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00:00France 1952 the Bacier family celebrates Christmas they're happy they love each
00:23other their dream is the American dream
00:46what they don't know is that they will soon be plunged into what is known as the Cold War the war of worlds
00:58the threat of nuclear war is real scientists measure it by a virtual clock
01:06the stroke of midnight would mean the apocalypse
01:10music
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01:38The War of Worlds is the East against the West, against America who is protecting part
01:46of Europe.
01:47The rest of Europe is dominated by Russia, known at the time as the USSR, the Soviet
01:53Union.
01:55After China in 1949, will the entire Asian continent be swayed?
02:02Korea and Indochina are in flames.
02:05The communist conquest progresses.
02:15This conquest is embodied by one man, one of history's titans and a merciless tyrant,
02:21Joseph Viserionovich Zhugashvili, aka Stalin, the Man of Steel.
02:29He succeeded Lenin, and after reigning over the USSR for 20 years, he now controls
02:35half of Europe.
02:38But here in late 1952, Stalin is sick.
02:49Progressively more paranoid, he terrifies his entourage.
02:54One day he eats a banana that isn't ripe enough, and has all the suppliers arrested, including
03:00the Minister of Commerce.
03:07He also has his doctors arrested, accusing them of trying to poison him.
03:12This is the doctor's plot.
03:15Stalin revives anti-Semitism.
03:17He says, there are many Zionists among the doctors.
03:20All Zionists are American secret service agents.
03:26They are American secret service agents.
03:30March 5th, 1953.
03:32From his window, the American military attache, Major Martin Manhoff, films a strange cortege
03:39of official cars.
03:44At 6am, on Radio Moscow, Yuri Levitin, the voice of power, delivers an important newsflash.
03:55The American military attache, Major Martin Manhoff, the American military attache, the American military attache,
04:12the ministers of the USSR, with a feeling of great sorrow,
04:19they say to the party and all of the Soviet Union,
04:26that after a severe disease,
04:31the CIA and the CIA and the CIA,
04:37The American military attaché manages to film the precise moment when Stalin's coffin
04:49is transported in the freezing cold to the House of Unions.
05:01In the Pillar Hall, where the regime leader's bodies are always exposed, so the people may
05:08pay their respects to the sound of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, Pathetic.
05:21Stalin's body has already been embalmed, like that of Lenin, who he will soon join in the
05:26mausoleum in Red Square.
05:30March 9th, 1953, five million Soviet citizens come to grieve, many inducted by force.
05:39Others mourn the little father of peoples.
05:41All are worried about the future.
05:50At the funeral, only the Communist parties are represented.
05:58Those in power in the so-called brother countries like Poland, Hungary, Romania, or those fighting
06:06in Indochina or Korea.
06:12China's Prime Minister, Zhou Enlai delivers an emphatic tribute.
06:24As for Mao, he remains in Peking.
06:32He gathers his people in front of Stalin's portrait on the wall of the Forbidden City.
06:40The global press is in mourning.
06:47The London Daily Mirror headlines.
06:49These are crocodile tears.
06:51What are the Muscovites truly thinking as they march tirelessly in front of their master's
06:57remains?
06:58Some say under their breath, we came to be certain he is truly dead.
07:07Svetlana is in the crowd with her crying grandmother who tells her, don't worry, these are tears of
07:13joy because he killed my family, my sons, my brothers, my husband, my father.
07:19Stalin killed them all, so we cried together in joy and in sorrow.
07:34Near Stalin's remains, his daughter Svetlana.
07:38She recalls, I was with him in his dasha, his country house.
07:44He fainted.
07:45He soiled himself.
07:47He was on the ground unconscious.
07:49Nobody dared intervene.
07:51Since the doctor's plot, there were no more doctors available.
07:55He had them all arrested, even his personal doctor.
08:00He'd either killed them or thrown them into the gulag.
08:05The three principal dignitaries of Soviet power stand across from her.
08:12Khrushchev, the executioner from Ukraine.
08:16Beria, the feared leader of the deadly political police.
08:21Malenkov, the executor of all the dirty work.
08:26They let Stalin agonize for three days, for fear of retribution should he wake up, to be
08:32sure he was truly dead, and to organize his succession.
08:38Stalin's son, Vasily, an air force general, is convinced that Beria poisoned his father during their dinner together the night before he fell ill.
08:48Beria believed that Stalin wanted to kill him, so he may have taken matters into his own hands, making people believe that Stalin was sleeping when in fact he was dying.
09:01However, Stalin's children could be inconvenient witnesses.
09:05Vasily and Svetlana are very worried about their fate.
09:09They know what these men are capable of.
09:16The casket containing Stalin's embalmed body is taken to the Red Square Mausoleum.
09:23Svetlana declares, these animals have been at each other's throats for 40 years.
09:30For 40 years, the country has been governed by sharks.
09:34No country in the world has reached this level of self-destruction.
09:46Will Svetlana survive?
09:53Will the world survive?
09:58The face-off between the East and the West rides on this behind-the-scenes fight for power.
10:04Which of Stalin's accomplices would be the most ruthless?
10:14Beria imposes himself as the preferred candidate for succession, because he is the master of Stalinist terror.
10:22He strives to show that he follows the party line, contrary to the accusations of some, and that he is familiar with its language.
10:31The people of our country can be confident that the Communist Party and the Constitution of the Soviet Union
10:44will not be able to defend their power and their lives in order to save the rest of the United States.
10:56When Stalin's coffin makes its grand entrance into the Mausoleum, Beria is the first pallbearer, in front of Khrushchev, who is tense.
11:08But in just a few days, Beria creates surprise by doing the opposite of what is expected of him.
11:20He frees half of those deported to the gulags. He forbids torture.
11:25Beria believes that if the Communist regime wants to remain in power, it is urgent that it becomes more liberal.
11:32Consumer goods must be introduced. Military expenditures must be reined in.
11:38The standard of living must rise, and tensions in the world must be diffused.
11:43But will Khrushchev let this happen?
12:04Stalin's death brings about wild hopes within the countries occupied by the Soviet army, especially in the GDR in East Berlin.
12:11Berlin.
12:18June 17, 1953, the Brandenburg gates. In the city center that was destroyed in 1945, the German workers rebel.
12:32The ultimate provocation, the Soviet flag is torn down.
12:39In the city center.
12:41Everywhere, red flags are burned.
12:46The police attempt to protect the regime's leaders, who just increased output rates while lowering salaries.
12:54The German communist leaders call for help. Soviet tanks come to their rescue and shoot into the crowds.
13:09New
13:25guests
13:29New
13:33The Red Army rapidly quashes the insurrection in bloodshed.
13:48This is the first major uprising of the socialist camp.
13:54In Moscow, Beria's opponents accuse him.
13:58His policy is responsible.
14:00It will lead to the destruction of communism and the victory of the West.
14:06The last images of Beria shaking hands with those that will have him arrested several hours later on June 26th, 1953.
14:15All these men, dressed like the mafia, have Beria assassinated.
14:27Khrushchev ultimately seizes power.
14:31He pushes Malenkov aside, but this time without having him killed.
14:36Times are changing.
14:37Opposite this new Soviet rule, the United States have a new president.
14:45General Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeds President Truman.
14:48Eisenhower, a World War II hero, has been elected to put an end to the Korean War.
15:00In Korea, since 1950, the United States and 15 other countries are engaged in fighting against the communist invasion of the North Koreans and the Chinese, armed by the Soviets.
15:14The U.N. forces ultimately pushed them back to the 38th parallel.
15:25In the village of Panmunjom, discussions already underway are accelerated by Stalin's death.
15:32In Panmunjom on July 27th, 1953, a truce is signed in complete silence.
15:41After three years of combat, they do not even look at one another and go their separate ways without as much as a handshake.
15:54The three copies of the truce are carried to the headquarters of North Korea's leader, Kim Il-sung, who is sporting his marshal's uniform.
16:04Kim Il-sung can thank China's Peng Du-huy, who saved him just as his country was about to fall into the hands of the Americans.
16:21The North Korean dictator has no reason to boast.
16:25The Korean War has resulted in nearly three million military and civilian deaths.
16:34Korea is devastated.
16:52The front line is blocked in a demilitarized zone, 150 miles long and 2.5 miles wide.
17:04The U.N. soldiers set up what they call the Freedom Village, used to exchange war prisoners.
17:18These South Korean prisoners are very fortunate.
17:228,000 survivors out of 60,000.
17:26A significant number were massacred or died of exhaustion or were forced to serve in the North Korean army.
17:34As for the 7,000 American prisoners, nearly half were dead, and 23 refused to go home for ideological motives.
17:48Kim Il-sung presides over a grandiose victory parade.
17:52Kim Il-sung...
17:53With the usual communist icons.
18:01Stalin, of course.
18:03But also Ho Chi Minh, who has been fighting France in Indochina for the past seven years.
18:11How do you become refugee?
18:14The United Nations Forces return home, like these French volunteers,
18:19who are sent directly to fight in Indochina.
18:21the american soldiers don't all leave korea after the ceasefire those who remain to protect the
18:32south aren't in good spirits but the end of the fighting doesn't stop the doomsday clock
18:41from creeping dangerously close to midnight minus two a record because the first prototypes
18:49of the h-bomb have been tested by the americans followed by the soviets hundreds of times more
19:03powerful than the atomic bomb it forces both sides to find diplomatic solutions to their conflicts
19:12geneva april 26th 1954 an international conference is organized to end the korean war
19:23the participants have very disparate points of view a reflection of the war of worlds
19:31on one side molotov the soviet minister of foreign affairs
19:37joan lai the chinese prime minister and the north koreans demand the reunification of the peninsula
19:45on the other side the south koreans and foster dulles the american secretary of state want free
19:56elections
19:56the conference quickly hits a dead end
20:01and the news from indochina completely upsets the agenda
20:06will the east defeat the west
20:11in indochina
20:17the vietnamese and the french expeditionary forces have been confronting one another for
20:23nearly 10 years in a never-ending guerrilla war
20:26the french ambassador mr henry bonnet tirelessly attempts to convince the americans to intervene
20:47are the french and indochina fighting for the independence of the native peoples are you fighting
20:54to hold a colony we are fighting for the independence for preserving the independence of the native people
21:01for preventing them to fall under the bolshevik yoke we are making sacrifices all of us which are heavy
21:10for the american taxpayer heavy for the french taxpayer but we are building a strength for the free world
21:17for the free world which will prevent war and to maintain peace a peace which will become a lasting one i hope
21:24well um thank you very much for being with us tonight
21:26the americans are realizing that europe and more specifically france is under communist influence
21:32the most powerful union the cgt battles against the war in indochina
21:45the americans set up a competing union force ouvrier financed by the cia
21:51meanwhile the american vice president richard nixon doesn't hesitate to brave the tropical rain in indochina
22:00for china to meet the new commander-in-chief of the french forces general navarre
22:07the united states promise to increase their aid and cover a large part of the war expenditures
22:17they favor the involvement of the vietnamese in their fight against the communists
22:23the urgency is to prevent the vietnamese from invading laos protected by france they must be stopped
22:30at tian bian phu a village about 190 miles from hanoi in a valley with an old landing strip the only one
22:38in the region a risky bet for general navarre because the valley is surrounded by mountains
22:45none the less he launches the operation on november 20th 1953
22:52the french are welcomed by vietnam gunfire
23:00commander bijar leader of the sixth paratrooper battalion immediately asks for support from b-26's stationed in hanoi
23:19fleet of kings
23:47Once the Strip is secured and restored, hundreds of men set up in record time, positions, and equipment in what will be called the Entrenched Camp of Dien Ben Phu, the most powerful one of the entire war.
24:07The airline Strip at the heart of the operation is protected by solid positions.
24:12The resistance posts are given women's names, like Beatrice or Eliane, and their hotspots bear numbers, such as Eliane Four.
24:2611,000 men are quickly gathered in this reduced perimeter.
24:32The paratroopers of the Foreign Legion, the Vietnamese battalions, the Algerians, and the Moroccans.
24:42And a woman, a war correspondent named Brigitte Freon, who has come for a few days on her 30th birthday.
24:51She's worried about the euphoria of all these soldiers.
24:55On February 21st, 1954, she writes in her diary.
24:58As Clemenceau said, from victory to victory, we are headed for catastrophe.
25:06Is she the only one to be concerned?
25:09Navarre himself dreads an increase in Chinese aid, but not in the immediate future.
25:15Yet the Viet Minh aren't the only ones he is facing.
25:18The Chinese are already present.
25:20Even if Chiap, the Viet Minh military commander, and his general staff are the only ones on camera,
25:28the Chinese generals are on hand to advise.
25:31Together, they have put together the battle plan.
25:35Draw the French forces in by moving towards Laos.
25:38Let them get set up, surround them, and wipe them out.
25:42This is the Dian Ben Phu ambush.
25:52Chinese organization and Russian equipment have transformed the guerrilla into what the Viet Minh call
25:59the People's Army of Vietnam, modern, disciplined, and well-equipped, with 400,000 men.
26:12In the beginning of 1954, the Chinese helped the Viet Minh to build a powerful offensive.
26:18Mao wants a communist victory in Indochina to weigh in on the talks opening in Geneva.
26:23But he wants it to be Ho Chi Minh's victory.
26:30Like the Russians, the Chinese advance covertly to avoid an internationalization of the conflict.
26:38It is the Viet Minh's responsibility to organize the logistics.
26:45Thousands of poor souls will die of exhaustion while digging a road for hundreds of Soviet Molotov trucks.
26:52This contradicts Viet Minh propaganda, always highlighting the famous bicycle of Dian Bion Phu.
27:02But an artillery division, a regiment of anti-aircraft gunners, and tens of thousands of bombs
27:08are not transported on Peugeot and Manufrance bicycles.
27:12They are transported on Molotov trucks, traveling under cover of the jungle,
27:17or at night, invisible to the French.
27:19The Viet Minh sends this image around the world.
27:26Heroic fighters pulling their 105-millimeter cannons, each weighing two tons.
27:32In fact, these cannons can be dismantled, which General Giap himself confirms.
27:38He says,
27:39The French High Command believed it was impossible for us to hoist the artillery up to the heights
27:46which dominate the valley of Dian Bion Phu.
27:49We took apart the cannons to transport them piece by piece
27:52up to the hidden positions dug into the hillsides.
27:54The cannons are set up in bunkers carved in the rock, hidden from view.
28:13On March 13th, 1954, the Viet Minh attack.
28:17Their cannons are a nightmare for the French artillery that's incapable of reaching them.
28:30French artillery commander Lieutenant Colonel Peirot commits suicide after only two days.
28:35The French are now counting on the planes loaded onto the Aero-Mansh aircraft carrier
28:41to bomb the Viet Minh, and above all, to spray them with napalm,
28:45the terrible, jellified petroleum.
28:47The naval pilots, like those of the Air Force, will face a formidable Viet Minh barrier of
29:13anti-aircraft guns of Soviet origin.
29:17French casualties are heavy.
29:29Low to the pilots who fall into the hands of those they call the Viettes.
29:37Daniel Robert, a Naval Air Force pilot, second master,
29:40will die of exhaustion on the long walk the Viet Minh inflicted on its prisoners.
29:47On the other side, the French, in their combat holes,
29:52now begin to wonder if even the Air Force can save them.
29:56Six months after the installation of the entrenched camp.
30:19Darkness descends upon the men.
30:21On March 14th, 1954, the resistance post Beatrice is attacked and taken down by the Viet Minh Division 312.
30:42The foreign legion survivors flood the hub of the operation.
30:49The injured must urgently be evacuated.
30:51Finally, the flight strip in the heart of the entrenched camp is put out of order definitively.
31:07Now, the only way for the French to receive supplies or reinforcements is by air drops.
31:16But, carried by the winds, the parachutes carrying munitions and food often end up in Viet Minh positions.
31:24In any case, there are not enough planes.
31:33The French government asks the Americans for planes.
31:37But the Americans don't want to risk confrontation with the Chinese and cover their tracks.
31:44They supply transport aircraft bearing French co-cars.
31:54At the end of March, 1954, France is desperate and asks the United States to launch a massive attack on the Viet Minh.
32:02The atomic bomb is even considered.
32:05But this time, the doomsday clock doesn't even move.
32:11In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on the Bikini Atoll, the Americans have just successfully tested their first operational H-bomb.
32:25700 times more powerful than the one in Hiroshima.
32:28The Russians don't yet have an equivalent.
32:35The great Albert Einstein questions the survival of humanity.
32:38On both sides, the means to master the Russians are perfected with feverish haste behind the respective walls of secrecy.
32:50Annihilation of any life on Earth has been brought within the range of technical possibilities.
33:03Is Dien Bien Phu really worth the risk?
33:10End of April, 1954.
33:12The Viet Minh artillery levels the French.
33:16Jiap launches his final attack.
33:25The destruction of the French resistance posts by the Soviet-built bombs and rocket launchers.
33:31At six against one, the Viet Minh's 20,000 fighters launch their offensive against the 3,000 defenders still in condition to fight.
33:422,000 will die.
33:441,000 will desert.
33:50The French command post finally surrenders on May 7th, 1954.
33:55The communists send their most famous filmmaker, the Soviet-Roman Kármán, to immortalize this extraordinary event.
34:11He reconstitutes the final moments of the last trenches.
34:16And the captured tanks, damaged but quickly rebuilt.
34:20Carmen emphasizes the American involvement.
34:27And the best spoil of war, a French general.
34:32The garrison leader, Christian Delacroix de Castres.
34:36The descendant of a renowned French family who gave Louis XVI the minister.
34:40General Delacroix de Castres is courteously interrogated by a Viet Minh interpreter who introduces him to the youngest soldier and reassures him on the state of his general staff.
34:57French officers receive fruit.
35:01And the communist newspaper, L'Humanité.
35:03This is the victory that Mao desired, to carry weight at the Geneva Convention.
35:17In Geneva, on July 20th, 1954, after four difficult months of negotiations, a ceasefire is signed between the Viet Minh and the French delegates.
35:28Ho Chi Minh's emissary, Pham Van Dong, the strongman of the Vietnamese Communist Party, arrives just in time for the fall of Dian Bion Phu.
35:46Victorious, he is certain at this precise moment that he will be able to get his hands on all of Indochina, most of which is already controlled by his army.
36:00But his main ally, Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, lets him down.
36:08The French Parliament has just elected Pierre Mendez-France to negotiate.
36:12This left-wing radical, opposed to the war in Indochina from the start, understands that Zhou Enlai doesn't want to risk an American invasion.
36:23Zhou Enlai accepts the West's proposal of two Vietnams.
36:29The Chinese delegation's major obstacle is getting the Viet Minh communists to swallow the division of the country.
36:37This hurdle is overcome with the promise to hold elections on a possible reunification.
36:43The communists will have to settle for the territory north of the 17th parallel.
36:47A non-communist regime will be set up in the south.
36:53The Soviet Molotov also pressures Pham Van Dong, the Viet Minh representative, to accommodate the French.
37:00Moscow wants France to vote against the project of a European army, which is a worry to the Russians.
37:11In a surprising statement from the socialist Mendez-France,
37:15if the war in Indochina, which cost the equivalent of 2,500 billion euros, did not bankrupt France,
37:23it's only because of the constant American aid.
37:30Ho Chi Minh's popularity is, of course, at its peak.
37:34He tells his soldiers,
37:36thanks to the help of the Soviet Union and China,
37:39the French government has recognized our country's independence.
37:44Our victory is stupendous,
37:46but not yet definitive.
37:48More than ever,
37:57Ho Chi Minh needs his People's Army of Vietnam.
38:01And like in any army,
38:02the supreme leader hands out the medals.
38:09Ho Chi Minh cannot yet leave his jungle annex to move to Hanoi.
38:13The Geneva Accords have put in place a time frame
38:20to regroup the Viet Minh in the north and the French in the south.
38:25Since 1946,
38:28200,000 Viet Minh fighters and 30,000 French soldiers have been killed.
38:33150,000 civilians are dead.
38:36The war in Indochina is over.
38:39Washington, July 21st, 1954.
38:57The day the Geneva Agreements are signed.
39:01The United States President holds a press conference.
39:06Eisenhower says,
39:07If you set up a row of dominoes and knock the first one over,
39:12what will happen to the last one
39:13is certainly that it will go over very quickly.
39:17Thus, Eisenhower exposes the domino theory,
39:20the Cold War creed.
39:23No other country can be allowed to fall into communist hands
39:26and contaminate its neighbors.
39:30According to the Geneva Convention,
39:32all the prisoners are exchanged.
39:34The Viet Minh prisoners must pledge their allegiance to communism.
39:42Some soldiers from the French colonies come back converted,
39:46wearing Ho Chi Minh's portrait.
39:47How many of these North African soldiers
39:53will end up fighting against the French
39:56just a few months later in Algeria?
40:01Behind what appears to be a cheerful departure from a summer camp,
40:05hides a horrific, abominable reality.
40:13That day.
40:22.
40:30.
40:30On the boat bringing them back to France,
40:50these soldiers are far from imagining
40:52the hostile welcome they'll receive in Marseille.
40:56Communist protests, insults,
40:58and even hostility or indifference from others.
41:06General Navarre, defeated in Dian Bien Phu, writes,
41:11The war in Indochina was not a national war.
41:15It was a foreign business, only fought by the standing army.
41:20The nation, which never grasped the motives,
41:23did not take part in it at all.
41:28The Geneva Agreements gave the French three months to leave Hanoi.
41:44A French non-commissioned officer writes,
41:47I am furious.
41:49As a result of an agreement signed without any concern for details,
41:53we are subject to all kinds of humiliation.
41:56Like the French soldier here, chased by the Viet Minh.
41:59Anyone and anything French must go.
42:19The last soldiers from the expeditionary corps
42:25dismantle their bridges and take away their dead.
42:33They kill their mules rather than leave them for the Viet Minh.
42:42Soon, only the colonial architecture will bear witness
42:46to 70 years to 70 years of French presence.
42:49Everything is already covered in red flags with a gold star.
42:53On October 9th, 1954, the Viet Minh forces enter Hanoi.
43:19Ho Chi Minh has dreamt of this moment his entire life.
43:22He is 64 years old.
43:25In Moscow, he was one of the best students at the Comintern,
43:28the school of communist determination and faith,
43:30which today enables him to become the leader of North Vietnam.
43:34However, he is still not at peace.
43:37He says,
43:39Now we must do everything for reunification.
43:44North Vietnam and South Vietnam are our territories.
43:48Once our country is unified,
43:49our people will be free.
43:52The Vietnam War is about to begin.
43:58The Cold War is far from ending.
44:02And the hands of the Doomsday Clock
44:04have not yet finished their fateful countdown.
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