All language subtitles for American.Historys.Biggest.Fibs.with.Lucy.Worsley-S01E03-Supremacy.srt - 2

History is usually presented
as a set of facts and dates,

of victories and defeats,

of monarchs and presidents...

So, come on in
to the launch control centre.

..consigned to an unchangeable past.

But it's not like that at all.

History is the knitting together
of rival interpretations,

deliberate manipulations
of the truth

and, sometimes, alternative facts.

In this series,
I'll be lifting the lid

on three of American
history's national legends.

The Revolutionary
War Of Independence -

is the story of the
Founding Fathers full of fibs?

The Civil War -

was it really a battle
to reunite the nation

and liberate the slaves
in the southern states?

And, in this programme,

the American Dream

and the tall tales told by the
world's greatest superpower.

We blotted out the real story,
even after we heard what it was.

America's supremacy
over other nations,

whether that's military, economic,
cultural,

is often taken for granted...

..and the idea that America
is a special country,

destined for greatness,

is a powerful part
of the American Dream...

..but history's always
a murky business,

and the story of how
the United States

came to be a superpower

is full of some of American
history's biggest fibs.

You have lift-off.

Lift-off has happened. It's gone.

If ever an American era
was idolised,

it's the 1950s and early 1960s.

The years after the Second World War

are often remembered as a peaceful
and harmonious time -

a world where mums made apple pie

and dads made go-carts.

Marriages were sweeter,
colours richer.

Doors could be left unlocked
without fear.

The poverty of the 1930s
and the austerity of war

were left far behind
as the United States soared.

America truly was supreme.

It was the American Dream
brought to life.

This was the world of Happy Days,

and I Love Lucy - obviously -

and America was a beacon
of freedom and democracy.

It was helping humanity
all around the globe,

but this perfect world
was constructed on fibs -

some of them dangerous ones.

The United States was emerging
as a superpower in 1945,

but its leader was no Superman.

He wasn't a war hero,
or a film star,

and he certainly wasn't
a property tycoon.

One reporter said that he was
just like an ordinary man

plucked at random off the street -

but this man was going to be
President of the United States.

This is the rather ordinary-looking
apartment block

that was the home of the
very ordinary Harry S Truman.

Truman himself said he came to power
by accident

because he was vice president

when the popular Democrat
Franklin D Roosevelt died in office

on April the 12th 1945.

He suddenly found himself shoulder
to shoulder with wartime allies

Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin

as the conflict in Europe
was coming to an end...

..but a brutal war with Japan

was still raging in the East.

Americans were still fighting
in battles to the death...

..and this ordinary man's
extraordinary response

announced America's arrival
as a superpower.

Truman made a decision
that I think you could describe

as THE most controversial
presidential decision in history.

He unleashed
what he himself described

as the most terrible bomb
in the history of the world.

The target was the city
of Hiroshima.

70,000 people were instantly killed.

The city was destroyed.

A few days later,
Nagasaki shared the same fate.

Jubilant crowds poured into
Times Square in New York

to celebrate the great American
victory over Japan...

..but the victory wasn't
quite what it seemed.

Traditionally,
the story goes like this -

6th of August, Hiroshima bombed.

9th of August, Nagasaki bombed.

15th of August, Japan surrenders.

A plus B leads to C,

and in this version of events,

the atom bomb is a terrible thing,
but it ends the war,

saving the lives of millions
of Americans...

..but, in this official version,
there are so many evasions and fibs.

The traditional story makes the two
atomic bombs the critical factor...

..but Japan's leaders
were already discussing surrender

when Nagasaki was bombed.

It can't have been the cause.

The first bomb on Hiroshima
would go down in history,

but it wasn't as decisive
as it seems.

In fact, the decision to surrender

was triggered by something else,
as well.

The usual account ignores
the other big player -

Stalin.

An ally against the Nazis,

the Soviet Union had remained
neutral in the war in the East...

..but on August the 8th,
1.5 million Russian troops

launched a surprise assault against
the Japanese army in Manchuria.

Russia formally declared war
on the 9th of August.

Now, Japan could deal
with one superpower,

but two was just too much.

Japan surrendered - but, of course,
nobody in America wanted to admit

that Russia had played this role
in ending the war,

so the story was sold that
the atom bomb had done the trick.

And that story really stuck.

Just as the Cold War got started,

this belief that the atom bomb
alone had won the war

would mould America's
superpower psyche.

The United States had fought the war
to preserve four freedoms.

Artist Norman Rockwell
made four paintings

to celebrate this American Dream.

Freedom From Want...

..Freedom Of Worship...

..Freedom From Fear...

..and Freedom Of Speech.

Rockwell captured the values

that inspired confidence
in the new supremacy.

The American Dream
could now become a reality.

Professor Sarah Churchwell
has studied the history

of this powerful idea.

So, the American Dream didn't
become a national catchphrase,

the way that we now know it,
until 1931.

It was used by an American historian
called James Truslow Adams

in a book called
The Epic Of America,

and Adams' point was that the
American Dream of higher ideals,

the American Dream which he saw
as a spiritual dream

of self-fulfilment,

of becoming the best person
that you could be,

living the best
life that you could live,

creating the best country
that you could create,

was by no means going to be
measured by materialism

and he wanted to return America
to thinking about values,

and about things that mattered more
than merely making money.

And when did it start to flip over?

When did it start to mean
having a car and a house

and a nice little wife and a lawn

and a swimming pool
and all that kind of thing?

Around the time that the post-war
boom began

and that American ideas about
prosperity were starting to shift.

As the troops came home,
the new American supremacy

went hand-in-hand with new
aspirations and desires.

This would be an era of peace,
prosperity,

and homes fit for heroes.

There was a housing boom.

First up, a new town in Long Island,
named after its builder,

William Levitt.

Welcome to Levittown.

Inspired by Henry Ford,
Levitt broke down the process

of building a house
into 27 separate tasks.

Now, most builders aimed to produce
three or four houses a year,

but Levitt's target
was 30-40 houses a day.

1,000 acres of potato fields
on Long Island sprouted a new crop.

In March 1949, 1,400 homes sold
in just three hours.

It looked like a perfect world

where anyone could live
the American Dream.

Were I lucky enough
to have a GI husband,

the government would reward his
service with a generous loan.

Other buyers rushed here
to escape the city

with an affordable house
in the suburbs.

Long Island's success
led to seven replica Levittowns,

from Philadelphia to Maryland.

The homes were particularly popular
with newlyweds.

In fact, if you got pregnant,

it became known as having
"the Levittown look."

Levittown came to stand
for everything

that was great about the suburbs -

higher standards of living,
and very, very affordable.

As a child, Pat Heegan experienced
the move to Levittown.

You'd been living in an apartment
in Brooklyn, is that right?

Yeah, yes, a two-family house.

We lived on the second floor,

and we were really confined.

We were just looking forward
to coming out to the country

and getting a brand-new house.

And now you had
your own front door...

Yes...television.

What else was exciting about it?

Also a washing machine
for my mother.

She was very excited
about the washing machine.

Your mum, was she happier?

Oh, yes, much happier.

She didn't have to worry about us.

She didn't have to look out
the window constantly,

you know, to see where we were.

We had bicycles to ride, something
which we didn't have in Brooklyn.

You've made it sound like it was
a golden age living here.

Is that what it was like?

Yes, it really was.

It was like coming into the rainbow.

Mr Levitt made it possible
for people to buy a house,

to have the American Dream
come true.

In this new American Dream,

the chance to own your own home
was open to all -

but there was a problem
with that word "all".

In almost all respects,
the Myers family is close

to the Levittown norm,
except in one respect.

William Myers Jr
and his family are Negroes

in an all-white community.

Daisy and William Myers
were the first black family

to try to buy into
the Levittown dream.

The Myers didn't get
much of a welcome.

Protesters clashed with police.

Rocks were hurled
through their windows

and a burning cross appeared
outside their home.

An anonymous caller warned
Daisy Myers that they would,

"Shoot William down on sight."

Residents didn't try to hide
their prejudice.

The whole trouble with this
integration business

is that, in the end, it probably
will end up with mixing socially,

and you'll have, well, I think
their aim is mixed marriages

and becoming equal with the whites.

I moved here...

One of the main reasons was because
it was a white community,

and that's the only place
I intend to live.

If I have to leave Levittown,
I will do so.

The Levittowns across America
hadn't remained all-white by chance.

It was the result of a clause
in the sales documents.

The terms and conditions included
something called a racial covenant.

This was a legal clause -
and it was also a euphemism.

It really meant racial segregation.

The covenant stated the premises
could not be used

by anyone other than members
of the Caucasian race.

It didn't apply
when houses were sold on

to families like the Myers...

..but these racist clauses
weren't outlawed until 1968.

As the American Dream
was taking hold in the suburbs,

Truman's atomic supremacy
seemed secure...

..but in 1950 that changed.

A secret National Security Council
report, codenamed NSC-68,

claimed that America's new
superpower status

was already under threat.

"The issues that face us are
momentous,

"involving the fulfilment
or destruction

"not only of this Republic,

"but of civilisation itself."

Peter Kuznick
has studied the report.

Peter, what is NSC-68?

NSC-68 is a top-secret memo

that was drafted in early 1950,

in order to set America's
new defence strategy.

What the report says

is that America's period of maximum
vulnerability

is going to come in 1954,

because the Soviets are out for
world conquest, world domination,

and it poses it in these stark,
Manichaean, black and white terms.

It's the US versus the Soviets
in this battle to the death -

but we had this idea that we need
an enemy

to justify America's
defence spending,

enemies with the capability
of doing you in, and conquering you.

What, in your opinion, was the
reality of the Soviet capability?

Soviet capability
was pretty limited.

You have to realise that the
Soviet economy

was destroyed in World War II.

John Kennedy said it was as if
the entire United States

east of Chicago had been wiped out,
was what the Soviets suffered.

The Soviets lost 27 million people
in World War II.

They were always on the defensive,
in that sense.I'm not surprised!

They knew how much stronger
the US was than they were,

and they knew that the US was
building up its capabilities,

so they were seeing themselves
as the victims.

What effect do you think
that NSC-68 had

on the next 10, 15 years
of American politics?

It's going to put us
in a permanent war economy,

a permanent alert, and we're going
to build up a nuclear arsenal

as part of this that can end life
on the planet.

"The proposed programme hangs
ultimately on recognition

"by this government, the American
people and all free peoples

"that the Cold War
is in fact a real war,

"in which the survival
of the free world is at stake."

So, NSC-68 made it seem like the
President only had three options.

First, pre-emptive strike on Russia,

second, do nothing - isolationism -

or third, rapid arms build-up.

Now, the first two options
didn't really work -

nobody wanted to go to war,

and isolationism was thought to have
led to the rise of the Nazis.

That left just option three,
rapid arms build-up.

The report somehow made it seem

like that was the only
sensible thing to do.

NSC-68 hit President Truman's desk
in April 1950,

seven months after Russia's first
atom bomb test.

The report's distortions
scared Truman

into tripling defence spending...

..from 14 billion to 47 billion.

The military now swallowed
nearly 15%

of America's gross national product.

The Cold War nuclear arms race
suddenly lurched forward.

The drive for better nuclear weapons
led to a new test site in Nevada.

It was described as
"relatively uninhabited" desert -

but the test site was just 65 miles
away from Las Vegas.

Where the military saw cheap land...

..Vegas hoteliers
saw an opportunity.

Atomic tourism began.

Every mushroom cloud
had a golden lining.

Casinos even offered
an explosive new drink.

This is the must-have drink of 1953,

vodka, brandy, sherry!

Oh, yeah!

And...

..all topped up with champagne.

Then you drive into the desert,

you stay up all night
drinking your atomic cocktail

and you watch the nuclear testing.

It's the greatest light show
on Earth.

LUCY CHOKES AND SPLUTTERS

Cheers.

# It's the drink that you don't pour

# Now when you take one sip
you won't need any more

# You're small as a beetle
or big as a whale

# Boom! Atomic cocktail. #

People came to Las Vegas to feel the
ground shake beneath their feet.

Tourists could stay
at the Atomic View Motel...

..see the annual crowning
of Miss Atomic Bomb...

..or enjoy an atomic ballet.

ON TANNOY:Put on your goggles.

Five, four...

..three, two, one...

..zero.

Tourists sat on hotel balconies

waiting for a mini Armageddon
on the horizon.

This was what being a superpower
was all about.

As they say, the Earth moved.

# Atomic Cocktail. #

The message was, don't worry.

Soldiers waiting for their own
nuclear test

were reassured by the army chaplain.

There's no need to be worried,

as the Army has taken
all of the necessary precautions

to see that we're
perfectly safe here.

What's it like, chaplain?

It contains all of the rich colours
of the rainbow

and then, as it rises
up into the atmosphere,

it turns a beautiful pale yellow.

It's a wonderful sight to behold.

One of the things that's missing

from our nostalgic, glamorous image
of 1950s America

is...the fear.

The sirens going off.

Drills at schools.

100 million people
going to fallout shelters.

The knowledge that,
within a matter of hours,

humanity could be wiped
off the face of the Earth.

SIREN WAILS

That signal means to stop whatever
you are doing

and get to the nearest
safe place fast.

The Nevada tests were seen as vital
for staying ahead of the Russians.

America was honing its weapons,

but also learning what impact
enemy bombs could have.

In the race to outwit the Soviets,
safety took a back seat.

Mushroom clouds frequently
filled the sky.

For the town of St George,
tests became routine.

RADIO:Ladies and gentlemen,
we interrupt this programme

to bring you important news.

Due to a change in wind direction,

the residue from this morning's
atomic detonation

is drifting in the direction
of St George.

It is suggested that everyone
remain indoors

for one hour.
or until further notice.

There is no danger.

Locals became known
as "downwinders".

They began to see
their livestock dying.

Cancer and leukaemia rates soared.

Officials denied any link
to the tests.

In 1957, a Congressional hearing
justified the decision

to expose the downwinders
to nuclear fallout,

citing the greater risk

of the Soviets annihilating
the United States.

So, the government did know
that the fallout was dangerous,

but it was more important to them
to stay ahead in the arms race.

The downwinders believed that the
government had been lying to them -

and they were right.

This was one of American history's
cruellest fibs.

Years after the tests,

the downwinders were paid
over 1 billion in compensation

for their "sacrifices".

Health officials estimate nuclear
fallout has resulted in the deaths

of at least 11,000 Americans.

MUSIC: Yankee Doodle

One part of the American Dream
is the idea that America is unique.

That no other nation was formed
in quite the same way.

Travelling across the States,

you can't miss the nation's
self-belief.

It seems to me, as a British person,

that America is incredibly
well-branded as a country.

Well, I think it probably is,
you know?

It kind of had to be, right?

America is a nation that imagined
itself into existence.

It is an experiment
that is built around ideas,

so how do you hold all of these
people from all over the world

with absolutely no common ground?

No common religion,
no common language,

no common cultural background.

All we have that holds us together
is this set of ideas.

MUSIC: The Star-Spangled Banner

Today, we might see that the
American Dream is flawed,

but back in the '50s
it seemed that these ideals

could lead the free world...

..and, for some,

self-belief extended the nation's
influence beyond planet Earth.

There were reports of UFOs,
unidentified flying objects.

Arizona appeared to be
in the thick of the action.

Well, I have heard
that this is the place

to be on the lookout for them.

Stop, stop, stop!

What the aliens wanted wasn't clear,

but many Americans were certain
of one thing...

..if there are UFOs out there,

then, obviously, America is going to
be the first country in the world

they want to visit.

It's got to be America first.

This self-belief has a long history.

In the 19th-century,
the idea began to take root

that the USA had a God-given mission
to spread Christianity

and democracy across America.

In 1845, a New York newspaper named
it manifest destiny.

Deep in its heart, America knows
that it's a special country,

a chosen nation...

..and, obviously, aliens
appreciate that, too.

In 1997, one visitation in Arizona
became known as the Phoenix Lights.

It was witnessed by thousands -
including the state governor.

He described it as "otherworldly".

He's not the only person to think
that the truth is out there.

Former FBI agent John DeSouza
investigates UFOs.

The thing wanted to be seen
by as many people as possible

and it was not...it had no
propulsion, no human propulsion.

There was no thrust,
we don't know how it was floating,

we don't know what physical methods
that were used

to make it travel so slowly -

so, this was not a
terrestrial vehicle,

and there were thousands of
people that witnessed

it and saw what it was.

I'm a historian,
and for many centuries

people have seen comets,
or shooting stars, or ghosts,

and I see UFOs of being kind of
an extension to that.

Do you think there's
a basic human need

to believe in something
bigger than us?

Instinctually, people know
that there's something out there

that is greater than physical,

that leads into greater realities
of what life is really all about,

and that's why people
want to believe in these things.

I mean, we're right here
in Tucson, Arizona,

which is a major hot spot for UFOs

and we have these experiences
here all the time.

I think it's because the aliens
all want a green card,

they want to be here,
in this country!

Yes! I think they do.

The question is, is that good?

Is that a good way for them to go?

And we'll find out very soon.

That's ominous.Yes.

Yes, because they will be revealing
themselves very soon.

UFOs may choose America first,

but they might also be a barometer
for a nation's paranoia.

Sightings soared in the 1950s,

just as fears about the decline
of the nation gripped America.

Innumerable psychologists attribute
the moral decay among our people

to the obscene
and pornographic literature

so prevalent in our society.

This moral decay weakens
our resistance

to the onslaught of the
Communist masters of deceit.

Some believed that Communist
infiltration

was the biggest threat to America.

One senator did more than anyone
else to hype the fear.

Joseph McCarthy's reign of terror
began with a little piece of paper

and a great big whopper of a fib.

At a political meeting,
he produced what he claimed

was a list of 205 names,

that had been made known
to the Secretary of State,

of members of the Communist Party -

but all of them were still involved
in shaping State Department policy.

There was a sensation!

But the next day,
a funny thing happened.

The list had been downgraded.

Now, there were just 57 names on it.

The numbers fluctuated,
but America was hooked.

Government workers lived in fear
of McCarthy's accusations.

A letter arrives at your house.

It tells you to report here
to the offices of the Senate.

You have to appear in an
investigation room -

this one's very often used.

The people in here are going to ask
you a simple question,

but on your answer
may depend your job,

your place in society,
possibly even your life -

and the question is...

..are you, or have you ever been,
a member of the Communist Party?

McCarthy's team would grill subjects
for hours,

hoping they'd crack under pressure.

Senate historian Katherine Scott
has studied McCarthy's impact.

When attorneys to some
of the witnesses

would be allowed to read the
transcripts

of their clients' testimony
in the closed-door session,

they would find, to their horror,

that the transcripts
had been altered.

That they had literally been
changed and typed up

to say things so that the client
had made confessions,

had named names -
none of which had transpired

in the course of
the closed-door hearing -

and in the era of McCarthyism,
a claim or an inference

that you were sympathetic or
had been sympathetic to communism

was enough to ruin
your life forever.

McCarthy is most famous for his
Communist witch hunts,

but he had another target, too.

Homosexuals.

One of the people who was picked up
in one of these arrest efforts

was the son of a United States
Senator named Lester Hunt.

They blackmailed Lester Hunt.

They tried to get him
to not seek re-election.

Lester Hunt decided to take his own
life.And he actually did that?

He actually committed suicide
here in this office building.

That's horrific.

I consider him to be one of the
victims of the McCarthy era.

Americans were absolutely consumed
by fear and paranoia

and I think it made
people desperately cautious

about their own behaviour.

There were staff members who were on
Senate staff at the time

who recalled, walking through
the halls, how quiet it was.

People wouldn't talk,
they wouldn't talk to each other,

they wouldn't talk
to their colleagues...

Literally, they had been silenced by
McCarthy and his tactics.

How many people would you say -
is it possible to say? -

were affected by this witch hunt?

I would say
tens of thousands of people,

people who...believed that their
secrets would come out

and so chose to quietly resign
from their positions,

people who were identified through
loyalty security programmes

as homosexuals and were fired.

I don't think we'll ever know
the exact number of people

whose lives were ruined
by these types of policies.

In 1953, a new Republican president
was inaugurated,

Dwight Eisenhower.

Eisenhower wanted to
save taxpayers' money.

He spoke of the futility
of Cold War military spending.

Every gun that is made,
every warship launched,

every rocket fired signifies,
in the final sense,

a theft from those
who hunger and are not fed,

those who are cold
and are not clothed.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber
is this...

..a modern brick school
in more than 30 cities.

A large standing army
cost a fortune.

Eisenhower was advised
that conventional warfare

would quickly escalate
to nuclear war,

so he cut the army and pushed
nuclear weapons instead.

Here in Arizona, you can get a taste

of this monstrous new
superpower force.

This is the B-52 Stratofortress.

It's really quite monstrously big -

but, to Eisenhower,
this represented a bargain.

Because one of these could travel
9,000 miles, all by itself.

It eliminated the need for having
expensive air force bases in Europe.

One of these could get
all the way to Russia -

and it could carry 35 tonnes
of nuclear bombs.

This is how America
would rule supreme.

The Soviet Union would be deterred
from attacking

as it would risk its own
annihilation.

This was the Cold War's ever more
heavily armed front line.

At the start of Eisenhower's
presidency,

the US had 1,000 nuclear bombs.

By the end of it, though,
there were 22,000 of them.

Yet still, many in the military
talked up the Soviet threat

and campaigned for even more
defence spending.

Eisenhower knew the Soviet threat
was being exaggerated

by a shadowy alliance
of arms companies and generals.

He would dub this
the Military Industrial Complex.

Eisenhower could see that this
Military Industrial Complex

could become a danger to democracy

because the whole thing
was based on fear,

it was circular, threats to America
would be exaggerated,

America's response would be
to get more arms -

and this enormous defence industry
that was the result

was based largely on paranoia

and on some fibs as big
as the B-52 bomber itself...

..and something of that attitude
persists to this day.

According to the United Nations,
America spends more on defence

than China, Russia,
Saudi Arabia, India,

Britain, France and Japan combined.

A new, long-range weapon system,
Titan II, was also swallowing cash.

This bunker is now a museum.

Yvonne Morris was once
its commander.

So, you see, we're going to enter
the launch duct now,

and you're going to be standing just
a few feet away

from Titan II
intercontinental ballistic missile.

It's such a huge,
evil-looking thing.

It's 103 feet tall,
from the top of the warhead

to the bottom, where the engines
are mounted.

So, it's the height of
a skyscraper building, nearly.

Yes.

What can this missile actually do?

Well, it has a nine-megaton
warhead on it,

that's the explosive equivalent
of 9 million tonnes of TNT.

It'll actually decimate an area
of 900 square miles.

900 square miles?Yes.

And when you say decimate,

does that mean kill all the people
within that area?

A very large percentage of them,

and then radiation will pretty much,
over the next few weeks,

kill off a large portion
of the rest of the population.

Titan II can be up and out of the
silo in less than a minute

after receipt of launch command,

hurling its payload at speeds
of 15,000 mph

nearly halfway around the world.

Should Russia attack,
America could destroy Russia

in just 30 minutes.

It was called
mutually assured destruction.

You have to be visible in order
to be perceived as a credible threat

and that's what deterrence
is based on,

the projection of a
credible threat

and so the assumption is that
each of these missile sites

were targeted with multiple
incoming missiles.

So, the expectation for the crew

is hopefully we're going to live
long enough to launch our missile,

but we are on the other end
of that 30 minutes,

where target two from here
is going to be a smoking hole,

eventually, this site
is going to be a smoking hole.

So, let me get this right -

the Russians knew that this site
was here, that was the point?

You wanted them to know
that this site was here...

Yes, that is exactly true.

..and if you ever had to launch
in anger,

then you would be pretty sure

that they were going to send one
straight back here

and you would be dead.Yes.

And we would be dead.

ALARM BELL RINGS

COUNTDOWN BEGINS

If the President hit
the nuclear red button,

over 50 Titan silos like this one
would spring into action.

As commander,
Yvonne would fire her missile.

She was never told
what it would destroy -

to her it was just target two.

All right, so,
to launch the missile,

we're going to act together,
you and I.

We would insert the launch keys,

the deputy crew commanders would go
over here, underneath this clock.

Yours would go right there -

and you'll notice, Lucy,
that the keys are too far apart

to be turned by one person.

Are you ready?

I suppose so.

Three, two, one, turn.

Four, three, two, one, release.Ooh!

The lights are going on.

Do you have launch enable?

Launch enabled.

So, very shortly, you're going
to hear a loud bell.

BELL RINGS
Oh!

Things are happening.

The lights are going on.
Things are happening.

Guidance go.Guidance go -

and then you're going to get
fire in the engine...

..as soon as the stage one
engine fires.Fire, fire!

You and I have now started something
that we can't stop.

Only a malfunction will stop
the launch sequence

from this point on.

And you have lift-off.

Lift-off. Lift-off has happened.
It's gone.

And in about 30 minutes from now,
target two

is going to cease to exist.

The entire Titan programme was built
on the premise that Communist Russia

was roaring ahead.

The American public were persuaded

millions of dollars
must be spent to keep up.

In 1960, the air force predicted

the Soviets would have 185
long-range missiles

within 18 months.

The CIA said 200.

One newspaper cited an official
forecast of 500.

All of them were wild exaggerations.

Years later, declassified Russian
documents revealed the truth.

The Soviets didn't have thousands
of weapons,

or even hundreds,

or even tens.

They had four.

While the risks from long-range
missiles were overblown,

the next President would discover

how threatening even medium-range
missiles could be.

The Eisenhower era came to an end
in November, 1960.

The new President, John F Kennedy,

appeared to be a youthful,
vibrant leader,

with a beautiful wife
and young children...

..but the Kennedy administration
was built upon deception.

Kennedy's image of perfect health
was an illusion.

Chronic illnesses made him dependent

on a cocktail of steroids
and painkillers...

..and his family man image
concealed insatiable promiscuity.

He was even linked
with Marilyn Monroe.

Most of the cover-ups were only
revealed long after his death...

..but one Kennedy legend
remains remarkably intact.

The time when the President's
bravado saved America

from nuclear war.

It's one of the biggest myths
of the 20th century.

I'm just off K Street
in Washington, DC.

It's a quiet,
low-key neighbourhood -

and that was the point,

because standing near here,
in a boring looking building,

hidden in plain sight, if you like,

was the National
Photographic Interpretation Centre.

In 1962, armed couriers came
to this building

with some footage that a spy plane
had shot over Cuba -

and this is the photo
that shocked the analysts,

because here are missiles.

The Cuban Missile Crisis had begun.

Cuba was just 100 miles
from US soil.

The photos proved
this Communist island

had medium-range nuclear missiles,
able to strike America.

Kennedy's generals plotted
an invasion of Cuba,

close in size to D-Day.

Experts used spy planes to estimate
enemy troops on the ground.

The CIA told Kennedy
6,000-8,000 Russian troops

protecting 32 missiles.

The reality was even more chilling.

On Cuba were 40,000 Russians
and over 90 nuclear warheads.

This included over 50 battlefield
nuclear missiles,

each with the power of the bomb
that destroyed Hiroshima.

Had the US invaded, it could have
triggered nuclear war...

..but Kennedy overruled his
generals.

Rejecting invasion,

he went for the softer option
of a blockade instead.

The legend says JFK
strong-armed Khrushchev

into removing his missiles.

He stood tall, eyeball to eyeball,
and Khrushchev blinked first.

Under powerful pressure,
Russia turned its ships around

and pulled out the missiles.

After serving three presidents,
elder statesman Doctor Leslie Gelb

knows when a story
is just too good to be true.

Les, what was
the official Kennedy line

on how the crisis came to an end?

He faced Khrushchev down.

They were at the gunfight
at OK Corral,

Khrushchev dropped his guns.

And what really happened?

The real story was quite different.

In the secret negotiations
that were taking place,

there were two things agreed upon.

One was that the Soviets would take
their missiles out of Cuba.

The other, the one that got hidden
for years and years,

was that we agreed that we would
take our Jupiter missiles,

our nuclear Jupiter missiles
out of Turkey,

which was on the border of the
Soviet Union -

and it was almost ten years later

that the story, the true story,
began to come out.

Why did Americans want to believe
this story?

Because it was a story
about American toughness,

and American toughness is at the
very heart of American folklore,

of how you win in politics,
how you win in foreign policy -

and Kennedy proved it,
and we liked to believe it was true,

so we blotted out the real story,

even after we heard what it was.

And you yourself, Les, you were
taken in by this, is that right?

No question about it.

All of your experience in digging
down and discovering secrets

and you thought that they were
telling the truth, too?

Yes, I sure was.

I didn't know the truth
and I didn't find it out privately -

and when it was revealed,
I was both shocked and...

..felt, "Of course,
that's what must have happened.

"How else could he
have made the deal?"

Do you think that the Cuban Missile
Crisis had consequences

for American foreign policy?

It became a myth that affected
decisions almost forever thereafter.

That the way to end these crises
was by threatening to go to war,

not by trying to negotiate

where you'd have to, heaven forbid,
compromise,

which was an awful word
in American foreign policy -

but toughness? That's the best word,

and the Cuban Missile Crisis
proved it.

After Cuba, American supremacy
was restored.

This idea that military strength
would bring the Soviets to heel

was stronger than ever...

..but the fissures buried in
the American Dream

were rising to the surface.

The racial conflict seen
in Levittown

was spreading across the nation...

..and now the world began to see
the ugly reality of segregation.

White America was refusing to share
schools with African-Americans.

Black parents demanded change.

White parents dug in.

In 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges
claimed her right to a place

at the local Louisiana school.

Risking attack, she was protected
by US marshals.

Norman Rockwell, who had brought
the country together

with his popular images
of the four freedoms,

now showed a country
tearing itself apart.

Less an American Dream,
more a nightmare.

Civil rights leaders sent out a call
to march on Washington.

Their leader, Martin Luther King,
would speak to the crowd.

Broadcast live, he'd be talking
directly to the American people

about the cracks beneath the surface
of their national story.

King fretted here,
in the Willard hotel,

about how to meet this challenge.

Hm...

Should he preach in this speech?

Or should he taunt the audience?

Someone said, you know, you have to
make it challenging to America...

..but then again, perhaps
the most important thing

is that it would be inspirational -

and so, in this hotel,
in this pressure cooker,

last-minute atmosphere,
he put the words together

to create a new vision of America.

It was a new version
of the American Dream.

King would do this by pointing out
the harsh reality

of life in the USA.

The continued exclusion
of African-Americans.

On August 28, 1963,
marchers began to arrive.

Over 200,000 Americans
heard the call.

This square, here,
was totally full of people,

they were all coming from the
station

and they were rushing up
to where the march was going to be.

I have the pleasure now to present
the moral leader of our nation,

one who has conducted a massive
moral campaign

in the Southern area of the nation
against the citadel of racism,

Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

That day, many speakers
called out America

for its racist policies
and job market...

Let's hear you!
Freedom, freedom, freedom, now!

..but it's King's I Have A Dream
speech that endures.

Nathan Connolly explains why
it became part

of America's national mythology.

So, the march had this very clear
economic agenda,

but what we actually remember

is the speech about the dream,
isn't it?

Yeah, that's right.

The I Have A Dream speech
takes up all the air.

It was much more about the moral
charge of the march itself

and whether it was going
to be possible to, in fact, make

the country's stated ideals
a reality

in ways that had not yet
happened at that point.

So, we look back
on the I Have A Dream speech

as, in some ways, tapping into
the best ideals of the country,

because it was very effective in
speaking in those idyllic terms.

Martin Luther King emerged
as a national hero,

an icon of equality -

but his own dream had its limits
and exclusions.

Going back to the march
on Washington,

no women were allowed to speak.

It could easily have been
Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King -

and King was not going to, in some
ways, break from the male norm

of that political moment.

Also, Coretta Scott King had
accompanied Martin Luther King

to the White House after JFK's
invitation

and King basically left her on the
doorstep of the White House.

So, it becomes, I think, one of the
lesser markers of King's greatness

to think about his gender politics.

What do you think the difference is

between who Martin Luther King
really was

and this sort of saint-like figure
that we remember today?

Well, King's politics
are very inconvenient

to the political mainstream.

Redistributing private property

in ways that will make it more
equitable -

these are things that are
considered beyond the pale

in most mainstream
political conversations.

King as an image, however,
is considered essential

to how anybody is going to think
and frame civil rights -

and so, immediately upon
King's assassination,

you see people begin to recast
his image

and his message and his meaning.

People who fled from him

found themselves in the pews
at the funeral,

so there's a very strange,
I think, meeting of the agendas

in terms of conservative
and liberal positions,

because King was a problem for both
of those camps in life.

But Martin Luther King
had drawn attention

to those who were excluded
from the American Dream -

and now, the floodgates opened.

Once you start to make that argument
about equality

and about the exclusion of other
communities and groups,

it becomes very, very,
infectious, right?

Everybody's going to start realising

that there are other groups
that have been excluded.

Access to opportunity,

which, of course, is so intrinsic to
the idea of the American Dream,

was limited to a very small group
of people who all happen to be male.

So, a writer called Betty Friedan
wrote The Feminine Mystique

and she was talking about the fact
that women were miserable,

that it was repressive
and conformist,

that women were drugging themselves
to get through it.

A poet called it the
tranquillised '50s, right?

That people were...

You had to take Valium to get
through this life, right?

The failure of the American Dream
very much extends to the fact

that it was only ever available -
if it existed at all -

it was only ever available to a very
small proportion of the population.

In the late '60s and the '70s,
American self-confidence was shaken

by an economic crisis...

..the Vietnam War...

..and Soviet determination
to win the arms race.

Was the dream finally over?

Not quite.

In 1967, to encourage
musical diversity,

America's AM and FM radio stations

were banned from airing
identical content to the top 40.

FM radio sought cheap alternatives -

'50s records fitted the bill.

Older - and richer - listeners
suited advertisers, too.

Golden oldie stations blossomed.

So, America's fondness
for 1950s music

had as much to do with economics
as it did to nostalgia

and where music led,

movies followed - films like Grease
or Back To The Future -

and there was one politician
who seemed particularly well-suited

to this '50s revival.

Ronald Reagan.

Reagan loved the era - the movies,
some of which he'd starred in,

and the homely family values.

His mentor was none other
than 1950s icon

Dwight Eisenhower.

Reagan's rhetoric harked back
to a lost world.

Every promise, every opportunity
is still golden in this land

and through that golden door
our children can walk into tomorrow,

with the knowledge that no-one
can be denied the promise

that is America.

Thank you, God bless you,
and God bless America.

Reagan's rise to power coincided
with a broader Republican strategy

to present America as a country
yearning for lost greatness.

Ready for a return to form.

It seemed that Reagan
and his supporters

wanted to recreate the 1950s version
of the American Dream.

Reagan's aim was to wipe away
the decades when it all went wrong.

Michael, what didn't he like
about the 1960s and '70s?

Certainly, Reagan's speeches and
rhetoric consistently

would present the 1960s as a space
where America lost the plot.

The substance of that,
which goes unsaid in the speeches,

is about civil rights,
it's about feminism,

it's about Vietnam and Watergate,

but instead of sort of conjuring
the negative feelings

and the contentious feelings
of the '60s,

he invokes a sort of
idyllic vision of the '50s.

So, it was unspoken,
but in the 1950s,

we didn't have civil rights,
we didn't have feminism,

we weren't having all these protests
about Vietnam -

surely it must have been better.

Well, you've just said
the quiet part out loud!

In a lot of ways, it's a television
version of the 1950s

or it's a Hollywood version
of small-town America

that leaves out all of the conflict
and complexity

that we know that real life
and real history has.

There are two 1950s.

One real, with paranoia,
racial hatred and nuclear terror...

..and then there's the
reinvented Hollywood 1950s,

a cosy, confident country.

In this series, we've seen
that since its first steps

as a nation, America's had its
history twisted,

exaggerated and misrepresented.

Fibs have been passed down
the centuries,

from the American Revolution
to the Civil War to the Cold War.

Now that I've travelled
all over America,

I think that I can still detect
the fibs and the half-truths

of the Cold War era

affecting Americans today.

It seems to me that a lot of them
are distrustful of the government,

think that it's lying to them -
and, in the later 20th-century,

it very often was...

..but lying and mythmaking

are really just two sides
to the same coin, aren't they?

And you can't deny that America's
national mythology

is one of the most powerful
in the history of the world.