This year's Reith Lecturer is American adviser, diplomat, political scientist, and historian George Frost Kennan. He is best known as "the father" of the USA Containment Policy and is a leading authority on the Cold War. In his series 'Russia, the Atom, and the West', he considers the relationship between the two superpowers Russia and the USA.

In his first lecture entitled 'The Internal Soviet Scene', Professor Kennan explores the development of the Soviet industrial infrastructure. He considers how this progression of industrialisation has expanded the Soviet economy, and discusses how this economic advancement could affect the West. He contemplates how to counter this new Russian threat. Show less