Drawing on astonishing unpublished diaries, letters and secret reports, Giles Milton’s The Stalin Affair reveals troves of new material about the most unlikely coalition in history.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

Autumn 1942. American aid is now being transported to Russia via the Iranian railway line between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. In January 1943, the surrender of German troops at Stalingrad signals that the war is on the turn. Churchill meets Roosevelt in Nova Scotia, and Operation Overlord – the Allied invasion of northern France – is scheduled for 1944. Averell Harriman is appointed US ambassador in Moscow. He becomes increasingly concerned by Roosevelt’s naivety about Stalin. Harriman wrote: ‘I gained the impression that Stalin wanted a pulverized Europe in which there would be no strong countries except the Soviet Union.’

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

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 Show less