Cold War Conversations - "vivid & compelling" The NY Times

On November 18, 1965, U.S. Navy pilot Willie Sharp ejected from his F-8 fighter after being hit while positioned over a target in North Vietnam. With a cloud layer beneath him, he did not know if he was over land-where he would most certainly be captured or killed by the North Vietnamese or over the Gulf of Tonkin. As he ejected, both navy and air force aircraft were already heading toward him to...

The French Forces in Berlin were the units of the French Armed Forces stationed from 1945 until the end of the Cold War-era in West Berlin according to the agreements of the Yalta Conference and Potsdam Conference.  The troops were the French counterparts to the United States' Berlin Brigade and the United Kingdom's Berlin Infantry Brigade in the city.  Philippe was stationed in Berlin from 1972 t...

We continue Drea Hahn’s story with her family’s escape to Austria and the realities of being a refugee.  In 1986, under the pretext of a “ski trip” to Yugoslavia Drea’s family escaped to Austria. We hear about the sadness of being unable to tell anyone they were leaving and how her relatives were summoned to the police station to be detained for questioning. They didn’t communicate with anyone at...

Drea Hahn was born in Czechoslovakia in 1980 in Teplice. Her mother was a secretary and her father was an engineer but refused to join the communist party and this was a source of tension in Drea’s family.  She was partly raised by her grandparents and her grandmother shared stories about growing up in “the Protectorate”, the name given to the area of Czechoslovakia occupied by the Germans in Worl...

Ben Brown is the writer of A Splinter of Ice, a play that portrays the meeting in Moscow in 1987 of one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century, Graham Greene and his old MI6 boss, Kim Philby, one of Britain's most notorious spies... and a traitor.  Graham Greene never divulged any details of the meeting and Ben’s play imagines what might have been. We discuss the play, as well as how Philby...

We return to the 2nd part of Tom Favia’s story with the US Military Liaison Mission which the Soviet Union permitted to operate in East Germany, ostensibly for monitoring and furthering better relationships between the Soviet and Western occupation forces. The British & French also had missions as did the Soviets in West Germany.  Part 1 is here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode183/ As you...

Ethel Rosenberg is a controversial figure and generates polarising views varying from an innocent mother caught up in Cold War hysteria to a willing and ruthless accomplice to her husband’s Cold War espionage betraying secrets to the Soviets. Anne Sebba’s new book “Ethel Rosenberg – A Cold War tragedy” (“An American tragedy” in the US) provides a more nuanced view of Ethel that is not just about i...

Tom Favia served with the USMLM, The US Military Liaison Mission which the Soviet Union permitted to operate in East Germany at the end of World War 2 for monitoring and furthering better relationships between the Soviet and Western occupation forces. The British & French also had missions in East Germany and the Soviets has theirs in West Germany.  Tom tells the amazing story of his recruitment f...

This is the third and final part of Ralph Hänel’s story of his life in East Germany. In this episode, we hear his time in the Stasi prison in Cottbus which with its dark red brick façade was often referred to as the ‘Red Misery’. It’s a chilling insight into Stasi prison conditions and the brutality that the political prisoners endured from the other inmates and the guards. We also hear about Ralp...

In this second part of Ralph Hänel’s story of his life in East Germany. We hear of Ralph’s arrest by the Stasi and subsequent interrogation for 10 months.  Ralph describes in some detail the arrest and his early days of imprisonment. He also details the techniques used to try and make him break and the pressure the Stasi also put on his mother.  It’s an incredible insight into the workings of the...

We speak with author Giles Milton about his new book Checkmate in Berlin: The Cold War Showdown that Shaped the Modern World. In 1945 at the end of World War 2 the Soviet Red Army captured Berlin. For the next four years, a handful of charismatic but flawed individuals – British, American and Soviet – fought an intensely personal battle over the future of Germany, Europe and the entire free world....

This episode is sponsored by MUBI, a curated streaming service with an ever-changing collection of hand-picked cinema. From new directors to award-winners. From everywhere on earth. Beautiful, interesting, incredible films — with a new one added every single day. Right now on MUBI, you can watch STATE FUNERAL, an astonishing archival vision of the Soviet Union in the days after Joseph Stalin’s dea...

We speak with author Tim Tate about his new book the Spy who was left out in the Cold: The Secret History of Agent Goleniewski Michal Goleniewski remains one of the most important, yet least known and most misunderstood spies of the Cold War. Even his death is shrouded in mystery and he has been written out of the history of Cold War espionage - until now. Tim Tate draws on a wealth of previously...

Ralph Hänel tells some unique, strange and funny short stories about childhood and youth in East Germany.  We talk about the experiences of his parents in the closing stages of World War 2, his schooling, and how he became a DJ, winning a trip to the Soviet Union. Ralph is a great raconteur with virtually endless stories about his life in East Germany. Hear how he saw Fidel Castro, met the first G...

Adrian Jones was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Irish Army in 1983. As a 23 year old officer he served in the United Nations Peacekeeping Force UNIFIL in Southern Lebanon from 1987 to 1988. The Irish battalion consisted of 580 personnel which were rotated every six months, plus almost 100 others in UNIFIL headquarters and the Force Mobile Reserve. In all, 30,000 Irish soldiers served in Leban...

In August 1960, a Soviet colonel called Oleg Penkovsky contacted the West to offer to work as a 'soldier warrior for the free world. MI6 and the CIA ran Penkovsky jointly, in an operation that ran through the showdown over Berlin and the Cuban Missile Crisis. He provided crucial intelligence, including photographs of rocket manuals that helped Kennedy end the Cuba crisis and avert a war. Codenamed...

70 years ago today would have been the middle of a desperate battle by outnumbered British forces at the battle of the Imjin River in Korea. The Korean War was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, and one of the few times when the Cold War turned hot. There were approximately 3 million war fatalities and a larger proportional civilian death toll than World War II or the Vietnam...

John Matisonn is a South African journalist who grew up in the suburbs in Johannesburg. In 1979 he was sentenced to jail for refusing to reveal his news sources. Matisonn describes life as a journalist in apartheid South Africa as well as his meetings with some of the key South African personalities of that period. He met with several South African Prime leaders including John Vorster, PW Botha an...

9.07 a.m., April 12, 1961. A top-secret rocket site in the USSR. A young Russian sits inside a tiny capsule on top of the Soviet Union’s most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile and blasts into the skies. His name is Yuri Gagarin. And he is about to make history.  We speak with Stephen Walker author of “Beyond” a new book that tells the thrilling story behind that epic flight on its sixtie...

In April 1966, a state-of-the-art Soviet aircraft, the Yak-28P crashed into the British Sector of West Berlin. This intelligence gift to the Allied forces resulted in a tense confrontation with the Soviet forces We speak with historian Bernd von Kostka of the Allied Museum in Berlin-Dahlem who has researched this story for his upcoming book Capital of Spies: Intelligence agencies in Berlin during...

We speak with Chris Summers who as a 22 year old was sent by his employers to East Germany in a Ford Escort to install British factory machinery. He provides us with interesting insights into life in the provinces of the GDR.  Long term listeners of the podcast will recognise one of Chris’s colleagues was Tim, husband of Antje who was our guest in episode 82 “A Cold War Romance” available here htt...

Soviet Tours is a Berlin-based tour operator focussed on off-the-beaten-path destinations across the globe.  Their core area, as the name suggests, lies mainly in and around the former USSR. From the mystic forests of Central Siberia to the austere peaks of the High Caucasus, from the scorching deserts of the Soviet Stans to the windswept steppes of Southern Russia.  We talk with the founder of So...

Our conversation with Rob Forsyth continues when he became Executive Officer - and in command on occasions - of HMS Repulse, a Polaris nuclear missile submarine. We hear in detail the challenges of command on these boats, their launch procedures and the conversations Rob had with his captain about the circumstances when they might refuse to launch the missiles. Rob tells of many fascinating incide...

Commander Rob Forsyth joined submarines in1961. By March 1962 as a young officer, he joined HMS Auriga a 1945 vintage diesel submarine. Within 7 months the 22-year-old was loading live torpedoes and preparing for a war mission during the tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Robs tell of many fascinating incidents in his career including under-ice operations and an incident where Rob's captain m...

Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was a protest camp established in 1981 to protest against the deployment of USAF controlled Ground Launched nuclear armed Cruise Missiles at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire, England. On the eve of International Women’s’ Day 2021 I talk with Jan Castro-Fraser who chose to challenge the existence of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. We talk about her experience...