women’s histories

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

Betrayed by comrades

Liz Kohn has been researching Alice Glasnerová, who was imprisoned as part of the early Cold War Czechoslovak show trials known as the Slánský trials. These were among the most notorious show trials of the 20th century, with the prosecution and sentencing to death of Rudolf Slánský, general secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist party, and … Read more

My father the KGB spy

Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! In 1978, Ieva Lesinska was a university student in Soviet Latvia with dreams of becoming a writer. She had just spent a heady month in New York visiting her father, Imants Lesinskis, a Soviet translator working at the United Nations. He was an employee … Read more

A Cold War childhood in Albania

Lea Ypi grew up in one of the most isolated countries on earth, a place where communist ideals had officially replaced religion. Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe, was almost impossible to visit, almost impossible to leave. It was a place of queuing and scarcity, of political executions and secret police. To Lea, it … Read more

Emanuela – a Cold War Romanian Childhood

    Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google Podcasts   Emanuela Grama was born in the mid-1970s’ in a small provincial town in Eastern Romania. She proved us with a great insight into life in the Romanian provinces during the 1980s.  Emanuela lived in a small two-bedroom flat and tells of her parents … Read more

Life in the underground Soviet music scene Part 3

Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsListen on Podcast AddictListen on Amazon MusicBecome a Patron! In the final part, we hear of Joanna’s heartbreak when her visa is refused, preventing her from marrying Yuri.  However, using an ingenious method she manages an emotional reunion and eventual marriage as the Soviet Union begins to … Read more

Life in the underground Soviet music scene Part 2

Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google Podcasts Joanna Stingray who was only 23 years old when she first set foot in the USSR and started meeting now-legendary musicians and artists of the Soviet underground. By 1985, she was writing and recording with them, and smuggling their music to the West in order to … Read more

Life in the underground Soviet music scene Part 1

Joanna Stingray who was only 23 years old when she first set foot in the USSR and started meeting now-legendary musicians and artists of the Soviet underground. By 1985, she was writing and recording with them, and smuggling their music to the West in order to produce the ground breaking album Red Wave: 4 Underground … Read more