-- george kennan's attitude about the cold war. he becomes secretary of commerce. he becomes distributor paul marshall planning in europe and all american governor of new york and then finally the architect of the vietnam policy. in addition to him there is robert lubitz whose name was forgotten but was a major figure in the american air force and assistant secretary of war and henry stimson during world war ii becomes under secretary of state to george marshall one of the architects of the precursor to the wto in one of the architectures of national security state and then becomes undersecretary and secretary of defense during the waning period of the korean war. i wanted to write about how that all came to be. he became the perfect aperture of the story. the ideas that i displayed out but what was much more interesting to me as i wrote the book anonymously and what i was not as aware of and to me a while to actually become sensitive to is the degree which brown brothers are a quiet mover and shaker many of the most pivotal moment

dissemination of george kennan's attitudes on the cold war from his position and embassy in moscow. he become secretary commerce picky becomes the distributor of all marshall plan in europe and then of all american and governor of your new york and finally the architect of the vietnam policy. in addition there's robert libert whose name was forgot but was a major, major figure, help create the american modern air force as assistant secretary for under henry stinson during world war ii, becomes under secretary of state succeed dean acheson becomes under secretary of state to george marshall, one of the architects which is a precursor of the wto, one of the architects of the national security state, then becomes undersecretary of defense and finally secretary of defense during the waning period of the korean war. i knew about that and i wanted to write about how the all camet to be. brown brothers became sort of the perfect aperture of the story. the exoskeleton of the ideas that i just laid out, but what became much or interesting to me as about the book and i'll see what i was not a

george kennan once said that it was truman had only one adviser, and that was dean atchison. >> i havebehind me a set of his memoirs. truman wrote after the presidency, of course. those two volumes. he and herbert hoover lived long lives! they were happy to sign everything that was put before them so these books in a rare to find inscribed people, he was happy to do it. same with hoover, as i mentioned. how was his writing in this? is it all his writing? did he, what was he saying about those who were enemies or friends before? did he make any new enemies writing this diary? >> i think he reawakened some old enemies. the writing is not very good, and he had a lot of help. the parts where i think the real truman comes through was whenever he would let loose on henry wallace or james byrd. he would never -- and then eisenhower, he would let eisenhower have it. from the 52 campaign when eisenhower ran against adlai stevenson, and truman and he had always had a very respectful relationship. then it all changed. i think truman was personally deeply offended when eisenhower didn't come to th

but a lot of what we set the stage for, what putin doing, the nato's expansion that george kennan warned us at the time in the 1990s when the warsaw pact collapsed and we were just starting to let those warsaw countries into nato's, he warned that this was going to stimulate the worst kind of militaristic and, revisionist nationalist fears. russia, which it did. obama was warned when he put in what he said were missiles, which is true. we were putting interceptors in poland and romania to try to intercept in iranian icbm. should they develop a nuclear weapon with an icbm team. they have developed neither, but we still put missiles in poland and romania. the problem that these are the same kinds of missile launchers that we have on our air cruisers and destroyers. in fact, it's called the land based aegis system. and while we have interceptors them now, those same missile tubes could house off offensive nuclear tipped missiles like the tomahawk cruise missile. and russia wouldn't know what in the tubes because there is no arrangement for inspections. and so sovereignty only goes at length

these two events are really important and the third thing, don't know how well known it is, george kennan, the famous diplomat in the american embassy in moscow writes his famous long telegram, in a similar tone to churchill set out the facts that the soviets cannot be trusted. in 1946 these three things happen, with haole continually banging on the drum, this is when truman begins to change his foreign-policy completely and you end up with the truman doctrine to protect countries threatened by the soviet union and followed by the marshall plan a dramatic turnaround in policy which is the idea to rebuild germany and rebuild germany in a democratic western form basically. everything begins to change and haole is to play a massive role in this. he is in berlin seeing things firsthand and he can crank up this new policy and get the policy changed. >> the main guy here, my school had never heard of him. i love that i give him such attention and why is he more of a household name? >> the show was stolen by lucius clay. everything that has been written was written about him and he's going to be

herrmann and the new deal becomes ambassador to moscow, is one of the reasons for dissemination of george kennan's attitude about the cold war he become secretary of commerce, he becomes a distributor about marshall planning in europe and the distributive all-american aid to europe and governor of new york and finally the architect of the vietnam policy. in addition to him there's robert lovett was a major, major figure helped create the modern air force as assistant secretary of war under hendrik simpson during world war ii, becomes undersecretary to george marshall, one of the architects of that which is the precursor to wto. one of the architects of the national security state in the becomes undersecretary family secretary of defense during the waning period of the korean war. so i knew about that and i wanted to write about how that t all came to be. when brown brothers became sort of the perfect aperture of the story for the exoskeleton of the ideas that i just laid out. but what became much more interesting to me as i wrotete e book and on sales not as aware of and took me a while to become

and i think the person that most embodies it in the mid and late 20th century is george kennan and his and doctrine of containment. what realism does well, you have to distinguish between what you can and should do and what you cannot and should not do. it cannot be an open ended foreign-policy. which regions our national security interest and which are not. at least in my humble opinion if you could somehow bring him out what do we do about iraq. it's involved. their graveyard for all western values is afghanistan not look for scapegoats but let's try to figure out how to make this mistake in the first place. and i think, in some sense our own understanding of why britain makes the biggest mistake in its history but making war on the united states in 1775 -- 76. we could understand that now in a way we could not before. how does the recently arrived world power brimming with confidence certain of its military and economic supremacy step into a quagmire that is unwinnable and unnecessary? we should know about that. >> there is a lot i agree with but let me just push back for debate sak

argument that the us is responsible for the war by pushing nato on ukraine, george cannon the great george kennan has made the same argument or close to the same argument. cotkin says i respectfully disagree the problem with their argument is that it assumes that had nato not expanded. russia would be sorry. russia wouldn't be the same or very likely close to what it is today. kotkin says what we have today in russia is not some kind of surprise. it's not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern way before nato existed in the 19th century. russia looked like this. it had an autocrat. it had repression. it had militarism. it has suspicional foreigners and the west this is a russia that we know said konkin. it's not a russia that arrived yesterday or in the 1990s. it's not a response to the actions of the west they are internal processes in russia that account for where we are today. sounds like you agree with that based on what you saying? yes. i think it's a very it's a very fair point. i mean george canon in 1997 and interview with tom friedman. said that the expansion of nato was going

i think as you know when it began to expect expand 25 years ago george kennan, who was who was the author of the father of the containment father was the most dangerous and and reckless thing we've foreign policy since the war but that's that's another story. he and truman but truman but true and was not part of that true and and then marshall plan was a great great achievement. it was i mean it was again it wasn't truman's idea, but he certainly but he got out of the way let it happen and he also was smart enough to let it be called the marshall plan this came in. this is after the republicans had take it over the house and send it for the first time since 1928. you think that acheson and marshall? led truman more than truman let them that he knew these men were around him and he thought that they had ideas that he should follow. i'm part of it that way, but she i don't think you would have ever used the word they led him, but he listened to them and he basically i can't think of anything where they apart from the recognition of israel where they where he disagreed with them and he and t