Invisible Hands: The American Century: 2. The Prophet

[wind blowing] It's January 1937.

Moscow is gray and frozen.

Hundreds of spectators file into the ornate chamber of the October Hall in the city center.

One man, thin, elegant, already balding at 32, takes a spot towards the back.

His name is George Kennan and he's an American diplomat, here to observe a trial.

A hush falls across the room as the judge rises.

[wind blowing]

The judge declares the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR is now open.

17 men are in the dock, and George Kennan realizes he recognizes them.

[suspenseful music]

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

That's Kennan himself talking to CNN in the 1990s.

He'd been at dinner with a few of the accused only weeks before.

Until recently, they'd been Communist Party officials, close members of Joseph Stalin's team.

But now they're charged with plotting to overthrow the Soviet Union.

Kennan watches one of the men stand as the charges against him are read out: sabotage, espionage, conspiracy, treason against the Soviet state.

The judge asks if the accused pleads guilty.

"Yes, I do." It's the same for each of the others.

Kennan understands that this is not a trial.

It's theater.

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

The prosecutor delivers his closing speech.

"They deserve only one punishment.

Shoot them like dogs." [dramatic music] And in that moment, standing at the back of that courtroom, George Kennan realizes just how dangerous the Soviet Union is, that here truth bends to power, and that he needs to warn his own government that the Soviets are a threat to world peace.

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

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

From Stettin, in the Baltic, to Trieste, in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.

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

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

[dramatic music]

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it.

And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.

I'm David Dimbleby, and from The History Podcast and BBC Radio 4, this is Invisible Hands: The American Century, the story of how the United States became a superpower at the head of a new global order, and the invisible hands that guided it.

Episode two: The Prophet.

[wind blowing] It's January 1937.

Moscow is gray and frozen.

Hundreds of spectators file into the ornate chamber of the October Hall in the city center.

One man, thin, elegant, already balding at 32, takes a spot towards the back.

His name is George Kennan and he's an American diplomat, here to observe a trial.

A hush falls across the room as the judge rises.

[wind blowing]

The judge declares the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR is now open.

17 men are in the dock, and George Kennan realizes he recognizes them.

[suspenseful music]

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

That's Kennan himself talking to CNN in the 1990s.

He'd been at dinner with a few of the accused only weeks before.

Until recently, they'd been Communist Party officials, close members of Joseph Stalin's team.

But now they're charged with plotting to overthrow the Soviet Union.

Kennan watches one of the men stand as the charges against him are read out: sabotage, espionage, conspiracy, treason against the Soviet state.

The judge asks if the accused pleads guilty.

"Yes, I do." It's the same for each of the others.

Kennan understands that this is not a trial.

It's theater.

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

The prosecutor delivers his closing speech.

"They deserve only one punishment.

Shoot them like dogs." [dramatic music] And in that moment, standing at the back of that courtroom, George Kennan realizes just how dangerous the Soviet Union is, that here truth bends to power, and that he needs to warn his own government that the Soviets are a threat to world peace.

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

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

From Stettin, in the Baltic, to Trieste, in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.

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

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

[dramatic music]

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it.

And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.

I'm David Dimbleby, and from The History Podcast and BBC Radio 4, this is Invisible Hands: The American Century, the story of how the United States became a superpower at the head of a new global order, and the invisible hands that guided it.

Episode two: The Prophet.