"Listening to even one episode of "Cold War Conversations" will make this sprawling, potentially intimidating period of history feel vivid and compelling." The New York Times Experience the Cold War…
Podcast overview
"Listening to even one episode of "Cold War Conversations" will make this sprawling, potentially intimidating period of history feel vivid and compelling." The New York Times Experience the Cold War like never before with Cold War Conversations — an award-winning podcast. Each week, host Ian Sanders brings you raw, firsthand accounts from the people who lived through one of history’s most tense and transformative eras — soldiers, spies, civilians, and more. These aren’t stories from textbooks. They’re unfiltered voices from the frontlines of history — emotional, gripping, and deeply human. This is Cold War history, told from the inside out. We cover subjects such as spies, spying, the Iron Curtain, nuclear weapons, warfare, tanks, jet aircraft, fighters, bombers, transport aircraft, aviation, culture, and politics. We also cover personalities such as Fidel Castro, JFK, Ronald Reagan, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Mikhail Gorbachev, Konstantin Chernenko, Margaret Thatcher, John F. Kennedy, Josef Stalin, Richard Nixon, Lech Walesa, General Jaruzelski, Nicolae Ceaușescu. Other subjects include Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, West Berlin, East Berlin, Cuban missile Crisis, Berlin Airlift, Bay of Pigs, SALT, Perestroika, Space Race, superpower, USSR, Soviet Union, DDR, GDR, East Germany, SDI, Vietnam War, Korean War, Solidarność, Fall of the Wall, Berliner Mauer, Trabant, Communist, Capitalist, Able Archer, KGB, Stasi, STB, SB, Securitate, CIA, NSA, MI5, MI6, Berlin Wall, escape, defection, Cuba, Albania, football, sport, Bulgaria, Soviet Union, Poland, China, Taiwan, Austria, West Germany, Solidarity, espionage, HUMINT, SIGINT, OSINT, IMINT, GEOINT, RAF, USAF, British Army, US Army, Red Army, Soviet Army, Afghanistan, NVA, East German Army, KAL007, T-72, T-64, Chieftain, M60 The podcast is for military veterans, school teachers, university lecturers, students and those interested in Cold War history, museums, bunkers, weapons, AFVs, wargamers, planes, A Level, GCSE students studying Superpower Relations and the Cold War.
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463 episodes of Cold War Conversations - "vivid & compelling" The NY Times are listed on this page.
Colonel Robert J. Graham, USAF (Ret.), was more than a fighter pilot—he was a leader, a warrior, and a witness to one of the most complex...
Traian grew up in Romania during the tumultuous 1980s under the shadow of the communist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. We learn about the...
In this gripping episode, we hear a detailed account from an eyewitness right at the heart of the tense NATO and Russian confrontation in...
This is a repeat of an episode published in September 2022. 55 years ago last month Fred Haise was one of the three astronauts on the...
This episode covers themes of physical and emotional abuse as well as suicide. If you need support please follow the links below. UK...
Chris Gueffroy, was the last person to be shot dead at the Berlin Wall and a new short film called “Whispers of Freedom” portrays his...
Former US Navy Commander Henry Rausch is the author of Submerged: Life on a Fast Attack Submarine in the Last Days of the Cold War.Henry...
In 2010, two decades after the Cold War had ended, ten Russian spies were arrested in America, having hidden their true identities from...
The Communist Polish press called it "Kentomania!"—the excitement surrounding a 23 year old, called Kent Washington who made history as the...
In a world where history often overlooks the contributions of women, the story of Agent Zo stands out as a beacon of bravery and...
I speak with Jon Benjamin who recounts his meetings with Margot Honecker, the unrepentant architect of East Germany’s education system and...
Richard F Kaufman is the author of A One-Way Trip to Death A Survivor’s View of Cruise Missiles in the Cuban Missile CrisisIn the 1950s he...
Susan Polgar is the author of Rebel Queen: The Cold War, Misogyny, and the Making of a Grandmaster. Born to a poor Jewish family in Cold...
Jim is a former Minuteman nuclear missile officer who served in the US Air Force. Throughout the episode, Jim shares first-hand accounts of...
The race to build a British nuclear bomb sucked thousands into its vortex, who are still dealing with the effects of radiation today:...
David recounts his experiences sailing with former British Prime Minister Edward Heath, offering a unique glimpse into the life of a man...
David Arnold joined the merchant navy at just 14. His tales offer a glimpse into the rigorous and sometimes harsh realities of naval...
Last year I was given the unique opportunity to visit the Nottingham War Rooms. The site is about to be re-developed so it was a rare...
During the Cold War Sweden outwardly maintained its neutrality, however from the 1960s the U.S. secretly promised to provide military force...
In the tense years of the early Cold War, American and Soviet women conducted a remarkable pen-pal correspondence that enabled them to see...
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