What happens
This episode of The Pacific Story, a United Nations series broadcast by NBC on June 23, 1946, traces the Heartland of Asia. It opens with the German geopolitical theory of Dr. Karl Haushofer, which holds that control of the Asian interior would secure world power, and the failed Nazi invasion of Russia. It then surveys centuries of Western trade, conquest and division of Asian peoples, from Marco Polo's caravans to the British rule of India. Voices from China, India, Soviet Asia and the Dutch East Indies describe nationalist and communist struggles, religious divisions, and a growing call for Asian unity. The episode closes with news of talks in India and a truce in China, and warnings about the risks of continued Western dominance.
The Asian heartland, from Berlin and Europe through China, India, Soviet Asia and the Pacific basin, across the 1930s and 1940s
Characters: Dr. Karl Haushofer, Marco Polo, Lord Clive, Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen, Winston Churchill, General Marshall
Listen for: The contrasting voices of Chinese, Indian and Soviet Asian speakers describing Asian unity, and the closing warning about a possible war between East and West
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.