Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Berlin, August 12th, 1961.

The residents of West Berlin awake to the barbed wire

that separates them from East Berlin,

like this mother from her daughter.

(dramatic music playing)

East German soldiers build a wall

to separate their part of the city from the Western half,

occupied by the Allies.

Since 1945, the world was already cut in half

by an invisible iron curtain.

Between the West, the democracies that rallied around the United States,

and the East, Communist nations, dominated by Russia,

known as the Soviet Union, and China.

Nuclear weapons prevented a global confrontation,

but this balance of terror brought forth local conflicts

like in Indochina in 1946 or in Korea in 1950.

And now, in Berlin.

The East and West are in a state of war,

which can, at any moment, lead to the Apocalypse.

(opening theme music playing)

East Berliners try to flee before the wall is completed.

One of them, anonymously, attests to this...

MAN (in French): It was when, I think,

that I understood for the first-time

what freedom really means.

NARRATOR (in English): The American bulldozer tanks forge ahead.

Will they destroy the Wall?

(cheering)

Five years before the construction of the Berlin wall,

in 1956, three years after Stalin's death,

Nikita Khrushchev is the leader of the Soviet Union.

Khrushchev is a Ukrainian.

A political emissary during the Russian Civil War,

he climbed the ladder to the highest echelons of the Party.

As Stalin's henchman, he starved Ukraine.

During the Second World War, he was merciless on the Stalingrad front.

(marching footsteps)

Yet now, Khrushchev surprises the entire world.

Like Beria, his predecessor,

he feels the need to save the regime and its faltering economy.

He wants to ease tensions with the West,

to limit military expenditures.

Without turning his back on his ideology,

he wants to distance himself from Stalin.

At the 20th congress of the Soviet Communist Party

on February 24th,1956,

Khrushchev has the assembly applaud

the Frenchmen Jacques Duclos and Maurice Thorez

because they are staunch Stalin supporters.

But then, suddenly, Khrushchev reads a secret report

that denounces Stalin's crimes!

This stupefying act awakens hopes of freedom

in the Eastern countries colonized by the Russians,

such as Poland and especially Hungary.

In Budapest, in the fall of 1956,

Hungarian students begin to protest peacefully.

Moscow cannot accept this.

After fierce internal debate, Khrushchev decides to forcibly intervene in Hungary.

The stakes seem so essential

that the issue of the West's reaction becomes secondary.

The elites may not be killing one another anymore,

but they still reject any change.

Marshal Konev, one of the heroes in the victory over Germany,

is placed in charge of keeping Hungary in check,

in the name of the Warsaw Pact,

which regroups the Eastern countries to counterbalance the Atlantic Alliance.

Konev sets the Red Army tanks loose on Budapest.

The officers tell their soldiers that they will be fighting against German fascists!

The entire population is against them.

The Hungarian army, trained by the Russians,

are on the insurgents' side

and its first targets are Soviet symbols.

-(thud) -(people cheering)

October 23rd, 1956.

A massive armed uprising in Budapest.

(gunshots)

The city is surrounded by Konev's army.

(explosion)

Budapest's radio launches a desperate plea,

"The Soviet troops have begun their attack!

We fight them in the name of freedom!"

(explosion and gunshots)

Twenty-five hundred Hungarian civilians and military

and 800 Soviet soldiers die during these few days of fighting.

On November 10th,1956, the Russian tanks launch their final attack.

The Hungarian rebellion is definitively crushed, in bloodshed.

Budapest is in ruins.

The Russians and those who continue to support them go wild

and order thousands of arrests, hangings and deportations to the gulags.

Two hundred thousand Hungarians manage to escape to Austria,

and then Switzerland,

Canada, the United States and France.

The whole world protests but does nothing.

Because at the same time, the world is being shaken by another major crisis.

All eyes are on the Suez Canal.

It is the vital oil route, owned by a Franco-British private company.

It was just nationalized by Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser,

the Rais, the leader, who just came into power in Egypt.

Nasser proclaims:

There is no shame in being poor.

What is shameful is the exploitation of people.

We are taking back our rights and the Canal belongs to Egypt!

November 6th, 1956.

British and French forces arrive to occupy the zone of the Suez Canal,

with the help of the Israeli army.

After taking the towns along the Canal,

soldiers are ready to move into the operation's final phase:

overthrowing Nasser's regime.

(gunshots and explosions)

Suddenly, they are given the order to cease hostilities.

London and Paris have just been seriously threatened

with nuclear retaliation, by Moscow.

In the United States, President Eisenhower refuses to get involved in the conflict.

With his Secretary of State Foster Dulles,

he backs down before the threat of the Arab world joining the Soviet camp.

(cheering)

Nasser is the leader of the Arab nations.

The French paratroopers head back to Algiers, where they came from,

to fight against the insurgents from the FLN,

the Algerian National Liberation Front.

They are welcomed by the French community, who is under great threat.

Nasser sinks 40 ships in the canal,

rendering it inoperative for several months

and cutting off 90% of oil supplies.

In just a few days, France has no more fuel.

A voucher system is instituted, and factories stop production.

Drivers abandon their cars in the Place de la Concorde.

In Moscow, the Suez crisis has strengthened Khrushchev's power.

He has just won his first duel against the West.

The master of the Kremlin is still Master of the World.

(crowd applause and cheering)

Especially since he has gained new supporters

in what is called the Third World.

"Non-Aligned" is the term invented by Indian Prime Minister Nehru,

to refer to countries who don't belong to the Communist or Capitalist camps.

But the Soviet Union and China compete to rally the non-aligned countries,

these African or Asian nations whose independence is often recent.

(crowd cheering)

In 1956, Mao condemns the rebellions of the Eastern European countries.

For him, they are the result of the famous Khrushchev report on Stalin's crimes.

Mao sees himself as Stalin's true successor.

He sees himself as the master of the world's one billion Communists.

For him, the "detente with the West" that Khrushchev is aiming for

can only weaken the Socialist camp.

War is the glue of Communism,

and as such, war must continue. In Vietnam.

Mao has already greatly contributed to the Communist victory in the North.

Their leader, Ho Chi Minh, has never missed an opportunity to go to China,

to show Mao his gratitude.

And in the Soviet Union, to show his gratitude to the Politburo.

(lively music playing)

Ho Chi Minh comes out of Lenin and Stalin's mausoleum in tears.

Khrushchev will say, "Ho Chi Minh is truly one of Communism's Saints!"

Ho Chi Minh obtained the equivalent of one hundred million euros

from the USSR.

Along with the 200 million Mao gave him,

he can now confront the famine that ravages his country.

As soon as they came into power in North Vietnam,

Ho Chi Minh and his regime launched a major agrarian reform.

Vietnamese farmers make up 95% of the population.

To control them, the Government takes their land.

It's called forced collectivization,

which begins with the destruction of their land titles.

(crowd shouting)

Small landowners are forced by the police to wear bourgeois

or mandarin clothing and are humiliated with mock trials.

They are accused of terrible crimes by their family...

even by their children.

(speaking in Vietnamese)

NARRATOR (in English): Tens of thousands of these poor people are executed

or thrown into "re-education camps", immediately established by the regime.

Following the Stalinist model,

two and a quarter million acres are transformed into collective farms

whose profits revert to the State.

Since 1954, hundreds of thousands of peasants

manage to escape to the South.

Amongst them are many city-dwellers,

civil servants or employees of the French.

The roads are quickly closed off

so they climb onto anything that floats.

Overloaded bamboo rafts are picked up by American ships.

They leave everything behind.

Their land and their ancestors.

They bring only their Christian faith, which they display like a laissez-passer.

The South Vietnamese leader is a Catholic as well,

in a country which is primarily Buddhist.

His name is Jean-Baptiste Ngo Dinh Diem. He is 53 years old.

Exiled for years, he is the main face of non-Communist anti-colonialism.

His plans are guided by his fear of the Communists

who he hunts down and imprisons.

With the help of his brother,

Ngo DinhNhu, the head of the secret police and his wife, Mrs. Nhu,

quickly renowned for her beauty and outspokenness

when it comes to denouncing the opposition

and the Western medias that she believes are manipulated by the Communists.

In Hanoi, North Vietnam, the Communists gathered around Ho Chi Minh,

are now preparing to go back to war.

The "Ho Chi Minh Trail" through Laos and Cambodia, must be reopened,

as it was during the Indochina War.

But it will be expanded into a complex network of paths and trails

invisible from the sky.

Over 1200 miles through mountainous jungle stretching to the South.

One of the Communist fighters, Tran To Nga, recalls,

"The density of the forest is suffocating.

Cut one vine and ten more grow!

Clear a path and it disappears the next day!

How strange it feels to defy nature this way."

Most of the time, the soldiers are very young and very indoctrinated.

Their faith gives them strength, even in the worst conditions.

Their "capitalist enemies" quickly give them a nickname:

Viet Cong, meaning "Viet Commies".

To secure their trail, they line it with as many booby traps as possible,

just like their elders did, but with more imagination and cruelty.

Unsecured zones grow in size.

(gunfire)

The survivors receive attention from Diem,

the president of South Vietnam,

who demands an increase in American aide.

The first American "military advisors" arrive.

A diabolical "war-machine" is activated.

(dramatic music playing)

The Southern soldiers have the means to retaliate against the Viet Cong.

(gunshot)

They show no clemency when they manage to flush them out.

And they are merciless towards the villages that sheltered them.

This repression feeds hatred.

These are also the Khrushchev years, the fifties,

a break in the Cold War.

(lively music playing)

The USSR begins to slowly open up to tourism

and amateur filmmakers.

In France,

the magazine of Renault's CGT union, publishes an article entitled

"A Renault steelworker's visit to the USSR."

"Steelworkers here work six hours a day.

And they retire at 55 years old.

The USSR is paradise on earth for steelworkers."

Khrushchev wants to pursue an easing of tensions

and peaceful coexistence.

And in July 1959,

the Russians are stunned to see

the United States vice-president, Richard Nixon.

He is invited to inaugurate the first exhibition in Moscow

of American products.

Khrushchev begins by drinking a Pepsi, forbidden in the USSR!

Is this strong symbol of détente,

a sign of renouncing the Cold War?

It is just the opposite.

The Soviets are not ready to abandon their ideology.

The conquest of new countries

and progress in military and space programs

put Khrushchev in a position to stand tall before Capitalism's representative,

in a very unexpected dialog.

(in Russian): In seven years, when we will have surpassed you,

we'll give you a friendly wave!

(people laughing)

NARRATOR (in English): Nixon then invites Khrushchev to the United States.

Khrushchev flies to Washington on the Tupolev 114,

to impress the Americans,

A huge 180-ton aircraft,

with a glass nose like the bomber it was derived from.

The Americans are also astounded.

Both flags, side by side!

The Soviet anthem performed by the US Air Force orchestra!

A warm welcome from their president, General Eisenhower,

a review of the Marines

and the two men striving to appear well-intentioned.

Our common purpose should be, as always,

a just, universal and enduring peace.

It is in this spirit Mr. Chairman, that I greet you

and welcome you to Washington, and to the United States.

(people clapping)

NARRATOR: When Mrs. Khrushchev, Nina, climbs into the presidential Lincoln,

Eisenhower hesitates for a moment.

Journalist David Garroway accurately summarizes what is happening:

"We had never seen him so close up.

His pudgy physique doesn't correspond

to the vision of the world's most powerful dictator.

How did this bulky fellow with a round clownish face

reach his present pinnacle?"

All smiles,

he presents Eisenhower and Vice-President Nixon with a space probe,

similar to the one he sent up to the Moon the previous day.

Eisenhower gives a forced laugh.

He is mortified by the series of failed American spaces launches,

still far from manned flights.

(church choir music)

(music crescendos)

The Russians are able to send a dog, Laika, into space.

Which proves that they will soon be able to send a man,

a satellite, or a bomb.

The balance of terror is dangerously threatened.

Convinced of his superiority,

Khrushchev takes the liberty of entertaining the press,

playing on his Mr. K persona,

gregarious and reassuring.

He visits Hollywood, where he is invited to a lavish dinner,

broadcast using all the latest television technology of the time.

Every movie star attends,

wanting to see the strange creature who has come from "the cold",

including Frank Sinatra, David Niven, Tony Curtis

and most importantly, the queen of Hollywood and the world,

Marilyn Monroe.

In Peking, attractions of another kind await Khrushchev.

On September 28th, 1959,

only fifteen days after his visit to the United States,

he is in China to celebrate the tenth anniversary

of Mao's rise to power.

Khrushchev fears Mao

and has decided to break his commitment to supply him with the latest prototype

of a nuclear bomb.

Mao continues to openly criticize Khrushchev

and his "peaceful coexistence" with the West.

This signals the split between the Chinese and the Soviets.

For Ho Chi Minh, who is also invited,

it is a sign that the Vietnam War is going to intensify.

Khrushchev writes,

"China holds Vietnam in its claws. And it won't loosen its grip."

Communist North Vietnam trains its army to invade the South.

Weapons and supplies travel along the Ho Chi Minh Trail,

which goes through Laos and drags the country into the war.

(helicopter whirring)

The chain of events remains the same.

American military advisors are now joined by the mighty Green Berets,

who have come to train the young Laotian Army.

The Green Berets are part of the American Army's Special Forces,

created in the 1950's.

In South Vietnam, the Green Berets gather the villagers

in highly-guarded strategic Hamlets.

This triggers increasing hostility among the farmers.

The Viet Cong has little difficulty finding informants

and creates an entire spy network,

enabling them to carry off their attacks accurately and successfully.

-(shouting) -(gunfire)

The Green Berets begin to fear their elusive enemy.

This is one of the most striking images of the War of Worlds.

The one the East wants to project,

that of a small, heroic nation, in holes and tunnels,

entirely devoted to the cause.

But in fact, entire divisions with powerful artillery

are confronting the steel monsters from the West.

A Lockheed U2 reconnaissance aircraft

flies regularly over the Soviet Union,

at more than 65,000 feet, a record.

This altitude shields it from anti-aircraft missiles.

It can safely photograph Russia's ballistic missile sites.

It is quickly spotted by Soviet radar,

but is far too high to be targeted.

(speaking in Russian)

NARRATOR (in English): Khrushchev, feeling betrayed by the West

in his attempt to ease tension,

and weakened vis-a-vis the Party and the Chinese,

decides to launch his fighter squadrons

and his new anti-aircraft missiles.

At first, these Soviet missiles shoot down their own fighter planes

as they approach the U2!

But in the end, they manage to hit the American plane.

The U2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers, ejected himself.

After heavy interrogation, his trial begins on August 24th, 1960, in Moscow.

In the famous Column Hall in the House of the Unions, the old Throne Room.

Ever since the Revolution,

this hall has served to honor Communism's great deceased figures,

and to celebrate other important regime events.

This trial has worldwide impact.

(speaking in Russian)

NARRATOR (in English): The Prosecutor asks Powers...

TRANSLATOR: Do you plead guilty to the charges as listed?

Yes, I plead guilty.

(translator translating in Russian)

(prosecutor interrogates)

TRANSLATOR (in English): Who gave you these instructions?

The commander of my detachment.

(translator translating in Russian)

NARRATOR (in English): In his defense, he says...

Not as an enemy but as a human being...

(translator translating in Russian)

(in English): ...who is not a personal enemy of the Russian people.

(translator translating in Russian)

NARRATOR (in English): Powers is not sentenced to death,

the usual punishment for such a case in the Soviet Union.

He is sentenced to ten years in prison

and is rapidly exchanged for the head of Russian espionage in America,

Colonel Rudolf Abel.

In November 1960,

Khrushchev closely follows the American elections,

a face-off between a brilliant, young Democrat Senator, John Kennedy

and the Republican Vice-President, Richard Nixon.

Khrushchev hates Nixon,

whom he considers to be very anti-Communist,

and applauds when Eisenhower hands over power,

on January 20th, 1961, to Kennedy,

who Khrushchev believes to be a progressive.

Is he a new Roosevelt?

At his inauguration,

Kennedy and his vice-president, Lyndon Johnson,

have chosen Marian Anderson to sing the American anthem,

traditionally sung on such an occasion.

She is a hero in the fight for civil rights.

(singing "The Star-Spangled Banner")

But contrary to Khrushchev's hopes,

Kennedy reveals himself to be a determined adversary of the Soviet Union.

His brother, Robert Kennedy, had worked with Senator Joseph McCarthy,

who had hunted down American Communists ten years earlier.

Robert Kennedy becomes United States Attorney General

and the main advisor to his brother, the new president.

As soon as they step into office,

John Kennedy and his vice-president, Lyndon Johnson,

have urgent matters to handle.

The first, is the issue of Cuba,

the largest Caribbean island situated right next to the United States.

Two years earlier, on January 3rd,1959,

Fidel Castro and his guerrillas marched triumphantly into Havana.

(crowd cheering)

Castro had defeated the army of Colonel Batista,

accused of being a corrupt dictator.

Castro had promised to keep his beard

until social justice, as he called it, was victorious.

(speaking in Spanish)

Freedom or death!

NARRATOR (in English): The beard had become a symbol of the Revolutionaries.

Castro firmly turned towards his only possible means of support.

The Soviet Union.

One month after Castro seized power,

Mikoyan, the Soviet minister of Foreign Trade, hurried to Havana

to sign a one-hundred-million-dollar loan

and a promise to buy Cuba's sugar production.

The Americans have only one goal: to overthrow Castro.

Soon after taking office in 1961,

Kennedy discovers a plan formulated by his predecessor, Eisenhower,

and the CIA.

A military expedition composed solely of Cuban exiles.

They must land, rally the population and appeal to America for help.

Kennedy approves this plan. He chooses the landing spot,

a beach 125 miles from Havana,

the Bay of Pigs, named after a local fish.

(gunfire)

On April 17th, 1961,

1400 anti-Castro Cubans land.

Castro gathers all the troops he has.

(people cheering)

(man speaking in Spanish)

(fire and explosions)

NARRATOR (in English): His modest air force

fires on the shores of the Bay of Pigs

and sinks the anti-Castro ships.

(gunshots and explosion)

However, Castro remains concerned. What will the population do?

It doesn't react, either terrified or won over by the Revolution.

Kennedy gives the order to abandon the Cuban exiles to their fate.

The anticipated uprising doesn't take place.

One thousand surviving anti-Castrists surrender.

They are later exchanged by Cuba for medicine.

Barely three months after his inauguration,

Kennedy has just experienced a terrible setback

with the failure of the Bay of Pigs.

He fears the worst. He says,

"We moved on Cuba. Now Khrushchev will move on Berlin."

Berlin remains the central issue of the Cold War.

Three million East Germans have already escaped to the West, via Berlin.

This is an unbearable situation for the Communists,

who demand that the Western part of the city be annexed.

In an attempt to end the escalation,

Kennedy goes to Vienna to meet with Khrushchev.

He wants to prevent him from occupying West Berlin, which would mean war.

On the way to Vienna, Kennedy stops in Paris with his wife Jackie,

Kennedy is impressed by the French president, General de Gaulle,

a historic personality.

De Gaulle advises him to remain firm about Berlin.

The big meeting takes place the next day in Vienna.

Kennedy knows perfectly well that he is in a weakened position,

barely two months after the Bay of Pigs disaster.

Khrushchev, on the other hand,

is empowered by his planetary success.

He has just sent the first man, Yuri Gagarin, into space.

In the Vienna salons,

when the incredibly elegant Jackie meets Khrushchev,

and president Kennedy meets Mrs. Khrushchev,

it's the collision of irreconcilable cultures.

A dialog between the two men is impossible.

Kennedy has no idea what Khrushchev has brewing.

Building a 90-mile wall to isolate Berlin West from East Berlin,

the rest of Germany, and all other Eastern bloc countries.

Three million refugees have already managed to get to the other side.

Khrushchev, chose the solution the Western world least expected.

A French diplomat, Henri Froment-Meurice, recalls,

"We had imagined everything, except the Wall.

Because it is difficult for democracies

to imagine the kinds of things dictatorships could do.

We had considered blocking off access to the city.

But we hadn't pictured the adversary suddenly blocking himself off!

Locking in his own population, to stop them from reaching the West."

But the wall is also a relief for the West.

Berlin is better locked up than under Russian control.

(tank approaching)

But for Khrushchev, the offensive continues.

He honors the Cuban Revolution and says,

"Now we will put a hedgehog in America's underwear!"

With Castro, he decides to install nuclear missiles,

125 miles from the US coast.

October 1962,

an American reconnaissance plane brings back photos from Cuba

of ballistic missile sites,

which could strike American towns in a matter of minutes.

This balance of terror has already been upset by the Americans.

President Eisenhower had installed Jupiter ballistic nuclear missiles in Turkey.

These Jupiters are close to the Russian border,

even closer than the Soviet missiles in Cuba are to America.

(dramatic music playing)

This situation, intolerable for the leaders in Moscow,

has forced Khrushchev to put Kennedy in the same situation.

Kennedy alerts the UN and seizes the Security Council,

showing pictures of the construction of the missile sites.

The Americans are called upon.

Their president is going to address them.

I call upon Chairman Khrushchev

to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless

and provocative threat to world peace.

NARRATOR: The US Navy establishes a blockade around Cuba

closing off the route for the Russian ships

carrying the missiles.

But, suddenly, four Soviet nuclear submarines surface

inside the blockade.

This round has just become extremely dangerous.

Pope John XXIII launches a solemn appeal to the governments,

"We beg all governments not to remain deaf to this cry of humanity!"

Castro rallies his population, to the notes of The Internationale.

(singing "El Himno de Bayamo")

NARRATOR: "Brother countries" loudly relay slogans in support of Castro.

On the beaches of Florida, the Americans strengthen their defense.

Concentrate their troops and put their air force on maximum alert.

The whole world sees this as the beginning of World War III.

The universal reflex is to urgently build food reserves

and to identify anything that could be used as a fallout shelter.

In school,

children begin learning how to protect themselves in a nuclear threat,

and their parents create shelters to save the human race.

After days of secret negotiations,

like this game of badminton with US Secretary of State Dean Rusk,

Khrushchev wins

by obtaining the disarming of the US Jupiter missiles in Turkey.

As though he were surrendering to Kennedy,

on October 28th, 1962,

Khrushchev orders his fleet to head home with its Soviet missiles.

The Americans film them, covered in tarps on the decks of the Russian ships.

The images travel the world.

The Murphy family comes out of its fallout shelter in Vermont.

(lively music playing)

Barbara in New York, and Max and Rachel in Texas,

let out a huge sigh of relief, as does the whole world.

They are all convinced that Kennedy saved them.

Their president expresses his thanks to God,

at Mass with his family on Sunday, October 28th, 1962

in a small church.

Yet Khrushchev is the real winner.

He secured the withdrawal of the American missiles

and their commitment to leave Cuba alone.

But Khrushchev has accepted to lose face,

which will eventually result in his fall.

Kennedy comes out of the crisis strengthened.

In June 1963,

he goes to West Berlin, split in two by the wall of shame,

and still under the threat of Russian invasion.

(crowd cheering)

Kennedy gives his most direct and explicit speech,

Two thousand years ago,

the proudest boast was:

(in Latin): I am a citizen of Rome!

(in English): Today in the world of freedom,

the proudest boast is:

(in German): I am a citizen of Berlin!

(crowd cheering)

KENNEDY (in English): There are some who say...

there are some who say,

that Communism is the wave of the future.

Let them come to Berlin.

NARRATOR: And while visiting the Berlin Wall, he adds...

"Our democracy is not perfect,

but we have never needed to build a wall to stop our people from escaping."

The wall provides glaring proof of the failure of the Communist system.

The priority that now awaits Kennedy is Vietnam,

where the war will drag the West and the East towards the abyss.

(theme music playing)