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

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...

The events of 1949 in China reverberated across the world and throughout the rest of the century. That tumultuous year saw the dramatic collapse of Chiang Kai-shek's 'pro-Western' Nationalist government, overthrown by Mao Zedong and his communist armies, and the foundation of the People's Republic of China. I talk with author Graham Hutchings who has written a vivid, gripping account of China in 1...

Acclaimed author and journalist Simon Kuper, has written The Happy Traitor, the story of British spy and Soviet Union double agent George Blake, the last major British traitor of the Cold War. In 1961, Blake was sentenced to forty-two years imprisonment – at the time, the longest sentence in modern British history. He had betrayed all the western spying operations that he knew about to the KGB. Th...

Germany has been at the heart of the British Army's story since 1945. After the Second World War, the Army helped rebuild a devastated and divided nation. It provided protection during the Cold War, and later used Germany as a base from which to deploy troops across the world.  Foe to Friend is a major exhibition at The National Army Museum in London that follows the lives of British soldiers in G...

Commodore Eric Thompson MBE is the author of the book “On Her Majesty’s Nuclear Service. He is a career nuclear submarine officer who served from the first days of the Polaris missile boats until after the end of the Cold War. He joined the Navy in the last days of Empire, made his first sorties in World War II type submarines, and went on to become the top Engineer in charge of the Royal Navy’s o...

Vadim was at school in Moscow during the 1970s and 80s. He attended an Advanced English Studies School where all subjects were taught, however the focus was on English. He provides us with insights into the setup of Soviet education as well as the school life, teaching methods and pop culture. We hear how the British newspaper “Morning Star” was a key teaching aid for Soviet English students. Now...

We continue the story of Bill, a US Army Intelligence Analyst with Combined Analysis Detachment-Berlin (CAD-B) from episode 127. Germany has now been re-unified and Russian troops have withdrawn from East Germany. Bill tells us of the little known story of continued US Army involvement in intelligence gathering alongside the German security services, the BND. We hear about "Operation Giraffe", des...

Charlie was 19 in 1956. A trip home from work by tram ended up with him being thrust into the heart of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a nationwide revolution against the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956. I’m in conversation with Charlie and his daughter Angela as Charlie describes how he and his friends attacked the Comm...

Professor Timothy Garton Ash is a British historian, author, commentator and Professor of European Studies at Oxford University. Professor Garton Ash witnessed some of the most critical moments in the Eastern Bloc during the 1980s as these populations threw off Communist rule. He provides us with vivid details of his time in East Germany, Gdansk, Poland where in 1980 the first free trade union in...

Ian Black is a former RAF Fighter Pilot with a passion for photography and motorcycles. He began his flying career with the legendary McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom in RAF Germany at the height of the Cold War.  After three years flying as a navigator Ian underwent Pilot Training in 1984-1986 during which time he was awarded prizes for flying ability , aerobatics and unsurprisingly navigation skill...

Michael Zdanowski was born and raised in the UK, but his interest with the Cold War goes back generations. His grandfather having emigrated from Poland to the United Kingdom during the second world war and was a distinguished member of the RAF in the battle against Germany.  Michael’s interest in the Cold War prompted him to pursue a doctorate focused around the Sovietisation of Estonia post-WW2,...

This is Part 2 of our conversation with Colin Munro who was the British Deputy Head of Mission in East Berlin from 1987 to 1990.  In this episode we move to the monumental events of 1989 as the GDR was wrought by internal protest prior to the opening of the Wall in Berlin. It’s a fascinating account of Colin’s contacts who were giving him insights into the eventual fall of the GDR. 0:00 Introducti...

Colin Munro was the British Deputy Head of Mission in East Berlin from 1987 to 1990. Although the UK did not recognise East Berlin as part of the GDR in 1973 it established an Embassy “to” the GDR (not in the GDR) in East Berlin to provide a diplomatic presence. As Deputy Head of Mission Colin was effectively the Deputy Ambassador and was responsible for improving trade, ensuring correct dealings...