The award-winning podcast preserving the stories of the Cold War before they are lost…subscribe for free. Produced by Ian Sanders FRHistS
In the sleepy suburb of Ruislip in London during the late 1950s, life was anything but exciting for Gay, a 15-year-old girl. Little did she know, her mundane existence was about to be shattered by a shocking revelation that would turn her world upside down. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on YouTubeBecome a Patron! … Read more
The Spycatcher affair remains one of the most intriguing moments in the history of British intelligence and a pivotal point in the public’s relationship with the murky world of espionage and security. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on YouTubeBecome a Patron! It lifted the lid on alleged Soviet infiltration of British services and … Read more
Burt recounts the surreal experience of learning about Fisher’s true identity from a newspaper headline, the subsequent FBI interrogations, and the emotional courtroom testimony where he struggled to reconcile his friendship with the stark reality of espionage. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! Burt’s journey leads him to Moscow … Read more
In a riveting episode that peels back the layers of Cold War espionage, we sit down with Burt, an artist who unwittingly befriended a man better known as Colonel Abel, the infamous Bridge of Spies Spy who was exchanged for shot down US U2 pilot Gary Powers. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on … Read more
Alex Grant’s new book Sex, Spies and Scandal The John Vassall Affair has everything: a honey trap, industrial-scale espionage, journalists jailed for not revealing their sources and the first modern tabloid witch-hunt, which resulted in a ministerial resignation and almost brought down Harold Macmillan’s government. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a … Read more
On 29 August 1949 at 7:00 a.m. the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! The test stunned the Western powers. American intelligence had estimated that the Soviets would not produce an atomic weapon until 1953, while the British did not expect it … Read more
Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! The second part of Svetlana’s story starts shortly after her arrival in West Germany with her husband Oleg who is the Chief Editor of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty a CIA-financed station beaming Western propaganda into the Soviet Union. To Svetlana’s horror, Oleg … Read more
On 10 February 1962, Gary Powers, the American pilot whose U2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace, was released on “The Bridge in Spies” in Berlin by his captors in exchange for one Colonel Rudolf Abel, aka Vilyam Fisher – one of the most extraordinary characters in the history of the Cold … Read more
In June 1934, Kim Philby met his Soviet handler, the spy Arnold Deutsch. Kim Philby was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring that had divulged British secrets to the Soviets during World War … Read more
You might remember listening to short wave radio during the Cold War and coming across weird transmissions of metallic voices reciting random groups of numbers through the ether. These are number stations, shortwave radio stations characterised by broadcasts of formatted numbers, which were being sent to spies operating in foreign countries. Number stations were used … Read more