'The Red Hotel': Trying to cover World War II from a 'gilded cage' in Moscow

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin tossed out most Western reporters well before World War II began, and he certainly didn't want them back when his forces were being routed by Nazi Germany in the early stages of the war. "This was the last thing that Stalin was interested in. The last thing he was worried about," said , a British journalist and author who was based in Moscow at various times in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. In his new book, Philps recounts how British Prime Minister Winston Churchill — a war correspondent in his younger days — told Stalin that Western journalists could provide stirring stories that would Stalin relented, reluctantly. "Journalists who before had despaired of ever being able to report on Russia, they fought tooth and nail to get on a boat, on a plane, to Moscow and cover the epic battles," Philps said.