I saw this movie recently.
If you’re not familiar with this movie or book, here’s the short of it:
FDR sends old pal Joe Davies to Moscow in the late 1930s as his ambassador.
Davies comes back, and basically says that Hitler is the bad guy.
The Russian leaders are good people, though.
The purges–well those people were found guilty of crimes against the State in fair trials.
The incursion into Finland–self defense.
The Non-agression Treaty–just something to buy time.
And so forth.
At FDR’s behest, in order to gain popular support of our alliance with Russia, WB made a movie (1943) based on Davies book which shows that things were actually pretty good in the USSR.
Any thoughts on Davies, his mission, and his conclusions.
One other thing: The opening scene in the movie shows him and his wife and daughter on a family vacation in their little sailboat when he is informed that the president wants to speak to him.
Not improbable, but the movie never mentions that his wife was the daughter of CW Post, and that the boat that they liked sailing around on was significantly larger.