In late November 1943 a disabled American president completed a 7,000-mile journey through U-boat waters, a Victorian-era British aristocrat arrived to defend an empire, and a Soviet dictator so afraid of flying that he took an armoured train to Baku and refused a general as his pilot met face to face for the first time. This episode examines why Stalin vetoed Cairo, Baghdad and Basra in favour of jointly occupied Tehran, and how an alleged Nazi plot, Operation Long Jump, was used to move Roosevelt into the wiretapped Soviet embassy, a trap FDR walked into with open eyes to isolate Churchill and win Stalin's trust.

Inside those walls FDR sided with Stalin against Churchill's Mediterranean strategy and locked in Operation Overlord for May 1944, trading it for a simultaneous Soviet offensive and a promise to enter the war against Japan. The d ...