and tehran, and potsdam give hints of this. and for security and for political and ideological aims, he felt he needed to acquire space. and that he needed to maintain absolute control in that space. and no country, especially not germany, was ever going to be able to have the chance to turn around and attack the soviet union in the future. and so he begins his inroads into central europe. each of the countries followed a similar but not identical pattern because stalin really was still trying to keep up appearances of free elections, coalition governments and so on. he didn't want to provoke the west into reacting. but as i mentioned earlier, in each of these countries, hand-picked communist leaders who lived in moscow during the war. those who survived the terror, many did not, were dropped into their respective countries. so in poland, for example, the government was set up and already in 1944. and in keep with this idea that free elections would be successful for the communists, he held a referendum in 1946 in june. things

he goes back to the election after only a few days in potsdam.n says to churchill [indiscernible] churchill goes back and loses. he doesn't just lose, he loses very badly. he becomes leader of the .pposition we know a lot about what he thought at the time because he spoke to other people. amongst other things, he said it would have been better if i had .tayed actually, what was the key to the gloom that he felt [indiscernible] dennis extraordinary thing this most then extraordinary thing happens. superficially, the letter is not unusual at all. it is from a college. probably slightly obscure. certainly a small college. they said to come along and we will give you an honorary doctorate and we would like you to make a speech. when churchill sees the handwritten note in ink written itharry truman, which says is a fine college in my home state. if you come, i will introduce you. churchill was logistical in some ways. he met truman of course, but he doesn't know him. he chose for reasons we do not understand not to attend fdr's funeral. certainly thei

he only met harry truman once at potsdam. in the middle of the potsdam conference, the votes got counted for '45 election and truman atty look over for him. enormous change happened in world affairs between july of 1945 and february of 1946 in the truman administration. because the truman administration made a decision that they very much had thought when truman first came to power, that they were going to stand up to and contain the soviet union. and the fulton speech, so churchhill gets a letter from the westminster college in fulton, missouri, and there is a postscript, would you give a talk? there is a postscript in the hand of harry truman. it's a nice little college. please come. i will introduce you. that is a paraphrase. churchhill was there in a heartbeat. that turned out to be part of a plan by truman, then developed with churchill and speech really announces the cold war. >> host: how many times did winston churchill spend in the wilderness throughout his career? >> guest: oddly enough only one loan one from, 1931

tehran,nto, -- and yalta, and potsdam gives vision to this.our political and bilateral politicalfor and ideological reasons he felt , he needed to acquire space and he needed to maintain absolute control and no country, especially not germany, would ever be able to the kind of turnaround in the future. so he began with his inroads into central europe. each country followed a similar but not identical pattern , because stalin really was still trying to keep up the appearance of reelections, coalition, and so on. he did not want to provoke the west into reacting. but as i mentioned earlier, in each of these countries he had , hand-picked communist leaders who had lived in moscow during the war. many of them who survived the terror -- many of them were not -- were dropped into their respective countries. in poland, i mentioned the government was set up in 1944. in keeping with this idea that free elections would be successful for the communists, inheld a referendum in 1946 june. and things seem to go quite well for the communist. this was a refer

this is the day of potsdam. theme again. year -- not 1933, but in 1930.te --erman novelist and there is the title page of that -- he did something similar, but he deliberately instructs the reader in the moral of the story, beginning, quoting, the struggle. inexhaustible struggle against the enemy and against the spirit of the old, spirit of decay and corruption. that, he spares the reader the need to read through this interminable novel. it's almost as long as the battle itself. novel as a this report to his compatriots, all quiet on the western front. it was in fact received that way. naziweather filled with delirium or not, such works all come back to this, i'll deny the reality of industrial -- all deny the reality of the industrial warfare. this is the suppression of the central figure of indo-european warrior mythology for millennia. we have a problem. verdun gave rise to very few heroes. , norer willpower determination could prevail over the daily daily of steel and poison gas. the french command acknowledged as much in its infantry regulations of