Orlando Whitfield All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud and Fine Art

About

Based on the book that was a BBC Radio 4 book of the week and highly recommended by: Katja Hoyer, James Holland, Andrew Roberts and Dan Snow, this talk is delivered by the internationally bestselling historian Giles Milton. He describes the remarkable true story of the Allies' secret mission to wartime Moscow.In the summer of 1941, as Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin's forces faced a catastrophic defeat which would make the Allies' liberation of Europe virtually impossible. To avert this disaster, Britain and America mobilized an elite team of remarkable diplomats with the mission of keeping the Red Army in the war.Into to the heart of Stalin's Moscow Roosevelt sent Averell Harriman, the fourth richest man in America and his brilliant young daughter Kathy. Churchill dispatched the reckless but brilliant bon vivant Archie Clark Kerr - and occasionally himself - to negotiate with the Kremlin's wiliest operators. Together, this improbable group grappled with the ingenious, mercurial Stalin to make victory possible. But they also discovered that the Soviet dictator had a terrifying masterplan for the post-war world.

Giles Milton is the best-selling author of twelve works of narrative history, including Nathaniel’s Nutmeg and Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and have been serialised on both the BBC and in British newspapers.

Milton's works of narrative history rely on personal testimonies, diaries, journals and letters to make sense of key moments in history, recounted through the eyes of those who were there.

A Q&A Session will follow.