A COLD WAR

Today we talk more about Christians who opposed the New Deal. In the 30s there was a guy called Father Charles Coughlin, a Canadian-American Roman Catholic priest based near Detroit. Commonly known as “the radio priest", he was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience: first took to the airwaves in 1926, broadcasting weekly sermons over the radio. By the early 1930s...

In 1950 Harry Truman complained about a “great wave of hysteria” sweeping the nation - the Red Scare. He should know. He was really largely responsible for creating it. Between the launching of his "loyalty program" in March 1947 and it's finish in December 1952, some 6.6 million persons were investigated to see if they were Communist sympathizers. Not a single case of espionage was uncovered, tho...

In his "New Deal", FDR brought back the ideals of the "Social Gospel", a 19th century Christian reform movement, to justify the creation of the modern welfare state. For a while, at least, some American Christian leaders were big fans of socialism. However, starting with FDR, and for the next 25 years, successive American administrations tried every trick in the book to kick Aussie union leader Ha...

Manufacturers and the media also used the Dies Committee to silence their critics. Any attempt to criticise the behaviour of industrialists was called "socialism". Along with communist witch hunts, another tactic industrialists used to protect themselves against the New Deal was the newly invented idea of Public Relations - a fancy name for corporate propaganda. HOW TO LISTEN If you're already a s...

The Red Scare continues. In 1939, Martin Dies Jr claimed that the Justice Department was investigating 2,850 known communists in government and that FDR had ordered a purge of all those named. But it was all a disinformation campaign launched by Hoover. The President hadn't ordered a purge - but he HAD secretly ordered Hoover to make a list. As it turned out, the list included Secretary of War Hen...

As Red Fever grew in the United States in the 1930s, Herbert Hoover asked J. Edgar Hoover to help him blame the Bonus March of 1932 on the Communists. In August 1936, FDR invited JEH to the White House to discuss “subversive activities”. Hoover told him the biggest threat to America was an Australian - International Longshoremen and Warehousemen union President Harry Bridges. So FDR secretly autho...

In April 1919, US authorities discovered a plot for mailing 36 bombs to prominent members of the U.S. political and economic establishment. One of those was Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer. He decided it was the work of Russian Communists, so he ordered the U.S. Justice Department to launch The Palmer Raids. And do you know who was in charge of the Palmer Raids? A 24-year-old American p...

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties. HUAC is best remembered for the Alger Hiss case and the Hollywood blacklists. But the American fear of socialism and communism pre-dates HUAC by a century. In...

Finally, on Oct 7, 1947, the French made their offensive into the Viet Bac region: Operation Léa - aka Princess Leia. So-called because it was a smart, feisty, brave diplomat and warrior of a plan. But because he had less troops than he wanted, Valluy scaled down his plans. General Raoul Salan, the guy in charge of the operation, predicted it would all be over in three weeks. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED...

Ho wonders aloud to a journalist why the Vietnamese were not being given the same opportunity as the Philippines, who had just been given their independence from the US, or India, which had just won its independence from the UK. All the Americans seem to care about is whether or not he's a Communist. Meanwhile French Minister of War Paul Coste-Floret declared, “There is no more military problem in...

Ho and his team disappear into the jungle north of Hanoi. The French think they have won. George Marshall dithers. HOW TO LISTEN If you're already a subscriber, you can listen to the full show in the player below or subscribe through iTunes or any podcast player. If you haven't heard any of the series and want to know if you'll like it before you sign up, you can listen to the first six episodes t...

After the Haiphong incident, Ho started preparing Hanoi for an attack. First, he made a public speech appealing to the French to withdraw their troops. They ignored him. “If those gooks want a fight, they’ll get it,” declared French General Valluy. Ho, Giap and Truong Chinh came up with a three stage plan, borrowed from Mao. And so the First Indochina War begins in earnest. HOW TO LISTEN If you're...

Vietnam. 1947. The U.S. Consul in Saigon, Charles Reed, is the first American official to use the term "domino theory". He's talking about what will happen in Cambodia and Laos if Cochin China falls to the VietMinh, who he wrongly concludes are taking orders from Moscow. Meanwhile Ho is playing Good Cop Bad Cop while making preparations for war. While the French are convinced the whole thing will...

Vietnam. Late 1946. The gears of war are turning. One President commits suicide. Another continues to fight for a peaceful settlement. A new government is formed. Then the French army in Indochina decides to take matters into its own hands. They seize a Chinese junk in Haiphong harbour - a deliberate provocation. The Vietminh fire on the French. The French respond by bombing the city. French Indoc...

Ho Chi Minh goes to Paris for the big sit down with the new French government. But right from the start, things do not go as planned. Meanwhile, the United States are doing their best to ignore the situation. And Ho finally gives in and admits publicly that this is going to end up in a war and tells the story of the tiger and the elephant. Meanwhile, back in Vietnam, Giap is consolidating Viet Min...

Ho Chi Minh agrees to go to Paris for a second round of talks with the French about the independence of Vietnam. But just before he is due to leave, the French High Commissioner in Vietnam screws him over. And then, the next day, the French government collapses. Ho goes anyway, but has to spend a few weeks in the luxury seaside resort of Biarritz waiting for the new French government to get its sh...

Andrew Roberts has a huge new biography out on England's favourite son, Winston Churchill, and he was nice enough to come on the show to answer a few of our questions about the man. You may remember Andrew talked to Cameron and David about his Napoleon biography a few years ago. A HOW TO LISTEN If you're already a subscriber, you can listen to the full show in the player below or subscribe through...

In Hanoi, a new provisional coalition government was established on January 1, 1946. Ho Chi Minh was to be named president and Nguyen Hai Than from the nationalist VNQDD party as vice president. The Vietminh and the Chinese controlled the north. The French controlled the South, with the full support of the Americans and British, and they prepared to send troops to the north as well. On March 6, th...

Peter Dewey was the first of nearly 60,000 Americans to be killed in Vietnam. Truman sells out the Vietnamese to keep De Gaulle happy. And the French arrive back in their old colony. Here's a picture of the seahorse for reference. P HOW TO LISTEN If you're already a subscriber, you can listen to the full show in the player below or subscribe through iTunes or any podcast player. If you haven't hea...

After Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of Vietnam in September 1945, the British and Chinese troops arrived in Saigon and Hanoi to disarm the Japanese and prepare the return of the French - and the shooting begins. Some scholars thing that *this* was the beginning of the First Indochina War. Meanwhile, Ho continues to try to get Truman's support. But who will Truman stand behind? A people wan...

* As they grew stronger, Giáp's forces took more territory and captured more towns * And then on 15 August they heard that the Japanese Emperor had declared his country's unconditional surrender to the allies. * Unfortunately for Ho and Giap, the U.S. had a new President. * Truman didn’t care, or maybe even know, about FDR’s plans for Indochina. * And the French, of course, saw their opportunity t...

* Ho believed the army’s job was largely going to be propaganda until the conditions were right for war. * But he also decided that for propaganda purposes, they had to win a military victory within a month of being established, so on 25 December 1944 Giáp led successful attacks against a couple of French outposts. * Two French lieutenants were killed and the Vietnamese soldiers in the outposts su...

* Welcome to #100! * And we are still talking about 1944! * When we finished last time, Ho Chi Minh was making his way to the Red River Delta. * The Japanese have chased the French out of Vietnam and didn’t bother to protect the northern regions. * So Ho and the ICP are getting ready to make their move. * Surprisingly, they talk about a “post coup euphoria”. * Apparently the Vietnamese were so hap...

* On December 7 1941, Japan’s main carrier force, seeking to destroy the American fleet and thereby purchase time to complete its southward expansion, struck Pearl Harbour. * And the world celebrated. * As De Gaulle said “that’s it, the war’s over." * He was totally confident in U.S. superiority. * He must have been part American. * Unfortunately FDR’s confidence in de Gaulle was much lower. * He...

* Ho’s speech to the French socialist congress in 1920 was 12 minutes long and delivered without notes. * It got some applause but that was about it. * He realised that French socialists were more worried about affairs at home than they were about colonialism in a distant land. * When a group of socialists broke off to form the French Communist Party, Ho went with them. * He had read Lenin’s “Thes...