Cold War Cast

  We’ve come close to discussing the Warsaw Pact several times in past episodes and today it finally gets a stand-alone show! It’s easy to look at the Warsaw Pact as solely a counterbalance to NATO, but we’re going to discuss a few other nuances that are important to understanding it from the Eastern perspective. […]

  I don’t have a real historical topic today, but I’ve been thinking about why I’ve always been fascinated with the Cold War and I think it has something to do with my historical perspective catching the tail end of it as a young child and then growing up in an era (the 90’s) where […]

  Today we’re discussing a true Cold War curiosity and perhaps the most famous pigeon of the Cold War, Leaping Lena. As the story goes, the pigeon got lost behind the Iron Curtain during a race and came back with a message for the west to continue the fight against communism and that Radio Free […]

A few months ago I was able to sit down and go through the local library’s archives of articles they collected about the city’s civil defense planning for the nuclear war.  In this episode we’ll look at how Des Moines, Iowa, a good “Anytown, USA” looked at the threat of atomic attack and most importantly, […]

We’ve been discussing Cold War geography and today we’re talking about the most enduring interface of the Cold War – the DMZ between North Korea and South Korea.   The DMZ is the most tense border area on the planet.  In this episode we talk about the DMZ as a physical entity and the men […]

We’ve been discussing Cold War geography and today we’re talking about the most enduring interface of the Cold War – the DMZ between North Korea and South Korea.   The DMZ is the most tense border area on the planet.  In this episode we talk about the DMZ as a physical entity and the men […]

Today we’re talking about a stretch of ocean between the UK and Greenland (with Iceland in the middle) that is pretty much the only access point for the Soviets to hit the high seas of the Atlantic and potentially cut off NATO supply lines…as well as potentially get nuclear subs right off the East Coast […]

Over the next couple of episodes we’re going to look at some key points on the Cold War map.  Appropriately we’re going to start with the Fulda Gap in Germany, an extremely important pass through rugged terrain during the Cold War.   Today it’s just a bit of land in the middle of Germany but […]

The B-52 Stratofortress was the “tip of the spear” for the American arsenal during the Cold War (well, along with the ICBM) and really one of the most remarkable planes in the history of aviation. Today we’re going to look at the history of the B-52, go over some of the plane’s impressive stats and […]

Today we’re talking about one of the most iconic bits of pop culture from the Cold War, “Duck and Cover”. This 1952 short features an ever-vigilant cartoon turtle named Bert who shows America’s schoolchildren various ways to react to an atomic bomb including most famously…ducking and covering Most people say that Duck and Cover “didn’t […]

We’re straying far off our Cold War timeline in order to discuss Threads, a 1984 British “docudrama” about nuclear war. I have to say that this one way over exceeded my expectations. This is easily one of the most memorable films I’ve ever seen. It’s been on my mind since my first viewing a couple […]

Today we’re talking about the role of shortwave radio during the Cold War and even the state of that platform today. Shortwave radio was one of the most effective weapons of the Cold War in the sense of it allowed both sides of the conflict to directly address the people and governments on the other […]

I’ll admit I’ve always had a soft spot for conspiracy theories. As a kid I used to visit the John Birch Society booth at the Iowa State Fair every year and come back with pamphlets on all kinds of subjects. Although my exposure to them was during the 90’s, they were an anti-communist force to […]

Today we’re talking about decolonization, one of the most important undercurrents and/or parallel events to the Cold War. Although the decolonization process of each country was unique, there were certainly some common themes in this period that we’ll look at. Decolonization spread the Cold War throughout the world and really turned it into a global […]

The nature of warfare didn’t change in the atomic age, but being a prisoner of war had some new complications during the Cold War – prisoners now had political and propaganda value. With the world watching, prisoners could be used to undermine the enemy’s cause in various ways. The American (and other allied) POWs went […]

Today we’re talking about the original Godzilla film which gives us a unique perspective on the Cold War climate from Japan. Godzilla is a metaphor for the atomic bomb itself as well as the potential harmful side effects of playing with technology that can’t easily be reversed. Japan held the unfortunate distinction of being the […]

Today we’re discussing the brilliant 1959 Korean War film Pork Chop Hill. This film manages to turn a tragic and dire moment in history into something of a dark comedy…and also maybe acts as a microcosm of the Korean War and the Cold War experience up to this point – a test of will. Enjoy!

Today we’re talking about the period between about February 1951 through July of 1953 of the Korean War, characterized by a stalemate at the 38th Parallel and negotiations between the two camps.  We’ll cover that period and why talks were held up real quick and then go into some of my mile-high observations on the […]

This episode is a listener request and I hope I delivered what was asked for – we’re discussing Syngman Rhee, President of South Korea from 1948-60.  I think looking at his legacy is valuable because it adds some complexity to the Cold War by challenging the notion of the conflict being purely a good vs. […]

Today we’re talking about Korean War from about the first of October 1950 through February 1951.  This brief period of the war saw the most action and the United States & friends facing off against the Red Chinese.  The brutal fighting was only matched by the brutal conditions in a particularly harsh North Korean winter. […]