Spies

In conversation with 7 BRIXMIS veterans – Part 2

Part 2, or a two part recording. Part 1 is here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode268 Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! In October of 2022, I was asked by the West Pennines Military Vehicle Trust to moderate a Q&A session with a number of BRIXMIS veterans. Attending were Drivers Neil Walton, Pete Curran,  Dave … Read more

In conversation with 7 BRIXMIS veterans – Part 1

In October of 2022, I was asked by the West Pennines Military Vehicle Trust to moderate a Q&A session with a number of BRIXMIS veterans. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! Part 2 is here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode270 Attending were Drivers Neil Walton, Pete Curran,  Dave Collins, and Kev Smith,  plus Sandy Saxton-Warne … Read more

The building of the Berlin Wall

From the moment East Germany was formed in 1949, many of its citizens chose to leave to start a new life in the West. By the mid-1950s, the trickle had turned into a flood as large numbers rejected Walter Ulbricht’s Communist paradise. His ‘Workers’ & Peasants’ State’ could not afford to lose the skills and … Read more

Imprisoned in a Soviet Military gaol – a BRIXMIS officer’s diary Pt 2

This is the 2nd part of my interview with Lt Col. Stephen Harrison, MBE who served for two years as a full-time Touring Officer with BRIXMIS. The tours were hazardous three-man, vehicle-borne patrols collecting intelligence on the Warsaw Pact forces in East Germany for up to five days and nights over a series of four-month … Read more

Arrested by the KGB and taken to the Lubyanka prison

Marti Peterson was the first female CIA operative to be assigned to Moscow, probably the most challenging posting during the Cold War. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! This second episode turns to TRIGON, the code name for Alexandr Ogorodnik. He was an official in the Soviet Embassy in Bogota, … Read more

The first female CIA officer in Cold War Moscow

Marti Peterson was the first female CIA operative to be assigned to Moscow, probably the most challenging posting during the Cold War. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! Her story begins in Laos during the Vietnam War where she accompanied her husband John, a CIA officer. She describes their life … Read more

The first woman to graduate from French Commando school

Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! Maura McCormick was posted to Berlin as a Signals Intelligence voice interceptor (Russian). Her workplace was the Teufelsberg  U.S. listening station,  aka Field Station Berlin. Maura shares her early impressions of Berlin and working at the Tberg. She talks about her impressions of the … Read more