In Alistair Cooke's Footsteps

Alvin Hall concludes his trip through the USA revisiting Alistair Cooke's Letter from America. This week he travels to Washington DC to reflect on a letter about the war in Vietnam. Letter from America was Alistair Cooke's weekly radio broadcast that ran continuously for 58 years on the BBC, from 1946 to 2004. The BBC will be making available the entire archive - over 900 programmes - on the Radio 4 website, from November 1st. Cooke had set himself a challenge that seemed deceptively simple: to explain the United States to Britain and the world. His Letters achieved that and more. He was an acute observer, a marvellous story teller, a man who loved America but saw it in intensely clear terms - a country that was both great and sometimes terribly flawed in its greatness. All the major issues, all the significant stories were grist for his writer's mill. The Korean War and the Cold War, desegregation, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, the fall of Nixon, the rise of Reaganomics, immig

Alvin Hall continues across the USA revisiting Alistair Cooke's Letter from America. This week he pursues Alistair's passion for jazz in New Orleans, the city where it all began. Letter from America was Alistair Cooke's weekly radio broadcast that ran continuously for 58 years on the BBC, from 1946 to 2004. The BBC will be making available the entire archive - over 900 programmes - on the Radio 4 website, from November 1st. Cooke had set himself a challenge that seemed deceptively simple: to explain the United States to Britain and the world. His Letters achieved that and more. He was an acute observer, a marvellous story teller, a man who loved America but saw it in intensely clear terms - a country that was both great and sometimes terribly flawed in its greatness. All the major issues, all the significant stories were grist for his writer's mill. The Korean War and the Cold War, desegregation, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, the fall of Nixon, the rise of Reaganomics, immigra

Alvin Hall continues across the USA revisiting Alistair Cooke's Letter from America. This week finds him in Pittsburgh and at a baseball game at Chicago's historic Wrigley Field. Letter from America was Alistair Cooke's weekly radio broadcast that ran continuously for 58 years on the BBC, from 1946 to 2004. The BBC will be making available the entire archive - over 900 programmes - on the Radio 4 website, from November 1st. Cooke had set himself a challenge that seemed deceptively simple: to explain the United States to Britain and the world. His Letters achieved that and more. He was an acute observer, a marvellous story teller, a man who loved America but saw it in intensely clear terms - a country that was both great and sometimes terribly flawed in its greatness. All the major issues, all the significant stories were grist for his writer's mill. The Korean War and the Cold War, desegregation, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, the fall of Nixon, the rise of Reaganomics, immigrat

Alvin Hall sets off on a roadtrip through the USA revisiting Cooke's Letter from America. Letter from America was Alistair Cooke's weekly radio broadcast that ran continuously for 58 years on the BBC, from 1946 to 2004. The BBC will be making available the entire archive - over 900 programmes - on the Radio 4 website, from November 1st. Cooke had set himself a challenge that seemed deceptively simple: to explain the United States to Britain and the world. His Letters achieved that and more. He was an acute observer, a marvellous story teller, a man who loved America but saw it in intensely clear terms - a country that was both great and sometimes terribly flawed in its greatness. All the major issues, all the significant stories were grist for his writer's mill. The Korean War and the Cold War, desegregation, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, the fall of Nixon, the rise of Reaganomics, immigration, September 11 and the George W Bush presidency. But eight years after his death ar