The Cold War may be over, but the tension between Russia and the West remains. Join Bill Whittle as he narrates this compelling series about two competing ideologies battling for global supremacy in the ashes of World War II. more

It's 1990. The Berlin Wall just fell. The Soviet Union is on the verge of collapse. And the soundtrack to the revolution is one of the best selling songs of all time, the metal ballad 'Wind of Change,' by the Scorpions. Decades later, journalist Patrick Radden Keefe heard a rumor: the song wasn't written by the Scorpions. It was written by the CIA. This is his journey to find the truth. Wind of Change is an Original Series from Pineapple Street Studios, Crooked Media and Spotify. more

A podcast about the American Empire.

'Truer, but also darker.' This is the real origin story behind America's decision to go to the moon. The story we learn starts with Sputnik, then President Kennedy's challenge, and ends with triumph: an American flag on the lunar surface. But in the 50 years that have passed since the moon landing, as presidential documents have been declassified and secret programs have been revealed, a wilder story has begun to emerge. 'Moonrise,' a new Washington Post narrative mini-series, digs into the nuclear arms race of the Cold War, the transformation of American society and politics, and even the birth of science fiction, to unearth what really drove us to the moon. Join host Lillian Cunningham (of the Presidential and Constitutional podcasts) as she uncovers a story that has so much to reveal about America -- and about the dreams and nightmares of being human on this Earth. more

How the nuclear bomb shaped world history. The scientists who raced to build weapons, the spies who stole the technology and the superpowers who grappled with deployment. In Season 3, nuclear war is terrifyingly close. Can the superpowers of the Soviet Union and the USA prevent apocalypse? Nina Khrushcheva and Max Kennedy, relatives of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and US President John F Kennedy, tell the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Season 2 is about Klaus Fuchs, the brilliant young physicist from a pacifist German family whose spying for Russia changed history. Season 1 tells the story of Leo Szilard, and the scientist's discovery of the lethal potential for nuclear weapons in the race to beat Nazi Germany. more

A podcast about the politics and the history of the eastern Europe - including, but not limited to the current state of Russia, politics of the EU, history of the USSR and the region in general. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. more

In 1967, Joseph Stalin's daughter braved her way over the Iron Curtain, secret memoir in tow, and landed in America as the Cold War's most famous defector. At 40 years old, Svetlana had left everything behind for a new life in the West and the chance to finally share her story. What she found instead — a controversial commune in the Arizona desert built by Frank Lloyd Wright, a whirlwind marriage dictated by destiny, and a Montenegrin matriarch with dreams of immortality — was far more complicated. In Svetlana! Svetlana! neurotic playwright Dan Kitrosser unravels the weird and wild life of his greatest muse. more

Experience the Cold War like never before through award-winning, real-life stories told by those who lived it. Each week, we bring you firsthand accounts from soldiers, spies, civilians, and more, capturing the full spectrum of Cold War experiences.Host Ian Sanders takes you beyond the history books, delivering raw, personal stories where every breath, pause, and emotion adds depth to understanding this pivotal era.This is Cold War history, told from the inside.We cover subjects such as spies, spying, the Iron Curtain, nuclear weapons, warfare, tanks, jet aircraft, fighters, bombers, transport aircraft, aviation, culture, and politics.We also cover personalities such as Fidel Castro, JFK, Ronald Reagan, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Mikhail Gorbachev, Konstantin Chernenko, Margaret Thatcher, John F. Kennedy, Josef Stalin, Richard Nixon, Lech Walesa, General Jaruzelski, Nicolae Ceaușescu.Other subjects include Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, West Berlin, East Berlin, Cuban missile Crisis, Berlin Airlift, Bay of Pigs, SALT, Perestroika, Space Race, superpower, USSR, Soviet Union, DDR, GDR, East Germany, SDI, Vietnam War, Korean War, Solidarność, Fall of the Wall, Berliner Mauer, Trabant, Communist, Capitalist, Able Archer, KGB, Stasi, STB, SB, Securitate, CIA, NSA, MI5, MI6, Berlin Wall, escape, defection, Cuba, Albania, football, sport, Bulgaria, Soviet Union, Poland, China, Taiwan, Austria, West Germany, Solidarity, espionage, HUMINT, SIGINT, OSINT, IMINT, GEOINT, RAF, USAF, British Army, US Army, Red Army, Soviet Army, Afghanistan, NVA, East German Army, KAL007, T-72, T-64, Chieftain, M60The podcast is for military veterans, school teachers, university lecturers, students and those interested in Cold War history, museums, bunkers, weapons, AFVs, wargaming, planes, A Level, GCSE students studying Superpower Relations and the Cold War. more

During the height of the cold war when Ronald Regan called the Soviet Union the evil empire, Bill Nowicki was in the Navy. He was a nuclear-trained electrician's mate aboard the Los Angeles class fast attack submarine, the USS Minneapolis / St. Paul (SSN 708) with 100 highly trained shipmates. These are the memories of those difficult (and sometimes hilarious) times told by the men who depended on one another for their lives. more

It was 1985, the so-called 'Year of the Spy'. The CIA had been losing Soviet assets left and right; the first loss seemed like bad luck, but four in a row? That wasn't coincidence — it was a deadly leak. And just as the Agency was scrambling to find answers, across the world, a KGB colonel named Vitaly Yurchenko walked into the American embassy in Rome and volunteered his services in exchange for immediate exfiltration to the United States.At the time, Yurchenko was the highest ranked KGB officer ever to defect to America, and the Agency felt it had hit the jackpot. Instead, his defection would go on to become one of the most dizzying, high stakes espionage debacles of the last century. Although many of his bombshell revelations were bonafide, a doubt soon began haunting the intelligence community: Was Vitaly Yurchenko telling the whole truth? And if not... What had he been sent to hide? Join host Julie Cohn in this ten-part series featuring interviews with CIA officers, bodyguards, FBI Special Agents, reporters and even a former KGB general as she uncovers the truth behind the decades-long Vitaly Yurchenko mystery. more

Tales from the most dangerous decades in history. Declassified stories that take you beyond the textbooks and into the Vault. more

It's 1945. Hitler is defeated. America is looking to outsmart a new enemy, the Soviet Union. To advance in rocketry, aviation, and chemical weapons, America recruits scientists and engineers who fueled the war machine of another nation...Nazi Germany. Inspired by the true story behind the Emmy-eligible drama series 'Hunters' from Amazon Studios, starring Al Pacino and Logan Lerman, PAPERCLIP explores how Operation Paperclip the recruitment of Nazi Germany's most brilliant and, in many cases, most villainous scientists to the United States after World War II impacted some of America's most vital, monumental, and controversial endeavors in military technology, medical research, and the space program. As our two hosts, history professor Monique Laney and actor-comedian Michael Ian Black, tackle Operation Paperclip from multiple angles from its 'pragmatic' Cold War motivations to its wide range of applications listeners will come to understand this little-known and unbelievable moment in American history.This is a paid podcast funded Amazon Studios. The Los Angeles Times newsroom was not involved in the production of this podcast. The views expressed on this podcast are not necessarily the views of Amazon Studios or the Los Angeles Times.Produced with support from Treefort Media. more

A NSFW, detailed and funny long-form podcast about The Cold War.

'The past is never dead. It's not even past.' Silicon Valley is an espionage innovator—it has been since its inception. During the dawn of the high-tech age, an engineer named James Harper begins his industrious climb. But as Silicon Valley blossoms into what it is today, so too does the dark side of all this newfound wealth and ambition—right as the cold war reaches its final crescendo. As Harper works to build his fortune, his ambition endangers his nation's safety. He sells nuclear secrets to the Soviet Bloc—intelligence that might still help Moscow in a nuclear exchange today. It would become the chase of a lifetime for San Francisco's FBI spy hunters. In this series, we'll walk you through a maze. One of nuclear spying, technology theft, and double agents, and the too wild-to-be-believed events that placed James Harper at the center of this story. And you'll hear that story from James Harper the Soviet Bloc spy himself. Spy Valley is a Project Brazen production. For more fearless storytelling, search for the Brazen channel on Apple Podcasts or visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works from espionage and corruption to deal-making and organised crime, we'll take you inside stories from hidden worlds. Don't stay in the dark. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get exclusive bonus episodes for Spy Valley and all our shows, as well as ad-free listening and early access to new podcasts. For the latest from Brazen delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters at brazen.fm/newsletters.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://brazen.fm/plus/ more

Venture into the elusive world of intelligence collection and espionage to spot, assess and debrief: spies, handlers, catchers, analysts, cut-outs, dangles, diplomats, security experts and the storytellers who bring them all to life. Check your electronics and subscribe, do a thorough surveillance detection route, secure your Live Drop location, and after a mad-minute introduction, listen in on conversations with our fascinating guests who help to illuminate a complex universe. A HUMINT experiment with host Mark Valley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. more

The Wreckage is a narrative podcast from the American Jewish Historical Society, chronicling the unique stories of American Jews throughout the Cold War. Season 3, Open Up the Gates, out now! About Season 3: As totalitarianism descended across Eastern Europe, Soviet Jews struggled to leave the USSR. Cold War tensions continued to escalate, and by the 1970s, a grassroots movement among Jewish Americans to secure the release of their Soviet counterparts began to grow. This movement, which soon also found support outside Jewish communities, helped to create the political identity of the American Jewish community as we know it today. Join host Rebecca Naomi Jones and a slate of special guests for the final chapter of The Wreckage. Jones is best known for her performances in the Broadway rock musicals Passing Strange, American Idiot, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, as well as being the first woman of color to play Laurey in Oklahoma! on Broadway. more

On July 16, 1945, in a New Mexico desert, the Trinity Test ushered in the Nuclear Age. No other piece of technology has penetrated the American consciousness like the nuclear bomb and found a place in everything from culture to medicine. This podcast explores how nuclear science has impacted and changed our world in both beneficial and destructive ways. We explore the intersection of nuclear science and society using interviews with historians, policymakers, experts in their fields, and first-hand accounts to weave a picture of your nuclear life. more

The history and the pop culture of the Cold War with Ryan Lewellin

Cold War Cinema is a podcast about movies made during the first few decades of the Cold War (1947 1991). Each episode primarily focuses on one film, and the hosts, Jason Christian and Anthony Ballas, discuss the director's life and work, the historical context of the film, and examine its themes that relate to the turbulent politics of the era. Theme music and editing on the first 14 episodes by Tim Jones; theme music from then on by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt), and editing by Jason Christian. Logo by Jason Christian more

Go beneath the surface of the Cold War in this story-driven podcast hosted by a former U.S. Navy submariner. From covert missions and underwater espionage to near-catastrophic encounters in the deep, Deep Sea Secrets explores the real-life tension, technology, and tactics of submarine warfare between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. These are the stories you've never heard—told by someone who lived them. more

For 30 years during the Cold War, Ken Johnson worked at Lockheed with top-level security clearance on projects like Polaris missiles, stealth aircraft, and more. Decades later, his grandson discovers a box of his personal files and belongings. Each episode investigates one item to uncover hidden stories of innovation, secrecy, and the Cold War's mysterious legacy. more

Uncovering the mind-blowing hidden history of the 8-decade struggle to save the world from nuclear annihilation with Dr. Olamide Samuel and Dr. Vincent Intondi. more

The purpose of this project is to critically evaluate the history of Stalin and Stalinism. Since the beginning of the Cold War, the selective rendition of Soviet history has been used to delegitimise socialist political movements globally, whilst simultaneously downplaying or ignoring the multiple horrors inflicted on colonised populations by capitalist imperialism. Stalinism as a concept has been central to the denigration of 'actually existing socialism', and is often portrayed as the end result or final consequence of any attempt to build real socialist alternatives. Many self-proclaimed socialists in the West have adopted the capitalist telling of Soviet history wholesale, abandoning any attempts at materialist analysis altogether. But to place all the blame for the failures of the Soviet Union with Stalin alone is both intellectually lazy and politically dangerous. Unless the Left learns from the mistakes of history it is doomed to repeat them. Until the opening of the Soviet Archives by Gorbachev after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, most history on the Stalin era was written based on scant empirical evidence, predominantly from Trotsky or other anecdotal sources from political enemies. Despite obvious bias, these interpretations of events were taken as fact by most Western historians during the Cold War, especially after Khrushchev's 'secret speech' in 1956, following Stalin's death. These sources formed the foundation of anti-Soviet Cold War propaganda. Starting any discussion about actually existing socialism from the assumption that the version of history put forward by the capitalist superstructure is true prime-facie, rather than challenging its ideologically distorted assertions, puts socialists at a disadvantage rhetorically. Responding to accounts of the many tragedies that occurred in the Soviet Union with claims that:'it was all Stalin's fault', 'it wasn't really socialism', or'our version would of socialism be different',is not a convincing rebuttal for non-partisan observers. The Left needs to start seriously engaging with its own history, and taking accountability for it, if it wants to win the hearts and minds of the people it seeks to liberate. This podcast is a modest attempt to provide an overview of the relatively new literature on the history of the Soviet Union under Stalin, which has been slowly emerging since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Most of this new history has not been written by Marxists or Socialists, but instead by authors with liberal or conservative sympathies. The gradual fading away of Cold War polemics since the collapse of the Soviet Union has created space for higher levels of academic integrity, based on the judicious use of newly abundant primary source material. Unsubstantiated pseudo-psychology, once prevalent in Stalin biographies, has given way to trenchant criticisms of Marxist ideology itself as the root cause of all socialist evils. Far from being an irrelevant topic of the past, critical engagement with the latest revisions to the history of Stalinism is consequential to winning the argument for a socialist future. more