In this episode, we focus on the days leading up to the climax of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the second Tuesday through Friday. These days include the showdown at the U.N. with Adlai Stevenson and Khrushchev's first, emotional letter to Kennedy on Friday night. These truly are, the Days of Danger.
A quick update on the podcast an appeal for normalcy in the comments section.
A day-by-day account of the first week of the crisis and what key actors really thought. This is a set-up for the real thought experiments of the next episode. But on its own, it really does illuminate the gloom and doom running through the heads of the most powerful people on Earth. I hope this has some interesting new personal information in the tale....
57 years ago this month, humanity was faced with what was potentially the most dangerous crisis in history. Cooler heads prevailed, but it might not have gone that way. In fact, given what we know, it's hard to imagine that it did. This episode and a couple more will explore what happened and what might have happened, hopefully in a slightly new way.
What seemed like a necessary and prudent precaution in the face of a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe, became deeply controversial after the fall of the Soviet Union and the revelation of the European stay-behind networks and their ties to NATO and the CIA.
In the 1950s, an unsuspecting group of Alaska residents were recruited by the FBI to stand against the Soviet invaders. This is their story.
A listener question leads to a discussion on what Russia was up to a couple of weeks ago when a new cruise missile exploded...with radioactive implications.
What does the wreck of the titanic have to do with the loss of two U.S. nuclear submarines? This episode tells the story of the four submarine disasters of 1968.
In this timely news-based episode we will look at some of the trouble in the Persian Gulf, and a history of tanker trouble in the Strait of Hormuz. Also up, 17 CIA spies surprisingly not executed by Iran, and long lost French submarine found as I was writing that it had never been found.
The third installment of this journey into the Arctic with the U.S. Army in the 1950s. This time, we take a trip onto the icecap with fully equipped convoys, trying to prove that the Army was a force to be reckoned with!
In this second episode of the series, "Cold War on Ice," we will go under the Greenland Icecap and explore the Army's snowbase Century and its bid for relevance in the race between branches.
This is the first episode in a series that will delve into the role that the far north played in the Cold War. This episode deals with Operation Bluejay, the construction of Thule Air Base in Greenland in 1951. From here we'll explore everything that Thule allowed the U.S. Army and Air Force to do in the farthest reaches of the Arctic.
Some interesting Cold War related stories that came across my desk this week. Some scary and some strange, but I hope all will be thought provoking and interesting. We begin with a retro look at some British Cold War civil defense advice, touch on the current state of North Korea, and end with a look under the sea at some radioactive shrimp.
On this anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, what begins as a film review becomes something more, as we delve into the relationship between Ukraine and Russia and the rise of a new Russian Empire, all the while looking at the fascinating award-winning documentary, The Russian Woodpecker.
In this final episode of the "Otters of Amchitka" series, see how the Alaskan nuclear testing series, the ecological movement, the antinuclear movement, and a general distrust of government agencies led to the birth of the modern environmental movement. Not only that, it brought about a new kind of thinking that hounded government policy until the end of the Cold War.
The Otters of Amchitka Part Two reveals the birth of the environmental movement and all of the conflicting international forces.
Understand why new nuclear holocausts on film don't work anymore, and why, while, they exist, they have moved past their time.
The first part of a series on the birth of the environmental movement and how it ties in with nuclear testing in Alaska and the conservation of sea otters. As a historian of science, with a focus on environmental science, this story has always fascinated me. Not only does it have implications for environmentalism, but it plants the seeds of serious mass protest that agitate for the end of the Cold War. Otters! Who knew?
This week on Fearmonger Friday, we look at the week's events in the ongoing drama between India and Pakistan and think about where it might lead and how we might get to World War III. If you're interested in current events, you can get some context here.
In the final installment of the NESC story, Kennedy and Johnson get their briefings and the world comes so close to nuclear war. Gosh I just love the Cold War!
In this episode of Fearmonger Fridays we explore not only the failure of international treaties of the Cold War, but the intentional reversal for reasons that seem somewhat arbitrary.
The third part of a series on the NESC and its secretive assessments of the Soviet ability to destroy the United States. In his first year in office, Kennedy was shaken by the dire predictions of the committee and destroyed the evidence of a highly classified briefing in July 1961.
What is the INF Treaty and does it make any difference to global security if the U.S. abandons it? Donald Trump has made his decision. Now we'll see where it leads.
The second part of a series on one of the most secretive organizations ever spawned by the National Security Council. In this episode, we take a closer look at President Eisenhower and how the reports began to affect his perception of nuclear war and his belief that such a war could be “winnable.”
Part One of a series detailing the story of one of the most secretive organizations ever spawned by the National Security Council. The Net Evaluation Subcommittee (NESC) was tasked with analyzing the ability of the Soviet Union to destroy the United States...and the world. The reports of the NESC were windows on the apocalypse.
This podcast's origin story and why I became obsessed with the Cold War as a child (and a grownup, I suppose). Take a trip to the 1980s and remember the those last years before the fall.
Stories from ground zero, close calls, near misses, and the long quiet wait before the bomb. Standing at ground zero can be a very lonely place, indeed.
A short introduction to me and the show.
