I'm John Batchel 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 is 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, Mr. Croc presents him as a great success.

The president is worried about the coal strike and the steel strike and the 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 had 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 Kim Il-sung applied for weapons and arms and leadership to take the rest of

the peninsula? Well, initially, Stein was very reluctant. Now, the situation was this. Korea had

been divided along the 38th parallel in 1945 with the Americans on one side and the Russians on the

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 The Russians, the Americans had both withdrawn their forces, but nevertheless, the peninsula

was still divided. As you had Kim in the north, and you had Singh-Man Ray, the present of South Korea

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

...