 > 0:37:41the United States has accused the Soviet Union...
0:37:41 > 0:37:45Threads is a reminder of the Cold War's psychological impact
0:37:45 > 0:37:48on a generation living in the shadow of the bomb.
0:38:17 > 0:38:18SCREAMING
0:38:45 > 0:38:47This was the ultimate nuclear nightmare,
0:38:47 > 0:38:51free from censorship and playing at peak time.
0:38:53 > 0:38:57Even today, I defy anybody to watch Threads all the way through
0:38:57 > 0:38:59and then sleep comfortably the following evening
0:38:59 > 0:39:03and at the time it provoked a passionate reaction.
0:39:03 > 0:39:08These are just some of the flood of letters sent to the BBC back in 1984.
0:39:08 > 0:39:10"Dear Sir," says this woman from Swansea,
0:39:10 > 0:39:14"it's three o'clock in the morning after the screening of Threads.
0:39:14 > 0:39:19I cannot sleep for the feelings of terror and utter hopelessness."
0:39:20 > 0:39:22If you think that's a bit bleak, you should try this one.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24This is from an old lady in Suffolk.
0:39:24 > 0:39:26"I made up my mind there and then
0:39:26 > 0:39:29I'm too old to cope with a nuclear winter
0:39:29 > 0:39:31and I wrote to our dear Mrs Thatcher
0:39:31 > 0:39:34to ask her for suicide pills for us old 'uns,
0:39:34 > 0:39:37a small suicide pill we can swallow
0:39:37 > 0:39:39that will go down with a nice cup of tea
0:39:39 > 0:39:42when we heard the four-minute nuclear warning."
0:39:42 > 0:39:45Many of the cast of Threads were the townspeople of Sheffield
0:39:45 > 0:39:49and they were invited to a private viewing of the film before transmission.
0:39:49 > 0:39:53All I can say is, I didn't think I would have reacted like this,
0:39:53 > 0:39:56you know, but I just couldn't help it.
0:39:56 > 0:39:58There's going to be nothing after it, nothing.
0:40:00 > 0:40:04Threads reflected the dark irony of the Cold War years.
0:40:04 > 0:40:09By the 1980s, most people were better off and more comfortable than ever,
0:40:09 > 0:40:12and yet they lived with the constant anxiety
0:40:12 > 0:40:15that it could all be taken away at the push of a button.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21As one of those with a finger on the button knew only too well.
0:40:23 > 0:40:26We are the parents and the children of the nuclear age.
0:40:27 > 0:40:30We may not welcome it, we may fear it,
0:40:30 > 0:40:33we may even be haunted by it,
0:40:33 > 0:40:38but pretending it doesn't exist is not a solution.
0:40:39 > 0:40:42Come what may, it can't be wished away.
0:40:49 > 0:40:51But we weren't just the nuclear generation,
0:40:51 > 0:40:55we were also becoming the post-industrial generation.
0:40:56 > 0:40:57Britain was changing,
0:40:57 > 0:41:00our old heavy industries were dying
0:41:00 > 0:41:04and this too became part of the Cold War story.
0:41:13 > 0:41:14In November 1984,
0:41:14 > 0:41:18a man dedicated to overthrowing Mrs Thatcher's government
0:41:18 > 0:41:20and Western capitalism itself,
0:41:20 > 0:41:24took a cab to the Soviet Embassy in London.
0:41:24 > 0:41:27The man in the taxi was looking for money
0:41:27 > 0:41:30because the British government had frozen his assets.
0:41:30 > 0:41:34At the time he was probably the most controversial man in the land,
0:41:34 > 0:41:37and his name was Arthur Scargill.
0:41:38 > 0:41:40The only point of interference in this dispute
0:41:40 > 0:41:42is the abdication of Mrs Thatcher.
0:41:42 > 0:41:45Arthur Scargill was a committed Marxist.
0:41:45 > 0:41:49He was also the head of one of Britain's strongest trade unions,
0:41:49 > 0:41:52the National Union of Mineworkers.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55# Self doubt and selfism
0:41:58 > 0:42:00In 1984, Scargill led his men
0:42:00 > 0:42:03into a brutal showdown with the Thatcher government.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07It was the most divisive strike in our modern history.
0:42:08 > 0:42:10Now Scargill needed Soviet money
0:42:10 > 0:42:13to sustain the strike through the long winter.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21For Mrs Thatcher, the striking miners represented exactly
0:42:21 > 0:42:23the kind of backward-looking socialism
0:42:23 > 0:42:25that she'd come into politics to destroy.
0:42:25 > 0:42:28As she saw it, they were the enemy within
0:42:28 > 0:42:33and this was merely one battle in her wider war against Communism.
0:42:33 > 0:42:37But the miners' strike represented a mortal threat to her administration.
0:42:37 > 0:42:42At stake was not just her credibility but her political survival.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48The very idea of the Russians bankrolling a strike
0:42:48 > 0:42:52that could bring down her government was political dynamite.
0:42:55 > 0:43:00Downing Street was so worried by all these stories about the Russians funding the NUM,
0:43:00 > 0:43:04that they told one of Mrs Thatcher's ministers, Norman Lamont,
0:43:04 > 0:43:07to look into it and to have a word with the Soviet ambassador.
0:43:07 > 0:43:09But the ambassador was having none of it.
0:43:09 > 0:43:12"There was no reason," he said,
0:43:12 > 0:43:14"why Soviet miners as individuals
0:43:14 > 0:43:18should not raise money for British miners if they wish to do so.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21This had nothing to do with the Soviet government."
0:43:21 > 0:43:24So now the Foreign Office got involved.
0:43:24 > 0:43:26They called in the Russian ambassador
0:43:26 > 0:43:28and told him that if they discovered
0:43:28 > 0:43:30that the Kremlin was giving money to the miners,
0:43:30 > 0:43:34"we would take a very serious view and we would regard it
0:43:34 > 0:43:40as an unfriendly, unwarrantable interference in British domestic affairs."
0:43:43 > 0:43:48To make matters worse, flying into town in the middle of all this,
0:43:48 > 0:43:50was the Kremlin's latest rising star.
0:43:50 > 0:43:55We realise that you lead the most important delegation
0:43:55 > 0:43:58from Soviet Union to Britain for many a year.
0:43:58 > 0:44:00Hotly tipped as their next leader,
0:44:00 > 0:44:03Mikhail Gorbachev was the most senior Soviet official
0:44:03 > 0:44:07to visit Britain for 17 years.
0:44:08 > 0:44:10At Chequers, Mrs Thatcher came out fighting.
0:44:10 > 0:44:12The Kremlin, she insisted,
0:44:12 > 0:44:16must know that Soviet money was backing the British miners.
0:44:16 > 0:44:17Gorbachev denied it.
0:44:17 > 0:44:21Behind the public smiles, it was a desperately awkward moment
0:44:21 > 0:44:25and yet for all her Iron Lady image,
0:44:25 > 0:44:28Margaret Thatcher was the consummate pragmatist,
0:44:28 > 0:44:30and as the talks continued,
0:44:30 > 0:44:33she began to charm the Kremlin's coming man.
0:44:34 > 0:44:38Despite the tension, something quite unexpected was beginning to happen,
0:44:38 > 0:44:41because Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev
0:44:41 > 0:44:44were beginning to develop a personal chemistry.
0:44:44 > 0:44:48I rather think that each of them recognised in the other
0:44:48 > 0:44:51a kindred spirit, a fellow radical,
0:44:51 > 0:44:55fighting to overhaul the creaking machinery of the state
0:44:55 > 0:45:00and this meeting was to prove a landmark in Anglo-Soviet relations.
0:45:03 > 0:45:05Mrs Thatcher found Gorbachev very different
0:45:05 > 0:45:09from the usual Soviet apparatchik, more relaxed, more open,
0:45:09 > 0:45:11more Western,
0:45:11 > 0:45:15yet there was no doubt who was wearing the trousers.
0:45:21 > 0:45:24I like Mr Gorbachev, we can do business together.
0:45:28 > 0:45:31What drove the Maggie and Gorbi show
0:45:31 > 0:45:33was not just a personal rapport
0:45:33 > 0:45:36but something altogether more fundamental.
0:45:36 > 0:45:40In the West, the free market was at full throttle,
0:45:40 > 0:45:46as in the East, a Soviet alternative to capitalism had ground to a halt.
0:45:47 > 0:45:52For 40 years, the Cold War had effectively kept capitalism responsible
0:45:52 > 0:45:56because the West needed to win the battle for hearts and minds,
0:45:56 > 0:46:01but as the Soviet model began to implode so the brakes came off.
0:46:01 > 0:46:06Here in Britain, we no longer needed to apologise for getting filthy rich,
0:46:06 > 0:46:11and even mother Russia was about to make her peace with a free market.
0:46:11 > 0:46:16When I become premier, mother Russia will lead the world in psychedelic cosmicness.
0:46:16 > 0:46:21For a start we'll do away with the three-year waiting list for a kipper tie.
0:46:21 > 0:46:23We could have platform shoes for the KGB.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26And I'll legalise hoola hoops.
0:46:30 > 0:46:32Gorbachev's first task as leader
0:46:32 > 0:46:35was to tackle his country's economic collapse.
0:46:36 > 0:46:39He began to unleash the power of private enterprise.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42The Russians called it Perestroika
0:46:42 > 0:46:46and it released a long dormant entrepreneurial spirit,
0:46:47 > 0:46:51but this small success was born of a deeper failure.
0:46:51 > 0:46:54Gorbachev's reforms were a sign of surrender.
0:46:54 > 0:46:58In effect, they said to the West, "OK, you win."
0:47:07 > 0:47:10So when Margaret Thatcher hit Moscow in 1987
0:47:10 > 0:47:13she came as a conqueror.
0:47:20 > 0:47:21Into the heart of Communism,
0:47:21 > 0:47:26she brought the message of Western power and free market capitalism.
0:47:27 > 0:47:30This was Thatcherism's high noon.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46Her hosts had scheduled a series of telegenic locations,
0:47:46 > 0:47:50and top of the list was the Kremlin,
0:47:50 > 0:47:54where Gorbachev welcomed her in the glittering Saint George's Hall.
0:47:56 > 0:47:59It was a supremely symbolic moment,
0:47:59 > 0:48:02the Iron Lady, the Cold War warrior,
0:48:02 > 0:48:06welcomed into the inner sanctum of the Communist empire.
0:48:08 > 0:48:10Here in the heart of the Kremlin,
0:48:10 > 0:48:14would the Iron Lady denounce the Soviet bear or embrace it?
0:48:14 > 0:48:17Mrs Thatcher told the press that of all her foreign visits,
0:48:17 > 0:48:20this was the one that she was most prepared for.
0:48:20 > 0:48:24She was ready, she said, for a long dialogue, plenty of disagreements
0:48:24 > 0:48:26and a hostile press.
0:48:27 > 0:48:29But she needn't have worried,
0:48:29 > 0:48:31for this would be a trip like no other.
0:48:31 > 0:48:36No Western leader had ever come to Moscow and made such an impact.
0:48:42 > 0:48:44Mrs Thatcher had dressed to impress.
0:48:47 > 0:48:51With her glamorous array of hats, coats and tailored suits,
0:48:51 > 0:48:54her look symbolised the Western luxury
0:48:54 > 0:48:57to which the Soviet people aspired.
0:49:04 > 0:49:06Everywhere she went she was mobbed.
0:49:06 > 0:49:10Not since Catherine the Great had the Russian people
0:49:10 > 0:49:14seen such a captivating, opulent and powerful woman.
0:49:17 > 0:49:21The Russians admired strength, and here on primetime TV
0:49:21 > 0:49:25was the warrior queen in full force.
0:49:25 > 0:49:28Can I... Can I just answer this one first?
0:49:28 > 0:49:32Look, isn't your response that to anyone,
0:49:32 > 0:49:37look, if you attack us, you'll have such a terrible time
0:49:37 > 0:49:42that you cannot win and isn't that the best defence
0:49:42 > 0:49:44to anyone who threatens you?
0:49:44 > 0:49:48Doesn't... One moment. Doesn't the bully go for the weak person,
0:49:48 > 0:49:50not for the strong?
0:49:50 > 0:49:53You have more... If you take this view,
0:49:53 > 0:49:56I wonder why you have so many nuclear weapons.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02To the Russians, Britain's prime minister
0:50:02 > 0:50:04had once been a capitalist enemy
0:50:04 > 0:50:08but now they treated her like a film star.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14Here in the Kremlin, they didn't call Margaret Thatcher the Iron Lady any more,
0:50:14 > 0:50:17they called her the lady with the blue eyes.
0:50:20 > 0:50:24But old blue eyes wasn't the only British export
0:50:24 > 0:50:27chipping away at communism's rotten foundations.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38The 1980s was also the high watermark
0:50:38 > 0:50:43for another enormously influential force behind the iron curtain.
0:50:44 > 0:50:45Britain's rock music.
0:50:47 > 0:50:49And in June 1987,
0:50:49 > 0:50:51thousands of East Berliners gathered
0:50:51 > 0:50:55to hear some of Britain's biggest bands play live.
0:50:56 > 0:50:58They were headlining the Concert for Berlin,
0:50:58 > 0:51:04a three-day extravaganza to celebrate the city's 750th anniversary.
0:51:07 > 0:51:09The trouble was that it was on the other side of the wall
0:51:09 > 0:51:11so many fans scurried up trees,
0:51:11 > 0:51:14they clambered up chimneys, they packed on to balconies,
0:51:14 > 0:51:18they climbed up to roofs just to get a glimpse of the gig.
0:51:26 > 0:51:27CHEERING
0:51:29 > 0:51:31Some brave souls gathered in front of the Soviet embassy
0:51:31 > 0:51:35and some of them even danced in full view of the Russian officials.
0:51:35 > 0:51:41It was after all the best place to hear the music from across the wall.
0:51:41 > 0:51:46What a line-up for these German fans: David Bowie, Eurythmics,
0:51:46 > 0:51:48and best of all, Genesis.
0:51:48 > 0:51:56Tonight, tonight, tonight, Berlin partied as one city.
0:51:56 > 0:51:57CHEERING
0:51:59 > 0:52:01MUSIC: "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" by Genesis
0:52:24 > 0:52:26For those on the Eastern side of the wall,
0:52:26 > 0:52:30Western music represented what we had and what they wanted.
0:52:31 > 0:52:34More choice and more freedom.
0:52:38 > 0:52:41One of West Berlin's biggest radio stations
0:52:41 > 0:52:44broadcast the concert live across the wall,
0:52:44 > 0:52:47and to listeners in the Communist East
0:52:47 > 0:52:51it sent a powerful message: We are one city.
0:52:53 > 0:52:56# Cos tonight, tonight, tonight
0:52:56 > 0:52:59# Oh oh
0:53:01 > 0:53:03SPEAKS GERMAN
0:53:11 > 0:53:13The highlight of the evening,
0:53:13 > 0:53:16well, apart from Phil Collins speaking German obviously,
0:53:16 > 0:53:18came during David Bowie's set.
0:53:18 > 0:53:24Bowie said later that this was one of the most emotional performances he had ever given.
0:53:24 > 0:53:26He'd never done anything like it.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30When he was on stage, he could hear the East German fans cheering
0:53:30 > 0:53:33and singing along across the wall.
0:53:33 > 0:53:37When he performed Heroes, a song that he had written here
0:53:37 > 0:53:39and set in this city,
0:53:39 > 0:53:44he said that it felt anthemic, almost like a prayer.
0:53:47 > 0:53:49MUSIC: "Heroes" by David Bowie
0:54:13 > 0:54:18For three nights, East German youths fought running battles with the Communist police.
0:54:18 > 0:54:21# You'll be my queen
0:54:22 > 0:54:26Across Berlin, the chants went up, "The wall must go!"
0:54:26 > 0:54:29# Will drive them away
0:54:32 > 0:54:35# We can beat them
0:54:35 > 0:54:37# Just for one day
0:54:39 > 0:54:41# We could be heroes
0:54:43 > 0:54:46# Just for one day
0:54:52 > 0:54:54This best of British gig
0:54:54 > 0:54:59was a very loud example of something that diplomats call soft power,
0:54:59 > 0:55:01the way that one country can influence another,
0:55:01 > 0:55:03not through bullets and guns
0:55:03 > 0:55:07but by the force of its moral and cultural example.
0:55:08 > 0:55:10For more than 20 years, ever since the days of the Beatles,
0:55:10 > 0:55:15British pop and rock had been infiltrating the Soviet bloc,
0:55:15 > 0:55:19and to those people starved of liberty behind their own curtain
0:55:19 > 0:55:25it represented not just modernity and self-expression but freedom and fun.
0:55:30 > 0:55:33"East Germany has tonight opened its borders to the West.
0:55:33 > 0:55:3628 years after the Berlin wall was built,
0:55:36 > 0:55:39its people are once more free to travel anywhere."
0:55:39 > 0:55:41MUSIC: "With Or Without You" by U2
0:55:43 > 0:55:47# See the stone set in your eyes
0:55:47 > 0:55:52# See the thorn twist in your side
0:55:52 > 0:55:56# I will wait for you
0:55:56 > 0:55:59Two years later, the wall came down.
0:55:59 > 0:56:04That night in November 1989 changed the world forever.
0:56:04 > 0:56:06It united Europe,
0:56:06 > 0:56:07it shattered the Soviet empire
0:56:07 > 0:56:10and it brought an end to the Cold War.
0:56:10 > 0:56:14It also freed us from the terrors of nuclear Armageddon
0:56:14 > 0:56:20and it set free millions of individuals who simply wanted what we had.
0:56:20 > 0:56:25"People jumped aboard buses and headed to bright lights of West Berlin city centre."
0:56:25 > 0:56:29And what was one of the first things East Berliners did in the West?
0:56:29 > 0:56:31They went shopping.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35"They described the difference between the shops here and at home
0:56:35 > 0:56:38as like the difference between night and day."
0:56:47 > 0:56:51To Margaret Thatcher, the collapse of Communism was the ultimate vindication.
0:56:54 > 0:56:56But her fate had a cruel twist.
0:56:56 > 0:57:01Just a year later, her colleagues drew up her political death warrant
0:57:01 > 0:57:04at the very moment she was in Paris,
0:57:04 > 0:57:09signing the arms reduction treaty that marked the end of the Cold War.
0:57:10 > 0:57:12"These forces introduced by Stalin to threaten the West
0:57:12 > 0:57:15and withdrawn by Gorbachev to earn its goodwill
0:57:15 > 0:57:19are now to be pulled back and destroyed under international agreement."
0:57:25 > 0:57:29The Iron Lady had been Britain's ultimate Cold War weapon
0:57:29 > 0:57:32but now, like these withdrawing Soviet tanks,
0:57:32 > 0:57:35she was unceremoniously decommissioned.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41Still, she had left an indelible imprint on British life,
0:57:41 > 0:57:43rather like the Cold War itself.
0:57:47 > 0:57:49Victory had been won,
0:57:49 > 0:57:53not with bombs and bullets but with credit and consumerism.
0:57:54 > 0:57:57And history now records that dictatorship and Marxism
0:57:57 > 0:58:01just couldn't compete with democracy and markets.
0:58:05 > 0:58:07So we won. What did we do with our victory?
0:58:07 > 0:58:11We unleashed the power of turbo capitalism,
0:58:11 > 0:58:15now free from all restraint because it was the only game in town.
0:58:15 > 0:58:18This was the system that had won the Cold War,
0:58:18 > 0:58:22the system that was going to give us everlasting prosperity,
0:58:22 > 0:58:24and then it didn't.
0:58:24 > 0:58:28I bet very few of us now would look back and wish that the Communists had won
0:58:28 > 0:58:30but I doubt I'm alone
0:58:30 > 0:58:35in wishing that we had used our victory a little more wisely.
0:58:51 > 0:58:53Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd