Eyewitness to the 1991 Soviet Coup with Brett Elliott (214)
Today’s episode is different. Brett Elliott died earlier this year and I was contacted by his ex-wife Polly who offered me a cassette tape. Polly and Brett had met in college and got to know each ot...
25 Des 202150min
Working in the nuclear missile compartment of a Cold War Royal Navy Polaris submarine (213)
John Andrews joined the Royal Navy in 1981 and went on to serve aboard the HMS Repulse, one of the UK’s Polaris nuclear missile submarines from 1982. His role was Missile Compartment Control Patrol wh...
18 Des 202147min
British Army "stay behinds" the Special OP Troop (212)
I speak with Colin Ferguson a veteran from the British Army‘s covert Special Observation Post Troop which was founded in 1982. The "stay behind" Special OP Troop consisted of selected soldiers in 6 ma...
11 Des 20211h 19min
A Cold War childhood in Albania (211)
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...
3 Des 20211h 1min
The Cold War handshake in the heavens - the Apollo-Soyuz mission (210)
On 17 July 1975 the first manned international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union. Millions of people around the world watched on television as a United State...
27 Nov 20211h 15min
Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev - aspiring actor and poetry fan (209)
Now, what do you think of when you hear the name Leonid Brezhnev who ruled the Soviet Union for 18 years from the 1960s to the 1980s? An old guy waving weakly from the Lenin mausoleum? Well, think a...
14 Nov 202159min
Born into a family of Canadian Communists (208)
Fred Weir was a third-generation red diaper baby from Toronto and a long-time member of the Communist Party. His uncle, trained at the Lenin School in Moscow in the 1920s as an agent of the Communist ...
13 Nov 20211h 5min
Berlin: Capital of Spies (207)
For almost half a century, the hottest front in the Cold War was right across Berlin. From summer 1945 until 1990, spying was part of everyday life in both East and West Berlin. I speak with historian...
6 Nov 202155min
