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"Listening to even one episode of "Cold War Conversations" will make this sprawling, potentially intimidating period of history feel vivid and compelling." The New York Times
Experience the Cold War like never before with Cold War Conversations — an award-winning podcast.
Each week, host Ian Sanders brings you raw, firsthand accounts from the people who lived through one of history’s most tense and transformative eras — soldiers, spies, civilians, and more.
These aren’t stories from textbooks. They’re unfiltered voices from the frontlines of history — emotional, gripping, and deeply human.
This is Cold War history, told from the inside out.
Folgen
Me and Honest John - The Nuclear Secret Rich Kept for 60 Years (480)
At twenty-one, Rich was trusted with a nuclear-capable rocket—but forbidden to tell even his family what he did. Then one failed to launch, and he was ordered to approach it alone. Drafted from Chicago into the US Army as the Vietnam War es
Hungary 1956: Twelve Days That Shook the Soviet Empire (479)
At 5:20 on the morning of 4 November 1956, Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy went on the radio with a desperate announcement: Soviet forces were attacking Budapest. Within hours, tanks and artillery would crush one of the most dramatic upr
What did Jacqueline Kennedy privately believe about the JFK Assassination? (478)
What did Jacqueline Kennedy privately believe happened in Dallas on 22 November 1963? In the second part of Peter Lamas’s extraordinary story, he recalls the trust he developed with the former First Lady while working as her personal hairst
My Cuban Encounters with Hemingway, Batista, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro (477)
What happens when a Cuban teenager who has lost his homeland finds himself sitting across the lunch table from Fidel Castro? Peter Lamas recalls an extraordinary childhood in pre-revolutionary Havana and a life touched by history. He descri
From Mao's Red Guard to conscription into the Chinese People's Liberation Army (476)
At twelve years old, Bing became a Red Guard—and for a few intoxicating months, he felt invincible. Growing up in Mao’s Beijing, Bing was taught to worship Chairman Mao, recite the Little Red Book and attack the old order. But the Cultural
The Birth of Poland's Free Trade Union Solidarity (475)
One morning in August 1980, the noise of 10,000 shipyard workers suddenly stopped. Something extraordinary was happening. As a young shipbuilding student, Bogdan finds himself inside Gdańsk’s Lenin Shipyard as workers down tools and the mov
Growing Up Under Communism on Cold War Poland’s Baltic Coast (474)
Bogdan was born just a month before the Berlin Wall went up—and left communist Poland a month before it came down. In between lay a childhood shaped by shortages, censorship, compulsory conformity and a growing determination to escape. Rais
If the Soviets Invaded : Sweden's Secret Underground Resistance Plan (473)
For decades, ordinary Swedes secretly prepared for the day Soviet forces might occupy their country. Farmers, factory workers, gamekeepers and travelling salesmen were recruited into a clandestine resistance network, trained to operate radi
Bandit Country - The IRA and South Armagh (472)
During the Cold War, British soldiers fought a Provisional IRA insurgency in Northern Ireland. Probably the toughest location was South Armagh, where they had to travel by helicopter, while watchtowers scanned the fields, and an IRA sniper
A Czech Border Guard’s Daring Escape to the West (471)
What happens when the man guarding the Iron Curtain decides to escape through it himself? In 1975, Jiří Barteček was a Czechoslovak border guard, trained to track fugitives with a German shepherd and ordered to stop anyone attempting to rea
Twenty-Six Years Apart: A Family Reunited Behind the Iron Curtain (470)
For twenty-six years, war, exile and the Iron Curtain kept one Polish family apart. Torn from his homeland and sent into Stalin’s labour camp system, Aleksander Jablonski survived hunger, forced labour and a wartime journey through Russia,
Announcing Cold War Conversations History Tours
I’m delighted to tell you about Cold War Conversations History Tours I'm exploring the idea of hosting a Cold War history tour via a specialist tour company, and I'd like your help working out what it should be. There are several directions
Between Two Air Forces: From East German Officer to German Captain (469)
After German reunification, former East German Air Force officer Roland faced an extraordinary transformation: joining the military alliance he had once been trained to fight. Roland recounts his difficult passage from the East German milit
MiGs, Helicopters and Ideology: Life as an East German Air Force Officer (468)
What did it mean to train as an officer in the East German Air Force, where technical skill, military discipline and socialist ideology were inseparable? Roland recalls his journey into the air arm of the Nationale Volksarmee, from dreams o
Growing Up Grey: Childhood in Cold War Romania (467)
Romania in the 1980s was a country of empty shops, power cuts, rationing and fear—but for one little girl it was also home. In this episode, author Oana Aristide shares the remarkable childhood experiences that inspired her novel Astronaut.
Defection, Spies and the Shadow of Georgi Markov (466)
In 1986, Oggy Boytchev made a split-second decision that would change his life forever. Sent to Egypt by a Bulgarian shipping company, he seized an unexpected opportunity to escape communist Bulgaria, boarding a flight to London and claimin
My Father - The Enemy of the People: A Bulgarian Family’s Cold War Story (465)
Oggy Boytchev is a former BBC journalist with more than three decades of experience reporting from conflict zones across the Middle East, the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. Born in 1955, Oggy grew up under the shadow of a family secre
Face to Face with the Srebrenica War Criminals (464)
Richard Lyntton’s life has taken him from Cold War Moscow to the deserts of the Gulf War and the shattered streets of Sarajevo. In this powerful episode, he recalls studying in the Soviet Union during the hopeful Gorbachev years, travelling
Inside a Cold War USAF Fighter Squadron (463)
Step behind the wire of one of NATO’s most elite tactical fighter squadrons—the 10th Tactical Fighter Squadron—during the tense final years of the Cold War and into Operation Desert Storm. Former US Air Force officer Michael Makatura’s new
The Cambridge Five - new files reveal untold stories (462)
Antonia Senior’s new book,"Stalin’s Apostles" (https://amzn.to/4es5v76), challenges what you may have believed about the Cambridge Five, a group of British citizens who spied for the Soviet Union. Antonia argues that their actions during th
Malta & West Germany - Memories of an RAF Childhood Abroad (461)
Mark Thompson shares his captivating journey as the child of Royal Air Force personnel during the Cold War. From the moment his parents met in Singapore to their adventures across various military bases, Mark's stories are filled with nosta
Cold War Football: A History in Ten Matches (460)
The Cold War was a huge battle for hearts and minds — a true “people’s war.” But where did the “people’s game” fit into it? In their new book, Cold War Football: A History in Ten Matches, Tony Shaw and Alan McDougall explore the surprising
CIA and MI6 Covert Action in Communist Albania at the Dawn of the Cold War (459)
In June 1949, the US and British governments secretly agreed to mount a joint covert action operation to overthrow the communist government in Albania. The top-secret plan would use exiled dissidents to conduct subversive intelligence, para
On the edge of war: A V-Force pilot during the Cuban Missile Crisis (458)
I had the honour of speaking with Tony Dobbie, a former RAF V- Force bomber pilot who joined the RAF in 1960. Tony shares amazing anecdotes from his training, including his experiences flying jets like the Meteor and the Vampire, and the tr
Conscripted to a West German Nuclear Missile Unit (457)
Kris is a former conscript in the West German Bundeswehr during the Cold War. He shares his experiences from the moment he received his conscription notice at 17, ultimately joining the Luftwaffe, where he served with the Pershing nuclear m
Fakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Cold War Disinformation Front Line (456)
I delve into the fascinating world of Cold War propaganda with historian Rory Cormac, author of a new book “Fakers - 'A Top Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Disinformation Front Line (https://amzn.to/4nssdPl)'. The episode uncov
30 Miles from the North Korean Border - A US Military Childhood (455)
Flynn describes life as a US military child just 30 miles from the North Korean Border during the 1970s. The political landscape of the time was tumultuous, marked by significant events such as the assassination of President Park and a numb
The JFK Assassination: The human narratives behind one of history's most scrutinised events (454)
Dallas, 22 November 1963. The main event is supposed to be on the appropriately named Main Street. News footage shows office workers leaning out of windows, peering at the motorcade through a blizzard of ticker tape. On the sidewalks, the c
Chornobyl: Anatomy of a Catastrophe (453)
40 years ago at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, a routine safety test inside Reactor Four at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant spiralled into the worst nuclear disaster in history. This episode traces the catastrophe from the control room, whe
From East Berlin to West Ireland (452)
Juli begins by recounting her early years in East Berlin, a time marked by the tragic loss of her father. Drafted into the army just days before her birth, her father continually deserted to see his family, ultimately leading to his untimel
