Drawing on astonishing unpublished diaries, letters and secret reports, Giles Milton’s The Stalin Affair reveals troves of new material about the most unlikely coalition in history.

In the summer of 1941, as Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin’s forces faced a catastrophic defeat which would make the Allies’ liberation of Europe virtually impossible. To avert this disaster, Britain and America mobilised a unique team of remarkable diplomats with the mission of keeping the Red Army in the war.

Into the heart of Stalin’s Moscow, President Roosevelt sent Averell Harriman, the fourth-richest man in America, and his brilliant young daughter, Kathy. Churchill despatched the reckless but inventive Archie Clark Kerr – and occasionally himself – to negotiate with the Kremlin’s wiliest operators. Together, this improbable group grappled with Stalin at his most cunning, to make victory possible. But they also discovered that the Soviet dictator had a terrifying master plan for the post-war world.

December 1941. Following the Japanese attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbour, the USA enters the war. Churchill, accompanied by Averell Harriman and Lord Beaverbrook, visits Roosevelt in Washington. The industrial might of America is turned over to weapons production. Archie Clark Kerr becomes British ambassador to Moscow and starts to develop a good relationship with Stalin – they crack jokes together, and share a love of pipe smoking.

Read by Nigel Anthony
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Producer: David Blount

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 Show less