Cold War Conversations

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 h

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, censors

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 re

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 b

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 fugiti

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

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 li

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 f

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

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 t

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

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 Sovie

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 stu

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 Opera

The Cambridge Five - new files reveal untold stories (462)

Antonia Senior’s new book, "Stalin’s Apostles", challenges what you may have believed about the Cambridge Five, a group of British citizens who spied for the Soviet Union

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 adventur

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 Histo

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 pla

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

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, ultimat