James Holland

And he gets appointed on the 1st of September 1939 by Roosevelt.

Yeah, that's right.

But he's a very canny appointment, not just because of Marshall's own attributes, but because of his political neutrality.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And he brings in George Kennan, who we mentioned, who had been working at the embassy in Moscow.

As have the Americans.

As have the Americans, but, you know... But the report that Kennan oversees also points out the importance of soft power, which America has in abundance through Hollywood, through its modernity, through its consumables, all the rest of it, and feels that that soft power is important for America

visually and culturally, but also that they need to financially support democracies who are threatened and endangered by the Soviets and other autocracies, which is why we get into this situation of bailing out.

out Greece and Turkey, and that requires incredibly swift action in the US.

But early in March, he's gone to Mexico to show commitment to the good neighbour policy, you know, which goes all the way back to that inauguration speech by Roosevelt back in March 1933.

And he's cheered by thousands on the streets, and he visits completely off his own back

He visits a monument in Mexico City, which memorializes six teenagers killed in the Mexico-American War of 1946 to 1948.

And he places a floral tribute there, a floral wreath.

And again, no one's asked him to.

This is not from his advisors.

He's done this off his own back.

He's learned his history.

And one Mexican paper says, 100 years of misunderstanding and bitterness wiped out by one man in one minute.

This is the best neighbor policy.

And when he's asked why he'd gone to the monument, Truman replies, Brave men don't belong to any one country.