The Problem of Eastern and Central Europe
The Reith Lectures
BBC
4.2 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 1957
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 third lecture entitled 'The Problem of Eastern and Central Europe', Professor Kennan considers why disagreements about frontiers and the political control of territory are so potent. He explores the difficulties which have already arisen in Central and Eastern Europe over territorial conflict, and considers in detail the problems between Germany and the satellite states under Soviet rule.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures. |
| 0:04.7 | This lecture in the series Russia, the Atom and the West, given by George F. Kenan, was |
| 0:11.6 | originally broadcast in 1957. |
| 0:15.8 | Russia, the Atom and the West. |
| 0:19.9 | Under this title, the BBC presents the third of six wreath lectures by George F. Kenan, |
| 0:26.3 | a leading American authority on Soviet Russia, |
| 0:29.1 | who is now Professor of History at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. |
| 0:35.5 | Mr. Cannon. |
| 0:37.6 | I have undertaken to speak about Eastern and Central Europe, and I should like to begin |
| 0:42.8 | with a brief historical observation. |
| 0:47.4 | Aside from the question of armaments, I would know of no basic issues of genuine gravity |
| 0:53.7 | between Russia and the West, |
| 0:55.6 | negotiable issues, that is, other than those arising directly from the manner |
| 1:01.2 | in which the recent World War was allowed to come to an end. |
| 1:05.4 | I am referring here particularly to the fact that the authority of a united German government was expunged |
| 1:12.5 | on the territory of Germany itself and throughout large areas of Eastern Europe, |
| 1:17.8 | and the armies of the Soviet Union and the Western democracies were permitted to meet |
| 1:22.6 | in the middle of this territory and to take control of it before there was any adequate agreement among them |
| 1:29.2 | as to its future permanent status. This situation was of course the result of the |
| 1:36.8 | unconditional surrender policy which relieved the Germans of all responsibility for the future |
| 1:42.2 | status of this area and the failure of the |
| 1:46.0 | allied governments to arrive at any realistic understandings among themselves about it while the war |
... |
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