I'm John Bancher with Nick Bunker, the historian, in the shadow of fear is the new book America and the world in 1950.

Stalin in Moscow is watching the events in Washington very carefully.

He has informants everywhere as Nick says dryly at one point they don't have to spy

they can just read the front pages because everybody's

spilling everything at the same time. Drew Pearson's defending McCarthy. The McCormick Papers, the

Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News are defending McCarthy and to follow the

president at this point is easy because he has his defenders in the media everywhere,

especially the New York Times who Mr. Crock presents him as a great success.

The president is worried about the coal strike and the steel strike and unions,

but Stalin is watching for his advantages. He's getting information from Pyongyang.

This is Kim Il-Sung, the grandfather of the dictator here in the 21st century. Kim Il-Sung fought with the Soviets, is my

understanding, and then at the end of the war took advantage of the collapse of the Japanese occupation of Korea that have been going on for

most of the century and gobbled up half the peninsula and stopped or was stopped.

Now he wants to keep going. Nick, what was Stalin's first opinion when Kimel sung

applied for weapons and arms and leadership to take the rest of the peninsula?

Well initially, Stalin was very reluctant.

Now, the situation was this.

Korea had been divided along the 38th parallel in 1945,

with the Americans from one side and the Russians on the other.

The Russians, the Americans had both withdrawn their forces but nevertheless

the peninsula was still divided and as you had Kim in the north and you had Singman Ray

the present of South Korea and South. And throughout 1949 there were actually border clashes going on along the Third Gate

...