From America’s great hope after Nixon’s election victory, to disillusionment after Watergate through to President Carter’s election. A fascinating social, cultural and political history of American life, through the words of British-American journalist and broadcaster, Alistair Cooke (1908 – 2004).
Episodes available:
Indefinitely 
Fri, 12 Dec 80
Duration:
14 mins
The shooting of John Lennon on the 8th December 1980 sparks a debate over the need for national gun control law in America.
Fri, 7 Nov 80
Duration:
14 mins
As Ronald Reagan wins the 1980 US presidential election, Alistair Cooke reflects on the causes of Jimmy Carter's downfall.
Fri, 15 Aug 80
Duration:
14 mins
Edward Kennedy makes the best speech of his career at the Democratic Party conference, after losing his challenge for the party's nomination to incumbent President Jimmy Carter.
Fri, 8 Aug 80
Duration:
14 mins
Cooke looks back at his own coverage of previous Democratic nomination campaigns including Truman and Dewey in 1948; and the current battle between Jimmy Carter and Edward Kennedy.
Fri, 4 Jul 80
Duration:
14 mins
Alistair Cooke reflects on the wide-ranging functions of the US Supreme Court which has ultimate jurisdiction in America and takes its authority from the US Constitution.
Fri, 25 Apr 80
Duration:
14 mins
How will President Carter's failed attempt to rescue the Americans being held hostage by Iran affect the forthcoming election?
Fri, 8 Feb 80
Duration:
14 mins
America shows gratitude to Canada after it was revealed that the Canadian embassy in Tehran rescued six US diplomats during the seizure of the US embassy on 4th November 1979.
Fri, 19 Oct 79
Duration:
15 mins
Mistaking a neutron for a neutrino, the New York Times has to apologise for its reporting of the Nobel Prize; and marking the death of Uncle Tom, actor Clarence Muse.
Fri, 5 Oct 79
Duration:
14 mins
The national rejoicing during Pope John Paul II's visit to the US, the biography of the Pope, and Catholicism in America.
Fri, 21 Sep 79
Duration:
15 mins
The detestable confession that confirms that the actress Jean Seberg's life was destroyed by J Edgar Hoover's 'dirty tricks' branch of the FBI.
Fri, 22 Jun 79
Duration:
9 mins
Seeing Bill Stewart, a news reporter, shot dead in Nicaragua in front of TV cameras, brings home the horror to Americans.
Fri, 6 Apr 79
Duration:
14 mins
Everyone has an opinion on nuclear energy now. The political fallout of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident on March 28, 1979, and how it might impact on future energy policy.
Fri, 28 Apr 78
Duration:
14 mins
Capitalism, communism and historical change, the slant that hindsight gives history - Eldridge Cleaver, and protest over the years by college students.
Fri, 10 Mar 78
Duration:
14 mins
Why Letter from America can never be up to date anywhere in the world, and why US reports on Mexico are limited to jails and drugs.
Fri, 10 Feb 78
Duration:
14 mins
As a Soviet spy satellite fuelled by nuclear power plunges to earth above Canada, has military technology acquiring a momentum independent of human control?
Fri, 23 Dec 77
Duration:
14 mins
Two great talents who died in 1977 - remembering Groucho Marx and Bing Crosby.
Fri, 12 Nov 76
Duration:
14 mins
How Americans feel about Jimmy Carter - the story revealed by the polling.
Fri, 19 Mar 76
Duration:
14 mins
Reassessing the 'special relationship' between the UK and US, in the light of British Prime Minister Harold Wilson's sudden resignation.
Fri, 13 Feb 76
Duration:
14 mins
The history of the word 'gossip', and what's being said about the disgraced ex-President Nixon accepting an invitation to go to China.
Fri, 23 Jan 76
Duration:
14 mins
How the Democrats and the Republicans all came from a federalist starting point – and how they're both trying to hang on to the overcrowded middle ground.
Fri, 12 Sep 75
Duration:
14 mins
President Ford is saved from assassination attempt in Sacramento, and the perils of taped broadcasting, when it comes to commenting on up-to-the-minute news.
Fri, 18 Jul 75
Duration:
14 mins
American and Soviet astronauts Thomas Stafford and Alexei Leonov's symbolic handshake, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn's untimely intervention about the realities of the USSR.
Fri, 16 May 75
Duration:
14 mins
Why did President Ford launch an attack on Cambodia? Arriving late to a news story allows you to ask the simple question.
Fri, 27 Dec 74
Duration:
14 mins
How the Third World has taken over the United Nations show – and how Alistair Cooke helped introduce the people's game of golf to Mother Russia.
Fri, 29 Nov 74
Duration:
14 mins
America's relentless TV news coverage and why we should learn from history that ignorant bliss does not pay off.
Fri, 18 Oct 74
Duration:
14 mins
How Judge W Arthur Garrity Jr's enforced busing policy, attempting to desegregate schooling, came up against its greatest challenge in South Boston.
Fri, 23 Aug 74
Duration:
14 mins
Campaign biographies, and some new revelations about President Gerald Ford's past come to light, including the fact he was christened Leslie King Junior.
Fri, 9 Aug 74
Duration:
14 mins
Downfall of a president – how Nixon fatally underestimated the power of the people versus the presidential powers he has just been forced to give up.
Fri, 7 Jun 74
Duration:
14 mins
The skyscrapers that shattered the myth of San Francisco as a special city; and why it's important to understand the Stockholm syndrome in the Patty Hearst kidnap case.
Fri, 31 May 74
Duration:
15 mins
Duke Ellington - remembering not just a great jazz musician, but an elegant, articulate man of unassailable natural dignity.
Fri, 10 May 74
Duration:
14 mins
Avoiding corruption in politics, the temptations of advertising money, which can turn great actors into salesmen, and Earth Day's unexpected trash problems.
Fri, 9 Nov 73
Duration:
15 mins
Why the American policy in the state of Israel is failing to keep the home fires burning; and why an embattled President Nixon has more to fear from friends than foes.
Fri, 26 Oct 73
Duration:
15 mins
Speculation, suspicion and compromise. Demands, resignations and black clouds over President Nixon's refusal to assist the Watergate investigators.
Fri, 19 Oct 73
Duration:
14 mins
A lack of procedure for the events following the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew, and the promotion of Gerald Ford from House Minority Leader to Vice President.
Sat, 25 Aug 73
Duration:
14 mins
The speech that President Nixon had hoped would sink the Watergate scandal once and for all fails to hit its target, according to polling.
Sat, 26 May 73
Duration:
14 mins
A question of clarity. A week of presidential explanation, in the guise of polysyllable obfuscation, over the Watergate scandal.
Sat, 19 May 73
Duration:
14 mins
Watergate - Nixon's admirers in the Kremlin, and how the tenacious lawyer Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina challenged Nixon.
Sat, 12 May 73
Duration:
14 mins
Trial by the press: is the tidal wave of Watergate reporting drowning the 'not guilty' pleas of all the president's men?
Sat, 5 May 73
Duration:
15 mins
Can the Watergate hearings restore the faith of the people in a system of government that has taken so many beatings?
Sat, 27 Jan 73
Duration:
14 mins
Where next for Vietnam, as 18 years of savage fighting comes to an end? And the Supreme Court rules on abortion for all in Roe v Wade.
Sat, 30 Dec 72
Duration:
14 mins
President Truman's life, his Missouri farm childhood, his war service, and how his political skills and achievements may have been overlooked by his critics.
Sat, 11 Nov 72
Duration:
14 mins
Nixon's landslide victory, how close he came to winning in 1960, and why middle class Americans have been moving to the right as they have fled the city centres for the suburbs.
Sat, 5 Feb 72
Duration:
14 mins
American reaction to claims of British brutality in Northern Ireland, and an early glimpse into the Kennedy clan's determination to use any passing bandwagon.
Sat, 30 Oct 71
Duration:
15 mins
Taiwan is out, and China in – why the change of seats in the UN General Assembly is much more than musical chairs.
Sat, 18 Sep 71
Duration:
14 mins
The wit and wisdom of Art Buchwald, political satirist and columnist for the Washington Post and a modern day Jonathan Swift.
Sat, 10 Jul 71
Duration:
15 mins
A tribute to trumpeter Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), his life and music, and how attitudes to jazz have changed since Cooke's teenage years in Blackpool.
Sat, 14 Nov 70
Duration:
15 mins
Dishonouring the dead: the sad scenes at New York's Hunter College, when acts of Veteran's Day remembrance turned into political stances, and forgot the victims of war.
Sat, 8 Aug 70
Duration:
15 mins
How Roosevelt was warned of Germany's nuclear threat by two Hungarian refugees from Long Island in 1939, thanks to a boy who liked fishing.
Sun, 30 Nov 69
Duration:
15 mins
The American reaction to hearing of the horror of the Son My massacre (My Lai) in Vietnam, and parallels with Hiroshima and the Allied devastation of Dresden.
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