Cold War Conversations

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 uprisings of the Cold War. But how had a student demonstration just twelve days earlier grown into a national revolution that brought Hungary’s Stalinist regime to the brink of collapse? In this episode, we follow the extraordinary story of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956: from political terror and secret police repression to the de...

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 hairstylist. During preparations for an event marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Peter says Jackie spoke candidly about the shooting, her desperate movements across the presidential limousine and her fear that she might be killed next. She also shared her doubts about the...

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 describes meeting Ernest Hemingway, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. Political upheaval forced his family to flee Cuba, leaving everything behind. Beginning again in New York with little money and no English, Peter found kindness in unexpected places—before a remarkable invitation brought him face-to-face with Castro, the man he...

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 Revolution soon turned against his own family. His parents were condemned & sent to labour in the countryside, his grandmother was driven from Beijing, and Bing was left to care for his nine-year-old sister after she suffered a devastating injury during a Red Guard raid. <b...

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 movement that will become Solidarity begins to take shape. What follows is a remarkable journey through the final decade of communist Poland. Bogdan recalls student occupation strikes, the shock of martial law, encounters with riot police, and his unconventional escape from military conscription by becoming a teacher. He describes his first intoxicating glimpse of the...

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. Raised in Słupsk, a formerly German city near the Baltic coast, Bogdan remembers crowded post-war housing, Saturday school, packed Catholic churches and a world where bananas, meat and even bicycles depended on contacts and barter. His family carried deeper scars: wartime forced labour, a father shot while fleeing captivity, and an uncle whose unexpected ret...

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 radios, use dead drops, scout escape routes and, if necessary, sabotage an invading army. Historian Johan Wennström joins me to reveal the extraordinary story behind Sweden’s Stay Behind organisation. He explains why officially neutral Sweden quietly collaborated with MI6, the CIA and NATO, how the organisation preserved its secrecy, and why the royal family and government might have fled to Britain. We hear of...

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 could strike without warning. In this episode, journalist and Royal Navy officer Toby Harnden takes us inside his book “Bandit Country”, which describes the borderland of South Armagh where the Provisional IRA fought one of its most formidable campaigns. Harnden recalls arriving during the uneasy peace of 1996, meeting IRA members and security personnel, and learning how family ties, loca...

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 reach Austria. Yet Jiří had no intention of defending the communist system. Haunted by the Soviet-led invasion of 1968 and determined never to shoot an innocent person, he secretly studied the border’s weaknesses and planned an audacious escape. One night, accompanied by two friends and carrying his AK-47, he disabled the ala...

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, Iran and Italy before fighting at Monte Cassino. When the war ended, returning to communist Poland was impossible. He built a new life in Britain, but the family he had left behind remained painfully out of reach. Then, after more than a quarter of a century, came the chance to cross back behind the Iron Curtain....

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 it could take, and your answers will shape the plan. There’s a short survey which should take about 5 minutes. Here's the link https://survey.chasehistorytours.com/coldwar   As a thank you, those who complete the survey will be eligible for a discount if a tour is ann...

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 military into the Bundeswehr. His experience, qualifications and years of service suddenly counted for less. Having been a member of the Communist Party, he endured intensive screening, as well as a reduction in rank, lower pay than western colleagues and long separations from his family. Some new comrades welcomed him; others regarded him with suspicion...

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 of flying MiG fighters to the demanding realities of officer training and service with Mi-8 helicopters. He describes the long days, intensive political instruction and constant expectation that war with NATO could erupt at any moment. Behind the impressive aircraft and tightly controlled military routines lay a system shaped by...

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. From writing an anti-Ceaușescu protest demanding more cartoons to surviving freezing winters, queuing for food and learning not to trust the wrong people, her memories bring Cold War Romania vividly to life. Oana explains how children experienced dictatorship differently from adults, revealing a world where imagination flourished despite rep...

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 claiming political asylum at Heathrow. In this 2nd episode with Oggy, he recounts details of his extraordinary escape to becoming a broadcaster with the BBC World Service. He describes the emotional impact of leaving his family behind, the pride his father felt hearing his son’s voice broadcasting back into Bulgaria, and the dramatic events that followed the co...

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 secret. His father had been branded an “enemy of the people” and interned without trial in a remote Bulgarian town, where he spent years under police supervision and forced labour. Even after his release, the family lived under the constant fear of surveillance, informers and political persecution. From secretly listening to the BBC...

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 across Russia by train, and later serving as a tank commander during the First Gulf War. At the heart of this conversation is Bosnia, where Richard witnessed the siege of Sarajevo, came face to face with Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadžić, and narrowly escaped trouble after secretly filming General Ratko Mladić. Ric...

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 book, The Fightin’ Tenth, takes you inside the hardened aircraft shelters of Hahn Air Base and witness life on the front lines of the Cold War. From the heart of West Germany to the skies above Iraq, this gripping episode captures what it means to stand ready for war at a moment’s notice, fly the iconic F...

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. Antonia argues that their actions during the Cold War have long been romanticised in popular culture., however, the reality is far more complex and tragic. Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross, were not merely glamorous rogues; their espionage activities had dire consequences for countless individuals in Eastern and Central Europe. Antonia challenges the traditional narrative that often portrays them as v...

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 nostalgia and insight. Mark's father, a skilled electrician, joined the Royal Air Force and was posted to different locations, including Malta and Germany. His childhood memories revolve around the vibrant life he experienced on these bases, from playing with friends to witnessing Vulcan bombers flying overhead. He recalls the joy of living in Malta, where he...