Soviet Union

Britain’s first Cold War Nuclear Attack Warning Station at Jodrell Bank

The Jodrell Bank observatory in Cheshire in the UK played a significant secret role during the Cold War. It was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astronomer at the university, to investigate cosmic rays after his work on radar in the Second World War. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome … Read more

Cold War Vienna

    Austria was occupied from 1945 to 1955 by the four victorious powers and like Germany was divided into four occupation zones.  The Soviet , American, British and French occupation zones , divided Austria into four zones. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google Podcasts Like Berlin, Vienna was located deep in the … Read more

1983 – the year the Cold War almost turned hot

This week is the 40th anniversary of the Able Archer NATO Exercise where it is reckoned that the Soviet Union and NATO almost triggered a nuclear war. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google Podcasts An investigation by the US President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, culminating in its highly secret 1990 report “The Soviet … Read more

The Cold War Atomic Spies

  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

The 10-year-old girl who tried to stop a nuclear War

In November of 1982, at the height of the Cold War, Samantha Smith, a 10-year-old girl from Manchester, Maine, wrote to the Soviet leader Yuri Andropov and asked him if he was going to wage a nuclear war against the U.S. When an unprecedented response from Andropov arrived, and Samantha received an invitation to visit … Read more

Discovering your husband is a KGB spy

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

From Soviet Latvia to the BBC Russian Service

  Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! Svetlana came from a dissident Jewish family opposed to Soviet rule in Latvia. Her parents survived World War 2, but during the Stalin era two members of her family were held in the Gulags. The family never resigned themselves to Latvia’s occupation by … Read more

A British kid transferred to a Soviet school

wwListen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google Podcasts   Richard was 6 years old when he was uprooted from a school in the United States to a Soviet school 700 miles East of Moscow. In 1988 the Soviet Union was opening up following Michael Gorbachev’s policy of Perestroika and American firms began looking at … Read more

On Tour with The Red Elvis, aka Dean Reed the US Cold War music star

Warning: This episode does cover the subject of suicide. If you need help please use these links: UK https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/ Rest of the World  https://findahelpline.com/i/iasp Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google Podcasts Dean Reed was an American actor, singer and songwriter, director, and Socialist who became a huge star in Latin America and the Eastern Bloc. … Read more