Cold War Polish People Army Radio Operator conscript

Communist Poland had universal conscription and the armed forces were huge by contemporary standards. The Polish People’s Army, Navy, and Airforce had just over 400,000 troops for most of the 1980s in a country of 36 million. Tom was a conscript in Polish People’s Army from 1987-89. He served as a radio operator in Legnica … Read more

A photojournalist in Cold War Eastern Europe

During the 1970s and 1980s, Arthur Grace travelled extensively behind the Iron Curtain, working primarily for news magazines. One of only a small corps of Western photographers with ongoing access, he was able to delve into the most ordinary corners of people’s daily lives, while also covering significant events. His remarkable book Communism(s) A Cold … Read more

Cold War number stations

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

Terrorism in the Cold War

I talk with the writers and editors of  Terrorism in the Cold War a new two volume book that uses a wide range of case studies including Polish Military Intelligence and Its Secret Relationship with the Abu Nidal Organization and Gladio – Myth and Reality: The Origins and Function of Stay Behind in the Case … Read more

A workers view of Poland from Łódź in 1986

  Evan McGilvray has written a number of books on Poland as well as biographies. He is well versed in Poland and Polish society and away from the usual locations of Krakow and Warsaw. Evan first visited Poland in 1986, 5 years after the declaration of martial law which triggered the suppression of the free … Read more

With Solidarity in Gdansk in 1980

  During her first visit to Poland in 1980, Jacqueline Hayden met the leading members of the free trade union ‘Solidarność’, including the future president Lech Wałęsa. As a freelance journalist at that time, she reported the events in Gdańsk in August 1980, when the shipyard workers went on strike to demand the creation of … Read more

Warsaw Bureau Chief for Time Magazine 1981-83

Richard Hornik was the Warsaw Bureau Chief for Time Magazine from 1981-1983. He carried out numerous interviews with Solidarity Free Trade Union leader Lech Wałęsa including his last interview before martial law was declared in December 1981. He shares the stories of 1980s Poland as well as the interviews he carried out with the Solidarity … Read more