Part four (!!!) of our "quick" biography on Fidel Castro, using the New York Times' obituary, breaking it down, line by line, to uncover the propaganda. And we're making these Castro episodes free to guests.This is absolutely the last part, we promise!
We all know that Tibet and China have a history, and that the U.S.A. is always in the middle of it. But you may not know that The United States recognizes Tibet to be part of the People’s Republic of China or that the UK and the U.S.A. have spent over a century trying to wrest control over Tibet away from China. This is part one of that story.
The CIA’s second attempt at a coup succeeds. Mossadegh is driven into hiding and General Zahedi declares himself the new leader of the country. The CIA celebrates wth champagne.
European recipients of the Marshall Plan funds were quite clear to the USA that they needed help keeping the socialists down and out of their countries. And the USA recognized that its own economic welfare rested on the revival of Europe. Funding a pro-capitalist European recovery was a matter of national self-interest.
We want to take a break from Korea to talk about the creation of NATO. Obviously relevant with the whole Ukraine situation. And it took on a new kind of mission during the Korean War. But let’s go back and look at where it came from.
Today we're talking to Katharine Gregorio, author of "The Double Life of Katharine Clark, The Untold Story of the American Journalist Who Brought the Truth about Communism to the West". Clark was her great-aunt, a foreign correspondent who, while posted in Belgrade in the mid-1950s, befriended Milovan Djilas, the former heir apparent to Tito in Yugoslavia and author of the classic "Conversations with Stalin", which Clark helped get published in the West, at great risk to herself and her husband.
This is part four of our recent chat about the history of China and Taiwan with James Shone, a teacher who has lived and worked in Taiwan for over a decade. He’s recently started a podcast about the history of Taiwan - https://taiwanthroughtime.com/.
Dr. Danny Orbach is an Associate professor in general history and East Asian studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His new book, Fugitives, is a history of Nazi mercenaries during the Cold War
This is part three of our recent chat about the history of China and Taiwan with James Shone, a teacher who has lived and worked in Taiwan for over a decade. He’s recently started a podcast about the history of Taiwan - https://taiwanthroughtime.com/.
Part two of our recent chat with James Shone about Taiwan. Don't forget to check out this new podcast about the history of Taiwan - https://taiwanthroughtime.com/.
We were recently invited by Paul Giordano, a listener of this show, to give a lecture to the kids studying the Cold War at EF Academy in NY where Paul is the Humanities Department Chair. We spoke for about 40 minutes then did some Q&A with the very bright kids in his class. This is a recording of our Zoom call. We're available for more school lectures, kids' parties, wedding and bar mitzvahs.
In 1949, the Kuomintang retreated from mainland China to the island of Formosa, now known as Taiwan. Ownership of Taiwan would become a major issue during the Cold War, and continues to be a cause of regional tensions, as well as China-US tensions, today. Joining us to talk about it today is James Shone, a teacher who has lived and worked in Taiwan for over a decade. He’s recently started a podcast about the history of Taiwan - https://taiwanthroughtime.com/.
FDR sends one of his inner circle, Edward Flynn, a staunch Catholic, to meet the Pope to try to keep the peace between him and Stalin. Stalin meanwhile revived caesaropapism, the old tradition dating back to Constantine, making himself head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Not a bad promotion for someone who once studied to […]
Stalin crushes the Ukrainian Catholic Church, partly because socialists believe religion is the opium of the masses, and partly because the Pope, Pius XII, had done a deal with Hitler and was a virulent anti-Communist.
March 8, 1945. Allen Dulles, the Bern station chief of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (a forerunner of the CIA), met in secret with Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff, the former head of Heinrich Himmler’s secretariat, who in the last years of the war became the commander of SS forces in northern Italy, to discuss Germany’s […]
On February 13, 1945, U.S. Secretary of State Stettinius and his staff were invited to a reception hosted by Vyshinsky in the commissariat’s guesthouse in Moscow. Little did the Americans know that one member of their staff was a Soviet spy.
What does Dracula have to do with the Cold War? The next issue to drive a wedge between the Big Three was the government of Romania.
Our first post-Yalta episode! Churchill and Roosevelt go home and give big speeches about how well Yalta went and how the Big Three really get each other. And then it all fell apart.
The last day of Yalta! We’re out, baby! Churchill fell asleep in the middle of an important debate and then woke up ranting about the wrong things. Iran wants everyone to leave their oil alone but no-one cares. Stalin wanted access to the Black Sea Straits. And Frank does the last big deal of his […]
Just when I thought I was out… they pulled me back in! To Yalta! Before the Big Three left Yalta, they signed a document that promised to allow the people of Europe “to create democratic institutions of their own choice”. Of course, at the time, the British were waging a war in Greece to prevent the people […]
Jacob Bains
In defense of Stalin, hard to swallow at first glance, but indeed justifiable and precise. likewise, in the previous episode on Churchill--absolute phillipic rip of the so-called hero of ww2 Britain. there are no good or bad guys in world war 2. all the leaders should be given fair treatment and historical analysis -- this is esp. true for even Stalin and Hitler.