LAURENCE REES: And the single best decision?

ANDREW ROBERTS: The single best decision of the war wasn’t actually taken in the 2nd World War it was taken just a few days or weeks earlier if I remember rightly. It was Roosevelt’s decision to take Einstein’s advice about building a nuclear bomb. With the nuclear bomb the democratic West could not lose. Had the Germans got one first of course that would have been their best decision but they weren’t anywhere near as close to it as we were and so even if D Day had failed and even if Hitler had won in the East we would have the bomb and they wouldn’t have. I’m afraid it would have led, I think, to European cities being obliterated but nonetheless to have fought that war without the knowledge that we would finally have that war winning device would have been catastrophic.

LAURENCE REES: And if Hitler had it none of us would be here anyway.

ANDREW ROBERTS: I agree.