1 00:00:02,800 --> 00:00:06,960 DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: # How can I be sure 2 00:00:06,960 --> 00:00:11,320 # In a world that's constantly changing? 3 00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:15,400 # How can I be sure 4 00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:19,280 # Where I stand with you? # 5 00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:22,520 It's easy to forget that for almost 50 years, 6 00:00:22,520 --> 00:00:26,480 Britain stood on the brink of Armageddon. 7 00:00:26,480 --> 00:00:33,680 # Whenever I... Whenever I am away from you 8 00:00:33,680 --> 00:00:37,160 # I want to die... # 9 00:00:37,160 --> 00:00:41,120 There was a war that shaped our society. 10 00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:45,240 # How do I know? # 11 00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:48,280 Welcome to Cold War Britain. 12 00:00:49,480 --> 00:00:52,880 The nuclear stand-off between East and West 13 00:00:52,880 --> 00:00:55,240 took us all to the edge of destruction. 14 00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:04,560 But the Cold War was also touched with a dark glamour. 15 00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:09,400 It was fought on surprising new battlefronts 16 00:01:09,400 --> 00:01:12,240 amidst a growing moral murkiness. 17 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:15,880 But there was much more to this great conflict 18 00:01:15,880 --> 00:01:18,480 than secrets and spies. 19 00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:23,680 It was a war between two different ways of life. 20 00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:24,920 A war of ideas. 21 00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:27,960 A war of shadows. 22 00:01:28,920 --> 00:01:31,880 And a war of the imagination. 23 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:53,480 If there's one moment that captures the Cold War in our imagination, 24 00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:56,240 it's the early 1960s. 25 00:01:57,400 --> 00:02:01,840 On Berlin's frontline, its presence hung heavy. 26 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:06,800 Armed soldiers, barbed wire, military checkpoints. 27 00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:14,160 But in Britain, the struggle between East and West 28 00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:18,040 was moving onto a surprising new front. 29 00:02:21,720 --> 00:02:23,840 And at the heart of this new battleground 30 00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:26,040 was the suburban household. 31 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:30,040 Hello. 32 00:02:30,040 --> 00:02:31,440 I think in this programme, 33 00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:34,560 I'd better tackle a job that I've been putting off for a long time. 34 00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:38,920 In 1962, this house in Ealing, West London, 35 00:02:38,920 --> 00:02:41,480 had a glamorous TV makeover, 36 00:02:41,480 --> 00:02:46,280 at the hands of DIY expert, Barry Bucknell. 37 00:02:46,280 --> 00:02:50,880 Fairly new, this idea having the adhesive actually on the tile, 38 00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:54,640 so there is no spreading of adhesive over the floor. 39 00:02:57,280 --> 00:02:59,320 In the hands of Barry Bucknell, 40 00:02:59,320 --> 00:03:01,960 this place became a temple to modernity. 41 00:03:06,840 --> 00:03:10,280 At its peak, the show was watched by some seven million viewers - 42 00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:12,760 the kind of aspirational young people 43 00:03:12,760 --> 00:03:15,760 who dreamed of making the very best of their homes. 44 00:03:15,760 --> 00:03:20,520 But as part of Britain's new army of DIY enthusiasts, 45 00:03:20,520 --> 00:03:24,040 they'd also been recruited as foot soldiers 46 00:03:24,040 --> 00:03:29,440 in the great ideological struggle between capitalism and communism. 47 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:31,920 MUSIC: "Dream, Dream, Dream" by the Everly Brothers 48 00:03:31,920 --> 00:03:33,800 # Dream... 49 00:03:33,800 --> 00:03:36,520 # Dream, dream, dream... # 50 00:03:36,520 --> 00:03:40,480 Half a century before our love of property porn, 51 00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:43,080 more and more ordinary families 52 00:03:43,080 --> 00:03:46,040 were falling in love with home improvement 53 00:03:46,040 --> 00:03:51,360 and getting a kick out of buying shiny, new mod-cons. 54 00:03:51,360 --> 00:03:55,000 This was a genuine watershed in our modern story. 55 00:03:55,000 --> 00:04:00,080 The moment when we began to define ourselves less as citizens 56 00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:04,920 than as consumers - active members of the affluent society. 57 00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:08,800 But the home furnishings boom 58 00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:13,040 was also a sign of just how much more the capitalist West 59 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:16,680 could offer its people than the Communist East. 60 00:04:17,960 --> 00:04:21,000 In 1959, most ordinary people 61 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:23,400 were more likely to live somewhere like this 62 00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:25,800 than in one of the ideal homes in the brochure. 63 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:28,840 But if they worked hard and put money by, 64 00:04:28,840 --> 00:04:33,320 then they could reasonably hope to live somewhere much, much better. 65 00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:38,160 And that was one of the key things that divided them from their counterparts in the Eastern Bloc. 66 00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:39,680 Since the late '40s, 67 00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:44,760 the welfare state had given people support and security. 68 00:04:44,760 --> 00:04:49,000 And in an age of full employment and soaring living standards, 69 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:54,640 Marxism appealed only to a tiny minority of idealistic intellectuals. 70 00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:58,160 So, by the end of the 1950s, 71 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:03,080 it wasn't Communism that seemed likely to deliver a better future, 72 00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:07,040 but for the first time, another C-word - consumerism. 73 00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:09,160 You know, Karl Marx once said 74 00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:11,560 that religion was the opium of the people. 75 00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:15,440 But who needs religion when you've got white goods? 76 00:05:21,920 --> 00:05:24,760 In just two years after 1957, 77 00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:27,840 the number of British homes with a fridge 78 00:05:27,840 --> 00:05:30,120 rose by a staggering 60 per cent. 79 00:05:30,120 --> 00:05:33,720 And even at the highest diplomatic level, 80 00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:39,760 the world's leaders recognised the importance of the domestic front. 81 00:05:39,760 --> 00:05:42,840 In 1959, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev 82 00:05:42,840 --> 00:05:46,600 took on American Vice President Richard Nixon, 83 00:05:46,600 --> 00:05:49,320 at a Moscow trade fair. 84 00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:51,480 KHRUSHCHEV SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN 85 00:05:51,480 --> 00:05:53,600 NEWSREEL: 'Mr Khrushchev is telling Mr Nixon 86 00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:57,440 'that Russia will catch up to America and wave as she passes us by.' 87 00:05:57,440 --> 00:06:00,080 'So he says in words and actions.' 88 00:06:00,080 --> 00:06:01,920 HE CONTINUES TO SPEAK IN RUSSIAN 89 00:06:04,760 --> 00:06:07,800 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 90 00:06:10,080 --> 00:06:14,520 In the West, few people were convince by Khrushchev's bravado. 91 00:06:14,520 --> 00:06:16,320 But while the capitalist powers 92 00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:18,000 were confident of winning the contest 93 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,040 for consumer's hearts and minds, 94 00:06:21,040 --> 00:06:24,640 they were increasingly worried that in other fields, 95 00:06:24,640 --> 00:06:26,480 they were falling behind. 96 00:06:32,400 --> 00:06:35,360 Over the pursuit of material satisfaction 97 00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:38,880 loomed the dark shadow of the Cold War. 98 00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:44,800 Each side was hunting for the technological breakthrough 99 00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:47,200 that could mean global domination. 100 00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:52,360 And at the beginning of the 1960s, 101 00:06:52,360 --> 00:06:58,040 Russian scientists pulled off a feat so impressive, so historic, 102 00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:01,560 than even the West couldn't help but applaud. 103 00:07:01,560 --> 00:07:04,120 Suddenly, it was the Soviet Union 104 00:07:04,120 --> 00:07:07,640 that looked glamorous and sophisticated - 105 00:07:07,640 --> 00:07:09,760 the crucible of modernity. 106 00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:11,800 CHEERING 107 00:07:14,840 --> 00:07:21,040 In July 1961, Manchester came out to greet a very special visitor. 108 00:07:21,840 --> 00:07:23,760 Major Yuri Gagarin. 109 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:28,240 MUSIC: "Destination Moon" by Dinah Washington 110 00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:33,320 # Come and take a trip 111 00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:35,440 # In my rocket ship... # 112 00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:40,400 As the first man in space, Gagarin had shot to international fame 113 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:43,120 on both sides of the Iron Curtain. 114 00:07:43,120 --> 00:07:45,720 # Destination, moon! 115 00:07:47,120 --> 00:07:49,240 # We'll travel fast as light... # 116 00:07:49,240 --> 00:07:53,240 A century earlier, Communism's founding fathers, 117 00:07:53,240 --> 00:07:55,680 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 118 00:07:55,680 --> 00:08:00,200 had seen Manchester as the epitome of cutthroat capitalism. 119 00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:05,440 But now the city turned out to applaud Communism's latest pin-up. 120 00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:09,640 When Gagarin arrived on his goodwill tour, 121 00:08:09,640 --> 00:08:13,320 despite the inevitable Mancunian rain, 122 00:08:13,320 --> 00:08:15,880 he was hailed as a local hero. 123 00:08:17,640 --> 00:08:21,480 # So away we'll steal In my space mobile... # 124 00:08:21,480 --> 00:08:26,120 Gagarin was driven here - to Manchester Town Hall - 125 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:30,080 for a grand civic reception in his honour. 126 00:08:30,080 --> 00:08:34,640 Outside, more than 6,000 people were waiting - 127 00:08:34,640 --> 00:08:38,040 many of them wearing little pins with the hammer and sickle. 128 00:08:38,040 --> 00:08:41,160 The Police said it was the biggest crowd here since VE day. 129 00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:43,800 And as his car drew up, 130 00:08:43,800 --> 00:08:47,080 they hoisted the red flag alongside the Union Jack, 131 00:08:47,080 --> 00:08:50,520 and the band struck up the Soviet anthem. 132 00:08:50,520 --> 00:08:57,040 Moscow could hardly have wished for better propaganda. 133 00:08:57,040 --> 00:08:59,280 Man in space, official! 134 00:09:01,480 --> 00:09:06,520 The people of Manchester weren't alone in falling for the Major. 135 00:09:06,520 --> 00:09:09,000 You thought he was handsome? I certainly did. 136 00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:10,840 He gave me a big heart throb. 137 00:09:10,840 --> 00:09:13,280 I say, very best British good luck to the chap. 138 00:09:13,280 --> 00:09:16,520 I liked his uniform, it's the best uniform I've ever seen, 139 00:09:16,520 --> 00:09:18,760 and he's good looking and all that. 140 00:09:18,760 --> 00:09:22,400 You've been listening to the girls, haven't you? Yeah. 141 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:29,520 For most people, the sheer thrill of conquering space 142 00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:33,680 transcended the ideological divisions of the Cold War. 143 00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:41,400 But not everyone was so enthused by the Kremlin's achievements. 144 00:09:41,400 --> 00:09:46,200 I still feel that um the Western world is very much in advance 145 00:09:46,200 --> 00:09:47,600 and that this thing 146 00:09:47,600 --> 00:09:51,080 is just a matter of trying to get there first every time. 147 00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:55,760 But I think it's going to make the people very nervous of what's going to happen next. 148 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:05,080 The Soviet Union's conquest of the skies 149 00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:09,240 upped the ante in an intensely competitive arms race. 150 00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:15,400 Following our American allies' lead, 151 00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:18,480 Britain was investing in increasingly sleek 152 00:10:18,640 --> 00:10:21,280 and sophisticated arms and aircraft. 153 00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:24,480 And many people took pride and reassurance 154 00:10:24,480 --> 00:10:28,200 from our independent arsenal of atomic hardware. 155 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:35,360 But some were becoming increasingly critical 156 00:10:35,360 --> 00:10:40,280 of Britain's dangerous infatuation with high-tech tools of death. 157 00:10:46,480 --> 00:10:50,920 In January 1958, a group of high-minded activists 158 00:10:50,920 --> 00:10:54,840 made their way to the heart of the City of London. 159 00:10:54,840 --> 00:10:58,280 Meeting in the shadow of St Paul's Cathedral, 160 00:10:58,280 --> 00:11:02,120 they committed themselves to a new mass campaign 161 00:11:02,120 --> 00:11:04,640 against Britain's nuclear obsession. 162 00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:09,880 As the playwright JB Priestly put it, 163 00:11:09,880 --> 00:11:14,560 three glasses too many of vodka or of Bourbon on the rocks, 164 00:11:14,560 --> 00:11:17,160 and the wrong button might be pressed, 165 00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:21,160 so Britain, they thought, should lead the world. 166 00:11:21,160 --> 00:11:23,360 "We must give up our nuclear weapons 167 00:11:23,360 --> 00:11:26,200 "and persuade other countries to follow suit 168 00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:28,520 "by the force of our moral example." 169 00:11:30,400 --> 00:11:32,400 AIR-RAID SIREN 170 00:11:36,720 --> 00:11:42,000 The idea that we might only be the push of a button away from Armageddon 171 00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:45,400 would dominate the nightmares of a generation. 172 00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:51,320 And this was the inspiration 173 00:11:51,320 --> 00:11:55,760 behind the new campaign for nuclear disarmament. 174 00:11:57,480 --> 00:12:02,320 That Easter, CND's idealists marched from Trafalgar Square 175 00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:06,320 to the atomic weapons research establishment at Aldermaston. 176 00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:10,400 CND was a classic movement 177 00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:14,880 of the well-meaning, Guardian-reading middle classes. 178 00:12:14,880 --> 00:12:22,400 And almost by accident, they came up with a unique British contribution to the iconography of the Cold War, 179 00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:27,080 and one of the most successful pieces of branding of the 20th Century. 180 00:12:27,080 --> 00:12:33,120 All thanks to the CND supporter and graphic designer, Gerry Holtom. 181 00:12:35,120 --> 00:12:38,440 Now, there's different explanations of where he got the idea from. 182 00:12:38,440 --> 00:12:41,400 One is that it's a version of the Christian cross. 183 00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:45,400 Another is that it incorporates the semaphore symbols for N and D. 184 00:12:45,400 --> 00:12:49,200 But Holtom himself said that his inspiration was rather more artistic. 185 00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:53,880 Specifically, this painting - the Third of May 1808 - 186 00:12:53,880 --> 00:12:56,720 by the Spanish artist, Francisco Goya. 187 00:12:56,720 --> 00:13:02,000 "I was in despair," Holtom said, "Deep despair, so I drew myself - 188 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:05,040 "the representative of an individual in despair. 189 00:13:05,040 --> 00:13:07,880 "Hands outstretched, palm outwards and downwards, 190 00:13:07,880 --> 00:13:12,160 "in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad." 191 00:13:12,160 --> 00:13:16,200 And when you formalise that in a drawing, you get this. 192 00:13:18,840 --> 00:13:21,120 Gerry Holtom's even better at it than I am. 193 00:13:21,120 --> 00:13:24,160 Now, if it had been me, I would have trademarked this 194 00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:26,600 and moved to the Caribbean on the proceeds, 195 00:13:26,600 --> 00:13:30,040 but Gerry Holtom was quite a nice guy, so he didn't, 196 00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:32,440 and the result was one of the most iconic 197 00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:36,320 and recognisable international symbols of the last half-century. 198 00:13:41,960 --> 00:13:45,560 The arrival of CND triggered an urgent debate 199 00:13:45,560 --> 00:13:50,080 about perhaps the biggest moral quandary Britain had ever known, 200 00:13:50,080 --> 00:13:53,000 and provoked passionate disagreements 201 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:57,040 between hand-wringing idealists and hard-headed realists. 202 00:13:57,040 --> 00:14:01,120 If we have an atomic war of this kind, it's the finish for Britain. 203 00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:04,320 And I personally feel that it is time people of Britain realised it. 204 00:14:06,160 --> 00:14:08,200 Do you think we should keep the H bomb? 205 00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:12,280 Well, as long as the other countries do, I think we should, yes. 206 00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:17,240 If we really are interested in the future of our children, 207 00:14:17,240 --> 00:14:20,200 it is the smallest thing we can do to join this procession. 208 00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:25,480 Russia's got it and she's producing it on mass production, really, 209 00:14:25,480 --> 00:14:28,280 and what with what we've got, why should we stop it? 210 00:14:28,280 --> 00:14:31,240 MUSIC: "Optimistic" by Skeeter Davis 211 00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:43,800 # How long is the river...? # 212 00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:47,800 The strange paradox of British life in the early 1960s 213 00:14:47,800 --> 00:14:52,960 is that most people were both more secure and less secure than ever. 214 00:14:52,960 --> 00:14:57,400 We were richer, more comfortable, better fed and better housed. 215 00:14:57,400 --> 00:15:01,760 And yet, the world might end at the touch of a button. 216 00:15:04,480 --> 00:15:09,480 Nothing captured the tension between prosperity and paranoia 217 00:15:09,480 --> 00:15:16,280 better than the adventures of post-war Britain's most enduring and most dashing hero. 218 00:15:16,280 --> 00:15:22,240 A man who became synonymous with the superficial glamour of the Cold War. 219 00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:26,000 On the 10th of October 1963, the Times announced 220 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:30,600 the latest development in the Cold War's nuclear game. 221 00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:36,160 With the news that France's Mirage 4 atomic bombers had just come into commission. 222 00:15:36,160 --> 00:15:39,320 But interestingly, it devoted rather more attention 223 00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:41,280 to a very different kind of story. 224 00:15:41,280 --> 00:15:43,480 The review of a new film - 225 00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:45,520 a second outing for a secret agent 226 00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:47,960 who, according to the Times's reviewer, 227 00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:51,160 acts out our less reputable fantasies 228 00:15:51,160 --> 00:15:53,400 without ever going too far. 229 00:16:02,040 --> 00:16:07,000 And the extraordinary, record-breaking success of From Russia with Love 230 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:11,400 is a reminder that the Cold War wasn't just the stuff of nightmares, 231 00:16:11,400 --> 00:16:14,160 but could also be the stuff of fantasy. 232 00:16:14,160 --> 00:16:16,400 You're one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen. 233 00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:19,640 Thank you but I think my mouth is too big. 234 00:16:19,640 --> 00:16:21,840 No, it's the right size. 235 00:16:32,440 --> 00:16:37,720 Ian Fleming's James Bond had little time for moral introspection. 236 00:16:37,720 --> 00:16:40,840 Mind you, wrestling with your conscience isn't easy 237 00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:44,400 when you're also fighting off a woman with daggers in her boots. 238 00:16:45,440 --> 00:16:48,280 SHE GASPS AND CHOKES 239 00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:52,160 Bond is an old-fashioned, square-jawed British hero, 240 00:16:52,160 --> 00:16:56,200 updated for the modern world of the Cold War. 241 00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:00,480 Horrible woman. 242 00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:02,240 Yes. 243 00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:03,600 She's had her kicks. 244 00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:07,600 But the Bond phenomenon also reflected a society 245 00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:12,880 that was more aspirational and more materialistic than ever. 246 00:17:12,880 --> 00:17:15,920 Even before the first Bond film had been released, 247 00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:18,160 the books were enormously popular, 248 00:17:18,160 --> 00:17:20,160 selling more than 1.5 million copies. 249 00:17:20,160 --> 00:17:24,440 But the real key to their success was this cheap paperback format 250 00:17:24,440 --> 00:17:27,240 which made them immediately accessible. 251 00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:29,280 As Fleming himself put it, 252 00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:33,080 "The lower classes find them equally readable, 253 00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:37,440 "although one might have thought that the sophistication of the background and detail 254 00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:41,320 "are outside their experience and in part incomprehensible." 255 00:17:41,320 --> 00:17:44,080 But this was a newly affluent Britain, 256 00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:48,160 in which Fleming's cocktail of sex, snobbery and sadism 257 00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:49,840 was a winning formula. 258 00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:58,800 Hello. Hello. Agent Bind. 259 00:17:58,800 --> 00:18:01,200 James? No, Charlie. 260 00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:03,800 Number? Double-oh, "oh". 261 00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:10,560 Bond rapidly became a fixture of British popular culture. 262 00:18:10,560 --> 00:18:13,680 And an obvious candidate for the Carry On treatment. 263 00:18:13,680 --> 00:18:16,960 I am Doctor Crow. You are surprised? 264 00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:20,920 Yes, I am, I expected you to be a man. 265 00:18:20,920 --> 00:18:22,520 Or a woman. I am both. 266 00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:30,840 Britain's manufacturers were also quick to cash in 267 00:18:30,840 --> 00:18:33,520 on Bond's famous gadgets. 268 00:18:33,520 --> 00:18:38,400 The message being that in the technological field, Britain still held its own. 269 00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:43,920 But not everybody bought into Bond. 270 00:18:43,920 --> 00:18:47,840 It's the consumer goods ethic, really. 271 00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:51,600 That everything around you, all the dull things of life, 272 00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:56,000 are suddenly animated by this wonderful cachet of espionage. 273 00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:58,640 The things on our desk that could explode. 274 00:18:58,640 --> 00:19:02,000 Er, our ties, which could suddenly take photographs. 275 00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:07,000 These give to a drab and materialistic existence a kind of magic. 276 00:19:12,080 --> 00:19:16,080 The man who saw through Bond's glittering veneer 277 00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:18,680 to the moral void beneath 278 00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:20,840 was another spy novelist. 279 00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:24,240 The former British intelligence officer, John Le Carre. 280 00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:29,960 And he had no truck with Fleming's crude world view 281 00:19:29,960 --> 00:19:32,400 and materialistic fantasies. 282 00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:44,680 In 1961, the year the Communists built the Berlin Wall, 283 00:19:44,680 --> 00:19:47,440 John Le Carre was stationed in Bonn, 284 00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:50,320 and with one of his British embassy colleagues, 285 00:19:50,320 --> 00:19:54,160 he travelled here to Berlin, to see the situation for himself. 286 00:19:54,160 --> 00:19:56,800 Now, Le Carre knew better than anybody 287 00:19:56,800 --> 00:20:00,840 the kind of ethical compromises required by the Cold War. 288 00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:04,720 And he realised at once that the coming of the Berlin Wall 289 00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:08,640 would only make the moral fog murkier than ever. 290 00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:18,080 The atmosphere of Le Carre's most powerful novel, 291 00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:24,240 The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, hangs heavy with existential doubt. 292 00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:28,680 It was published in 1963, at the height of Bond-mania, 293 00:20:28,680 --> 00:20:31,120 but it could hardly be more different 294 00:20:31,120 --> 00:20:34,960 from one of Ian Fleming's escapist thrillers. 295 00:20:34,960 --> 00:20:37,560 Le Carre's book doesn't really have a hero. 296 00:20:37,560 --> 00:20:39,840 It has an anti-hero - Alec Leamus - 297 00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:44,280 a very different kind of character from the dashing James Bond. 298 00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:46,520 Bond is tall and debonair. 299 00:20:46,520 --> 00:20:49,400 Leamus is grey and shambling. 300 00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:54,840 Bond lives in fashionable Chelsea, Leamus in rundown Bayswater. 301 00:20:54,840 --> 00:21:01,000 Bond's flat is smart and modern, Leamus's is small and squalid. 302 00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:05,240 Bond drives an Aston Martin, Leamus catches the bus. 303 00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:12,960 The grubby reality of Cold War espionage 304 00:21:12,960 --> 00:21:16,000 was underlined by the film adaptation. 305 00:21:17,880 --> 00:21:22,080 Deliberately shot in black-and-white, 306 00:21:22,080 --> 00:21:24,640 it starred a haggard Richard Burton, 307 00:21:24,640 --> 00:21:28,760 his legendary good looks, now worn and weary. 308 00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:33,280 What the hell do you think spies are? 309 00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:35,320 Moral philosophers measuring everything they do 310 00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:36,920 against the will of God or Karl Marx? 311 00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:41,080 They're not, they're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me. 312 00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:43,760 Little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, 313 00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:45,880 civil servants playing cowboys and Indians 314 00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:47,680 to brighten their rotten little lives. 315 00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:49,920 Do you think they sit like monks in a cell 316 00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:51,760 balancing right against wrong? 317 00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:02,640 The story ends at the Berlin wall. 318 00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:06,000 His mission accomplished, Leamus has the chance 319 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:09,240 to return from the East and come in from the cold. 320 00:22:09,240 --> 00:22:13,760 But by now our faith in his moral mission has been fatally eroded 321 00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:18,000 because amid the twists and turns of le Carre's narrative, 322 00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:22,240 Alec Leamus has left the ethical high ground far behind. 323 00:22:26,120 --> 00:22:30,560 In 1966, Le Carre gave an interview to the Listener magazine. 324 00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:32,400 "We in the West," he said, 325 00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:35,800 "Have always argued that in a non-Communist world, 326 00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:37,880 "the one thing we have in common 327 00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:42,760 "is our belief in the individual, rather than the idea." 328 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,720 "And yet, in the Cold War, we are sacrificing the individual 329 00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:51,960 "in the battle against the collective." 330 00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:56,160 And this, of course, was the dilemma that Britain was facing. 331 00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:59,560 The moral quandary at the heart of the Cold War. 332 00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:13,000 During the 1960s, these ethical contortions 333 00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:15,440 were brought home to the British public 334 00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:19,720 by a wave of genuine and very seedy spy scandals. 335 00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:24,000 And more than any other, it was the story of John Vassall 336 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:29,000 that felt like it might have come straight from one of John Le Carre's novels. 337 00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:34,360 If there's one sex and spying scandal 338 00:23:34,360 --> 00:23:37,640 that most people remember from the 1960s, 339 00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:41,040 it is, of course, the Profumo scandal of 1963. 340 00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:43,960 But I think it was the Vassall case a year earlier - 341 00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:48,040 with its illicit homosexuality and its unambiguous treachery - 342 00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:50,000 that did most damage. 343 00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,600 Not just to Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, 344 00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:55,440 but to the British establishment more generally. 345 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:04,800 It all began when a young clerk working at the British embassy in Moscow 346 00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:09,680 visited a high-class hotel for a private dinner party. 347 00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:14,720 After dinner, the British clerk began to feel a little bit woozy, 348 00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:19,280 so his host suggested that he lie down on a convenient divan. 349 00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:24,120 And then, the tone of the evening began to change. 350 00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:31,000 "I can recollect," the clerk said later, 351 00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:33,680 "Having my underpants in my hand. 352 00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:37,200 "And holding them up in the air at the request of others. 353 00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:41,640 "Then I was lying on the bed, naked. 354 00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:46,640 "And as far as I can recollect, there were three other men on the bed with me. 355 00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:50,280 "I cannot remember exactly what took place." 356 00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:58,400 But the clerk's little memory lapse was neither here nor there, 357 00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:00,360 because unfortunately for him, 358 00:25:00,360 --> 00:25:04,320 the whole thing had been photographed by the KGB. 359 00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:09,760 The Russians used the explicit images 360 00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:14,240 to blackmail John Vassall into giving them top-secret documents, 361 00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:18,160 first in Moscow, and later, back in London. 362 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:23,560 Years afterwards, he ruefully reflected on his plight. 363 00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:26,080 Er, it's rather like a spider's web. 364 00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:31,160 Er, once you are inside the web, there is no way of getting out. 365 00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:36,360 The finesse and the way with which they do these things 366 00:25:36,360 --> 00:25:39,480 is beyond the comprehension of most people. 367 00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:41,520 In fact, I would say that the Russians 368 00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:43,200 do it better than anybody in the world. 369 00:25:50,440 --> 00:25:56,040 That was how Vassall signalled when he wanted to arrange an urgent meeting with his Russian contact, 370 00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:58,760 it was alleged at Bow Street today. 371 00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:02,840 A chalk circle on this plane tree here in Duchess of Bedford Walk, 372 00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,880 just half a mile away from the Russian embassy. 373 00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:12,600 To the British press, this was a new kind of front-page scandal. 374 00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:19,080 Prurient voyeurism dressed up as pious concern for our national security. 375 00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:22,280 And of course, Fleet Street loved it. 376 00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:25,960 As one sensational headline followed another, 377 00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:28,640 Britain's prime minister, Harold Macmillan, 378 00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:33,440 seemed completely adrift, but he couldn't say that he hadn't been warned. 379 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:38,360 The story goes that in the spring of 1962, 380 00:26:38,360 --> 00:26:42,720 Macmillan's cabinet secretary warned him that a clerk from the admiralty 381 00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:46,840 was selling state secrets in the clubs around Victoria. 382 00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:49,320 But Macmillan was having none of it. 383 00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:53,600 "Nonsense," he said. "There are no clubs around Victoria." 384 00:26:56,240 --> 00:27:00,600 Macmillan's rather off-hand remark would come back to haunt him 385 00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:03,400 because when Vassall's treachery became public, 386 00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:06,600 the prime minister's greatest strength - 387 00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:09,440 his reassuringly tweedy, patrician persona - 388 00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:12,280 became his greatest weakness. 389 00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:15,120 At Vassall's trial, 390 00:27:15,120 --> 00:27:17,120 it emerged that for years, 391 00:27:17,120 --> 00:27:20,160 he had been living in a fashionable apartment 392 00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:22,600 well beyond his civil service means - 393 00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:26,320 all thanks to his Soviet paymasters. 394 00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,880 And yet, nobody had smelt a rat. 395 00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:35,120 Vassall went down for 18 years. 396 00:27:35,120 --> 00:27:38,080 And although Harold Macmillan clung on to his job, 397 00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,960 in many people's eyes, he was now on probation. 398 00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:52,520 But in the autumn of 1962, Macmillan had other things on his mind. 399 00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,440 MACMILLAN: Hello, can you hear me now? Over. 400 00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,640 AMERICAN MALE VOICE: Yes, sir, I hear you very clearly 401 00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:03,080 and I'll hand the phone to the President. Over. 402 00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:06,960 For one week in October, 403 00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:13,240 the Prime Minister was in almost daily conversation with the President of the United States 404 00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:18,880 as the Cold War came terrifyingly close to turning hot. 405 00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:23,200 I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate 406 00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:28,440 this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace. 407 00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:34,600 On the 22nd of October, the very day Vassall was sentenced, 408 00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:39,840 John F Kennedy revealed that Soviet missiles had been discovered in Cuba. 409 00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:46,720 Hello, er, Prime Minister. Hello, what's the news now? Over. 410 00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:52,240 The Cuban crisis plunged East and West 411 00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:55,680 into a deadly game of high stakes poker. 412 00:28:57,080 --> 00:28:59,520 As the nation watched and waited, 413 00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:06,240 Macmillan was desperate to ensure that Britain would have some say over the fate of the world. 414 00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:12,120 Now, Macmillan was almost 70, whereas Kennedy was just 45, 415 00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,160 but Macmillan was well aware that in this conflict, 416 00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,920 it was the younger man, the American, who was really calling the shots 417 00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,680 and that he himself was basically just a junior partner. 418 00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,960 But Macmillan always liked to see himself as the wise old counsellor 419 00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:28,760 offering all the benefits of his experience. 420 00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:32,520 The Greek to Kennedy's Roman. 421 00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:35,680 MUSIC: "A Mushroom Cloud" by Sammy Salvo 422 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,280 # I want to be happy... # 423 00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:44,840 The world stood at the edge of darkness 424 00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:48,880 and this wasn't one of Ian Fleming's escapist fantasies. 425 00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:52,120 This was a genuine doomsday scenario 426 00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:57,000 that might mean the end of civilisation itself. 427 00:29:57,000 --> 00:29:59,520 # It haunts my future and threatens my schemes... # 428 00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:04,400 Some people could only think of their nearest and dearest. 429 00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:08,280 Among all the stories about British reactions to the Cuban crisis, 430 00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:10,640 this one strikes me as particularly moving. 431 00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:15,120 A father of six kept his three eldest children from school yesterday 432 00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:18,920 so that the whole family could be together during the Cuban crisis. 433 00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:22,440 Mr Peter Gardner, a 44-year-old company director 434 00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:24,840 from Shoreham, Sussex, explained, 435 00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:27,560 "I could not protect my children in a bomb raid - 436 00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:29,120 "nor could anyone else - 437 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:33,600 "but I feel we should all be together at this dangerous time." 438 00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:39,520 # We pray, we party, we laugh and we pray... # 439 00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:43,520 With the Third World War apparently only moments away, 440 00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:48,000 this was as close as Britain ever came to nuclear annihilation. 441 00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:51,080 # I cling to my baby 442 00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:54,480 # And she clings to me... # 443 00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,120 And then, the Kremlin blinked. 444 00:30:57,120 --> 00:31:00,800 The Soviet Union agreed to dismantle the missiles. 445 00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:02,880 The crisis was over. 446 00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:06,680 # There's a mushroom cloud That hangs in the way... # 447 00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:11,000 The people could breathe a great sigh of relief. 448 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:14,360 # Peace, peace, peace Where did you go? 449 00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:17,080 # Where did you go? # 450 00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,480 And so could Harold Macmillan. 451 00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,520 But the reality was much, much more frightening 452 00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:37,680 than either Macmillan or the British people had ever guessed. 453 00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:44,320 Because if the missile crisis had escalated, 454 00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:49,320 we would have been the launch pad for the Americans' attack on the Communist Bloc. 455 00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:51,040 All thanks 456 00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:53,600 to a deal struck in the 1950s. 457 00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:59,040 The arrangement was called project Emily. 458 00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:01,320 It sounds innocuous enough, 459 00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:03,160 but under the terms of the deal, 460 00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,200 the Americans installed 60 Thor ballistic missiles 461 00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:09,480 on RAF sites up a United Kingdom. 462 00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:14,560 By hosting the Thors, 463 00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,800 the Government had effectively drawn a target on Britain 464 00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:20,560 and invited the Kremlin to take aim. 465 00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:22,680 And what neither what the public, 466 00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,360 nor - more shockingly - Macmillan himself, 467 00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:29,840 knew during those long days and nights in October 468 00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:35,080 was just how close to that attack Britain almost came. 469 00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:41,360 When Kennedy talked to Macmillan on the phone, he took care to sound inclusive and considerate. 470 00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:45,400 "I will talk to you," he promised on the 26th October, 471 00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:48,680 "Before we do anything of a drastic nature." 472 00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:52,800 But a month later, in a secret meeting with his intelligence chiefs, 473 00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:56,760 Macmillan found out that he had been kept in the dark. 474 00:32:56,760 --> 00:32:58,720 According to Sir Kenneth Strong, 475 00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:01,480 the director of the joint intelligence bureau, 476 00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:04,160 the Americans had been prepared to go it alone - 477 00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:07,360 either irrespective of what their allies thought, 478 00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:10,400 or without consulting their allies at all. 479 00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:14,880 According to Strong, the Americans had seriously considered a pre-emptive strike, 480 00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:19,360 sending their bombers east to hit the key Soviet missile sites. 481 00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,240 And if, as Strong feared, the attack failed, 482 00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:24,920 then the Russians would have hit back, 483 00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:26,640 unleashing nuclear Armageddon. 484 00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:42,720 The Cuban crisis was a chilling reminder of Britain's vulnerability. 485 00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:47,520 It left many people convinced that a devastating nuclear war 486 00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:52,840 was now not a possibility, but a terrifying probability. 487 00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:57,920 The Government's rather rose-tinted hope was that if the worst happened, 488 00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:02,760 the British people would rediscover the stoical spirit of the Blitz, 489 00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:06,080 helped by a small army of civil defence wardens 490 00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:08,560 and a flimsy pamphlet 491 00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:12,040 telling you how to turn your house into a fallout shelter. 492 00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:16,960 But the wardens were advised to expect something of a challenge. 493 00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:26,560 Good morning, Mrs Bells. Right, what is it? 494 00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:28,600 I'm your civil defence warden. 495 00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:31,400 Is there any help or advice I could give you? 496 00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:32,960 Wouldn't know, I'm sure. 497 00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:34,840 Read the Householders' Handbook, haven't you? 498 00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:38,560 No. My husband says there's not going to be a war. 499 00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:41,560 All this panic's going to blow over. 500 00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:46,480 Anyway, I got plenty to do without sitting around all day reading books, thank you very much. 501 00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:55,600 The instructions in the Householders' Handbook 502 00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:57,400 are extraordinarily detailed. 503 00:34:57,400 --> 00:34:59,960 There's the different kinds of sirens, 504 00:34:59,960 --> 00:35:01,800 how to prepare your fallout room, 505 00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:04,160 how to protect yourself against radiation. 506 00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:06,760 Even what you'll need in your shelter. 507 00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:09,880 Kettle, towels, rubber gloves. 508 00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:12,960 Even, poignantly, toys for the children. 509 00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:14,920 And yet the tone of this pamphlet 510 00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:17,760 is surprisingly brisk, even a little bit upbeat. 511 00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:20,800 With all the nice pictures, it feels like a DIY manual. 512 00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:22,640 And that, I suppose, was the point - 513 00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:24,520 that with the proper preparation, 514 00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:27,920 you could get through World War Three almost unscathed. 515 00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:32,880 That was very far from the truth. 516 00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:37,080 But in Cold War Britain, the authorities thought it better 517 00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:41,480 to maintain public confidence than to be absolutely honest. 518 00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,040 But a BBC director called Peter Watkins 519 00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:53,320 had no time for the Government's half-truths, 520 00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:57,680 and he set out to show the public the awful reality. 521 00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:01,400 'Time - 9.13am. 522 00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:07,920 AIR RAID SIREN 523 00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:13,200 His film was called the War Game. 524 00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:17,640 Move! Come on, come on. Quick. 525 00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:22,160 'This family couldn't afford to build themselves a refuge. 526 00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:27,720 'This could be the way the last two minutes of peace in Britain would look.' 527 00:36:27,720 --> 00:36:30,520 Gather the children! 528 00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:33,600 Peter? Tony? Tony! 529 00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:36,800 One of Britain's first docu-dramas, 530 00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:42,240 it showed what might happen if a nuclear bomb landed on Kent. 531 00:36:42,240 --> 00:36:43,680 And in this scenario, 532 00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:48,160 there was no dashing secret agent to come and save the world. 533 00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:50,000 SCREAMING AND COUGHING 534 00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:55,480 'At this distance, the heat wave is sufficient to cause melting of the upturned eyeball, 535 00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:59,520 'third degree burning of the skin, and ignition of furniture.' 536 00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:02,080 SCREAMING 537 00:37:05,240 --> 00:37:08,760 '12 seconds later, the shock front arrives.' 538 00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:11,880 THUNDEROUS RUMBLING 539 00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:21,760 One of the first things that Peter Watkins did 540 00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,960 was to put together this extraordinary list of 112 questions 541 00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:30,000 for all sorts of scientists and experts and organisations - 542 00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:32,760 not just here in Britain, but all over the world. 543 00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:34,880 Some of them are genuinely chilling. 544 00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:37,920 "Does radio-active dust taste? 545 00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:40,960 "Is it gritty in the mouth? Can one ever see it?" 546 00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:45,400 Or this. "What are the effects of mental depression likely to be? 547 00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:50,880 "An increased wish for suicide? For, perhaps, killing off one's family?" 548 00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:52,560 Scary stuff. 549 00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:56,400 You see, Watkins was determined, absolutely determined, 550 00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:59,440 that nobody was going to discredit his film 551 00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:01,760 on the grounds of inaccuracy. 552 00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:09,800 'When the carbon monoxide content of inhaled air exceeds 1.28 per cent, 553 00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:15,880 'it will be followed by death within three minutes. 554 00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:19,480 'This is nuclear war.' 555 00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:24,800 But the War Game's vision of a Britain 556 00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:27,280 where the unlucky ones survived 557 00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:31,320 was so horrific that the BBC refused to show it. 558 00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:36,640 Because the subject was so contentious, 559 00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:39,200 Whitehall officials had been shown a preview. 560 00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:43,480 They let it be known that while it wasn't their decision to make, 561 00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,480 they'd prefer the War Game not to be broadcast. 562 00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:51,360 And so, the BBC was placed in a tricky situation. 563 00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,720 The BBC executives had a lot of respect, a lot of admiration, 564 00:38:55,720 --> 00:38:59,040 for the power and integrity of Watkins's film. 565 00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:03,240 And they also felt they had an obligation as an independent broadcaster 566 00:39:03,240 --> 00:39:05,320 not to be cowed by the Government. 567 00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:09,240 But they were facing what they saw as a genuine moral dilemma. 568 00:39:09,240 --> 00:39:12,320 Their greatest duty was to the national interest. 569 00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:13,760 And in this case, 570 00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:16,880 they thought that would be served by not showing a film 571 00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,680 that might undermine the nuclear deterrent, 572 00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:22,680 that might undermine support for something 573 00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:26,800 they believed was keeping us safe from the threat of Communism. 574 00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:32,720 Ranging ahead! Tank, on! 575 00:39:32,720 --> 00:39:33,680 On! 576 00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:34,920 Loaded! Fire! 577 00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:36,960 MUSIC: "Downtown" by Petula Clark, in German 578 00:39:36,960 --> 00:39:40,000 # Bist du allein von allen Freunden verlassen? 579 00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,200 # Dann geh' in die Stadt 580 00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:44,480 # Downtown. # 581 00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:46,160 While people at home 582 00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:49,560 were debating the moral complexities of the Cold War, 583 00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:53,640 there was one group of British citizens for whom the conflict 584 00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:56,600 was still very much a matter of us and them. 585 00:39:56,600 --> 00:40:00,720 # Und hor die Grossstadtmelodie bis in den fruhen Morgen 586 00:40:00,720 --> 00:40:04,840 # Sei wieder froh Da ist alles fur dich da... # 587 00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:09,840 Stationed in West Germany were some 55,000 British troops. 588 00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:12,800 # Come on, downtown... # 589 00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:15,720 This was the British Army of the Rhine. 590 00:40:15,720 --> 00:40:18,600 # Downtown, soviele Lichter, oh! 591 00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:21,360 # Downtown... # 592 00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:27,320 They were joined by their families. 593 00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:29,680 Thousands of woman and children, 594 00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:33,800 for whom bases like this one at Rheindahlen were now home. 595 00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,320 The strange world of the British Army of the Rhine 596 00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:46,480 captured in microcosm the two fronts of the Cold War. 597 00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:51,680 A tense military stand-off, and a battle for material satisfaction. 598 00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,720 For the families stationed here at Rheindahlen, 599 00:40:59,720 --> 00:41:01,880 the facilities were second to none. 600 00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:05,840 This postcard rather captures the sheer modernity of it all. 601 00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:11,440 There were schools, churches, swimming pools, even cinemas. 602 00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:12,680 Indeed, in many ways, 603 00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:15,480 the families here actually had a much better deal 604 00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,880 than a lot of their friends and relatives back home in Britain. 605 00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:24,200 And if you were Mrs Grey from Swansea getting this postcard, 606 00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,000 you might actually be a little bit envious. 607 00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:44,520 Well, social life - we have the messes to go to. 608 00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:47,160 We go on a Wednesday night when they show a film, 609 00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,800 and on Saturday, when they have some social on. 610 00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:51,440 And if we lived in Civvy Street, 611 00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:54,560 probably the nights we were at the mess, we would watch TV. 612 00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:02,400 The soldiers knew that at any moment, 613 00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:04,120 they might be called into action. 614 00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:07,840 But in a sense, their family's roles were just as important. 615 00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:14,080 While the men on exercise were out shooting, 616 00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,240 their wives were out shopping. 617 00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:20,080 For although they were living in West Germany, 618 00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:24,720 they were still playing their part in Britain's consumer revolution. 619 00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:32,200 Maintaining the British presence in Germany came with a hefty price tag. 620 00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:34,320 In the late 1960s, 621 00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:38,720 the cost of keeping the British Army of the Rhine for just 12 months 622 00:42:38,720 --> 00:42:42,120 was a cool £180 million. 623 00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:48,280 And this was only a fraction of Britain's total defence bill, 624 00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:52,240 which in 1970, came to a whopping 2.8 billion - 625 00:42:52,240 --> 00:42:56,400 well over a tenth of our entire national budget. 626 00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:02,720 And beneath all the facts and figures of the balance sheet, 627 00:43:02,720 --> 00:43:04,960 there was a deeper, more long-term cost. 628 00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:08,800 You see, while Britain was spending so much money on arms and armaments, 629 00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:12,240 we were being overtaken economically by our old rivals, 630 00:43:12,240 --> 00:43:13,880 West Germany and Japan. 631 00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:17,160 Both of which, ironically, were effectively prohibited 632 00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:19,400 from spending so much money on defence. 633 00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:23,040 Now, when you think about the international pressures of the day, 634 00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:28,120 you can understand why successive British governments felt they had to spend their money as they did. 635 00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:31,360 Even so, it is tempting to wonder what Britain would be like 636 00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:33,160 if they had chosen differently. 637 00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:35,120 And that's something to think about 638 00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:38,480 next time you're left waiting an hour for your train. 639 00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:49,440 But while the British economy was beginning to stutter, 640 00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:51,680 we could console ourselves 641 00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:55,560 that we now led the world in popular culture. 642 00:43:55,560 --> 00:44:00,800 And that was to prove just as potent a weapon in the war on Communism 643 00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:02,840 as any tank or missile. 644 00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:08,200 In the mid 1960s, 645 00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:12,760 four young, British men infiltrated the enemy lines... 646 00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:21,560 NEWSREEL, IN RUSSIAN: 647 00:44:28,720 --> 00:44:31,520 The Beatles were the most famous example 648 00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:36,320 of the most dynamic and successful British export of the 1960s... 649 00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:39,800 # It's been a hard day's night... # 650 00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:42,400 Pop music. 651 00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:46,520 In the capitalist West, pop was teenage entertainment. 652 00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:53,240 But in the East, pop was political dynamite. 653 00:44:53,240 --> 00:44:58,320 With its unbridled celebration of sex, choice and freedom, 654 00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:03,400 it seemed a shocking challenge to Communist values. 655 00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:06,640 Now, the Beatles never played East of the Iron Curtain, 656 00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:09,480 but here in Moscow, they were seen by many people 657 00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:11,920 as the supreme champions of Western values. 658 00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,920 Soviet music served the interests of the state. 659 00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:23,920 It promoted Russian patriotism and ideological conformity. 660 00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:30,800 But the Beatles were different. 661 00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:34,640 Theirs was the music of individual self-expression. 662 00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:37,520 # Do what you want to do... # 663 00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:41,160 Of course, most ordinary Russians didn't understand the lyrics, 664 00:45:41,160 --> 00:45:44,240 but what they loved was the sound, the style - 665 00:45:44,240 --> 00:45:46,800 the sheer youthful exuberance 666 00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:50,680 that seemed to represent an altogether different way of life. 667 00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:58,440 To the Kremlin, it appeared that the Beatles 668 00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,680 had opened up a dangerous new front in the Cold War. 669 00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:05,640 So, the Soviets censors decided to keep them out. 670 00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:10,680 Despite all the state surveillance, 671 00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,480 some Beatles records did get through. 672 00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:16,280 What happened was that underground studios 673 00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:18,840 would cut illicit bootleg flexi discs 674 00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:20,800 out of old medical X-rays, 675 00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:24,640 earning them the nickname rock 'n' roll on bones. 676 00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:28,320 # Baby you can drive my car... # 677 00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,960 But as the black market in Beatles records boomed, 678 00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:35,600 the Soviet authorities upped the stakes, 679 00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:39,440 commissioning a film that dismissed the Fab Four 680 00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,120 as degenerate western puppets. 681 00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:45,720 IN RUSSIAN: 682 00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:10,320 When this failed, The Kremlin tried to co-opt the Beatles... 683 00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:16,440 ..with the help of the state record label - Melodiya. 684 00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:19,440 MUSIC: "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" - cover version 685 00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:24,560 RUSSIAN ACCENT: # Desmond had a barrow in a marketplace 686 00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:27,880 # Molly is a singer in a band 687 00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:31,880 # Desmond says to Molly, "Girl I like your face" 688 00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:34,880 # And Molly says this as she takes him by the hand 689 00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:37,360 # Ob-la-di, ob-la-da... # 690 00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:39,400 You might recognise this one. 691 00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:44,480 It's Melodiya's cover version of the Beatles' Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da. 692 00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:47,120 And personally, I rather prefer it to the original. 693 00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:49,520 But Melodiya didn't just bring out cover versions, 694 00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:51,560 they also issued some originals. 695 00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:55,120 In the late 1960s, they brought out this compilation album 696 00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:59,760 which had a catchy title, the 8th March International Women's Day. 697 00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:03,960 And side one, track five, we find Girl - 698 00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:06,680 credited, here, to the "Beatles Quartet" 699 00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:10,440 and described, oddly, as "traditional folk music". 700 00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:14,000 A case, I suppose, of lost in translation. 701 00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:19,320 None of this washed with Soviet Beatles fans. 702 00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:21,600 They wanted the real thing. 703 00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,320 MUSIC: Back In The USSR, by the Beatles 704 00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:29,840 But while Russian fans were daydreaming of life in the West, 705 00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:34,560 the Beatles wrote a song infused with nostalgia for the East. 706 00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:36,840 # Man, I had a dreadful flight 707 00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:38,440 # I'm back in the USSR. # 708 00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:40,080 Well, sort of. 709 00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:43,400 # You don't know how lucky you are, boy. # 710 00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:47,040 In August 1968, here at Abbey Road, 711 00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:50,040 they recorded Back In The USSR. 712 00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:54,560 Paul McCartney said later that he imagined the lyrics 713 00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:59,000 were the thoughts of a Soviet spy stationed for years in America 714 00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,280 and now on his way home to mother Russia. 715 00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:07,560 And there is something refreshingly unexpected, even a little bit irreverent, 716 00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:10,800 about taking a quintessentially American sound 717 00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:14,760 and wrapping it around the details of life behind the iron curtain. 718 00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:19,320 "Oh show me round your snow-peaked mountains way down south, 719 00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:22,360 "Take me to your daddy's farm. 720 00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:25,840 "Let me hear your balalaikas ringing out 721 00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:28,240 "Come and keep your comrade warm." 722 00:49:28,240 --> 00:49:30,480 # Back in the USSR 723 00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:33,040 # Oh, let me tell you, honey... # 724 00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:40,160 MUSIC: A Day In The Life, by the Beatles 725 00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:43,720 # I read the news today, oh boy... # 726 00:49:43,720 --> 00:49:46,800 The Beatles appealed to Soviet youngsters 727 00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:50,800 because they seemed to embody the very best of the West. 728 00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:54,200 And yet at home, their appeal was now bound up 729 00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:59,160 with their increasing scepticism about the western way of life. 730 00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:03,200 In Britain, they were challenging convention 731 00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:07,600 and becoming outspoken critics of bourgeois capitalism. 732 00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:14,960 Our society is run by insane people for insane objects, objectives. 733 00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:17,840 Half the people watching this are going to be saying, 734 00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:20,080 "Ah, what's he saying? What's he saying?" 735 00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:23,200 You know, you are being run by people who are insane 736 00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:24,520 and you don't know. 737 00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:28,200 In 1969, John Lennon even returned his MBE 738 00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:34,080 in protest at Britain's support for the American war in Vietnam. 739 00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:40,160 An extraordinary gesture coming for the former darling of British pop. 740 00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:45,240 But his frustration with western capitalist values 741 00:50:45,240 --> 00:50:50,160 was typical of a new angry and alienated generation, 742 00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:54,400 bred in affluence and now questioning their own values. 743 00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:59,880 I'm telling you! Don't make me provoke you! Get onto the pavement! 744 00:50:59,880 --> 00:51:03,920 # Come on baby, light my fire... # 745 00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:06,560 The moral compromises of the Cold War 746 00:51:06,560 --> 00:51:10,440 had turned many young men and women against the West. 747 00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:15,600 And they focused their anger on the supposed failings of liberal democracy. 748 00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:17,920 What we have got to do is find out how, 749 00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:21,080 within the educational sphere, we can smash this. 750 00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:22,720 They were not, however, 751 00:51:22,720 --> 00:51:27,200 drawn to the straight-laced socialist realism of the Kremlin. 752 00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:32,960 Instead, they flirted with the more glamorous exotic elements of the far left. 753 00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:34,840 Communism as cool. 754 00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:36,640 Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Min. 755 00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:38,480 Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Min. 756 00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:44,560 And they rejected the manifold crimes of western governments. 757 00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:47,600 Militarism. 758 00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:50,400 Exploitation. 759 00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:54,920 And the encouragement of mindless consumerism. 760 00:51:57,800 --> 00:52:01,000 Violence is used constantly by the Americans against the Vietnamese. 761 00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:02,440 Violence is used by the cops. 762 00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:04,960 Violence is inscribed on the face of society. 763 00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:09,120 It's the capitalist society that's got blood under its fingernails the whole time. 764 00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:12,800 CHANTING: The international army... 765 00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:16,440 The police are after me. You what? 766 00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:19,080 It's not funny. I hit one of them. 767 00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:21,320 You hit a policeman? 768 00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:27,240 By the 1970s, this new student left had become so vocal and so visible 769 00:52:27,240 --> 00:52:31,040 that they were irresistible targets for prime-time teasing. 770 00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:34,320 Yeah, I don't think Lenin would have left it like that. 771 00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:37,560 Listen, I was the only one who stood up to the police dog. 772 00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:38,960 Oh! I wasn't frightened. 773 00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:41,120 I patted it. I got a cheer. 774 00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:42,440 Oh, yeah... 775 00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:44,680 Hey, hey, they're here! 776 00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:45,920 THEY GASP 777 00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:48,320 LAUGHTER 778 00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:59,080 But not all TV producers saw comedy in Communism. 779 00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:04,200 Like Britain's youngsters themselves, 780 00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:07,240 the BBC had moved with the times. 781 00:53:09,480 --> 00:53:12,800 Having sided with the establishment over the War Game, 782 00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:16,400 Britain's public broadcaster now found plenty of room 783 00:53:16,400 --> 00:53:20,120 for those more interested in the certainties of the class war 784 00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:22,840 than the complexities of the Cold War. 785 00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:24,720 MUSIC: "Join Together", by the Who 786 00:53:24,720 --> 00:53:28,360 # When you hear the sound a-coming... # 787 00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:33,040 To be a good Communist is not easy. 788 00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:39,480 Your first loyalty is to the party to its politics and its leadership. 789 00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:42,240 # And we don't make no collections 790 00:53:42,240 --> 00:53:46,560 # I want you to join together with the band... # 791 00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:50,600 If there was one programme 792 00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:55,240 that was forever exposing the rotten underbelly of bourgeois capitalism 793 00:53:55,240 --> 00:54:00,160 or celebrating the revolutionary potential of the oppressed proletariat, 794 00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:02,880 then it was Play for Today. 795 00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:08,560 No script was too worthy, no subject too depressing. 796 00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,120 MUSIC: "In The Light" by Led Zeppelin 797 00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:15,160 # In the light... # 798 00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:19,120 A classic example was "Leeds United". 799 00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:23,800 A tale of Northern factory workers taking on their exploitative bosses. 800 00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:30,920 Based on a true story, 801 00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:35,560 it was one of the most expensive single TV dramas ever produced. 802 00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:43,920 The real enemy's still up there - the bloody masters - 803 00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:48,880 the most ruthless, arrogant and vindictive bosses in contemporary industrial Britain. 804 00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:50,960 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 805 00:54:50,960 --> 00:54:54,840 # We shall not, we shall not be moved 806 00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:58,920 # We shall not, we shall not be moved. # 807 00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:08,200 Now, not every Play for Today was a hand-wringing denunciation of the evils of capitalism, 808 00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:11,160 but to be honest, quite a lot of them were. 809 00:55:11,160 --> 00:55:13,560 And given the Cold War tensions of the day, 810 00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:16,440 some observers were genuinely worried 811 00:55:16,440 --> 00:55:19,880 that more suggestible viewers might be brainwashed 812 00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:22,400 by all this far-left propaganda. 813 00:55:22,400 --> 00:55:24,920 MUSIC: "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd 814 00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:27,280 The strident voice of the new left 815 00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:31,040 was now a potent force in British culture. 816 00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:34,920 And some of its critics took great delight 817 00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:39,960 in puncturing the posturing narcissism of the worst offenders. 818 00:55:42,280 --> 00:55:44,800 Just at the moment of maximum entropy, 819 00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:48,520 when late capitalist structures are beginning to fall in on themselves, 820 00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:50,960 those of us in the vanguard of the struggle 821 00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:55,240 have suddenly been afflicted with an unaccountable paralysis. 822 00:55:55,240 --> 00:56:00,400 As a famous radical at the university, Howard has a senior lectureship there. 823 00:56:00,400 --> 00:56:03,360 He is still active in the town radical causes 824 00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:07,000 and in the radical journals, where he writes often. 825 00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:10,440 He edits a sociology series for a paperback publisher 826 00:56:10,440 --> 00:56:14,720 and has published a second book - The Death of the Bourgeoisie. 827 00:56:14,720 --> 00:56:21,000 For many people, the new trendy lefties of the 1970s were ripe for satire. 828 00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:23,840 And nobody did it better than Malcolm Bradbury 829 00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:26,120 in his book, The History Man. 830 00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:32,800 So, you want to do Sociology? 831 00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:37,280 It's the only genuinely relevant subject in the curriculum, 832 00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:40,880 and it's entirely comprehensive - it takes in everything... 833 00:56:42,120 --> 00:56:47,640 ..decimal currency, Rhodesia, abortion, 834 00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:49,840 Coronation Street, you name it. 835 00:56:55,120 --> 00:56:58,520 You'll finally begin to learn something about life. 836 00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:02,240 It's a question of opening your minds. 837 00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:11,360 The bastards! 838 00:57:18,520 --> 00:57:22,120 For the likes of Howard, history was on their side. 839 00:57:22,120 --> 00:57:25,240 Capitalism was doomed, Marxism was the future. 840 00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:33,920 But of course, most ordinary people didn't think that way. 841 00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:40,200 They were too busy shopping for a new carpet or buying a new colour TV to worry about world revolution. 842 00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:45,080 And when they did think about the Cold War, 843 00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:47,400 they looked back on 15 years 844 00:57:47,400 --> 00:57:51,080 in which from the marches of CND to the novels of John Le Carre, 845 00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:55,280 black and white had given way to infinite shadows of grey. 846 00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:57,400 But things were changing. 847 00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:01,160 A new political generation was poised to take power, 848 00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:04,480 spearheaded by a retired Hollywood film star 849 00:58:04,480 --> 00:58:06,720 and a grocer's daughter from Grantham. 850 00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:09,560 And under their leadership, the Cold War 851 00:58:09,560 --> 00:58:14,240 would once again become a battle ground of good against evil. 852 00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:18,200 MUSIC: "Atomic", by Blondie 853 00:58:18,200 --> 00:58:21,840 Next time, as a new political generation takes power... 854 00:58:23,480 --> 00:58:27,440 ..Britain revels in rampant consumerism. 855 00:58:27,440 --> 00:58:29,000 # Atomic! # 856 00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:32,520 And the gloves come off in the Cold War. 857 00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:37,880 # Your hair is beautiful 858 00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:42,760 # Oh, tonight 859 00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:46,800 # Atomic 860 00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:50,120 # Oh, Atomic 861 00:58:50,120 --> 00:58:53,200 # Oh-oh 862 00:58:56,840 --> 00:59:00,640 # Oh-oh, Atomic. #