PODCAST

A COLD WAR

Cameron Reilly & Ray Harris

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

history

All Episodes

51:07

#138 - Intervening In Foreign Elections

A COLD WAR ·

2019/11/12

Americans were SHOCKED to discover that Russia had interfered in their 2016 Presidential elections. How dare they interfere with the democratic process of a sovereign nation! Of course, those same Americans probably have no idea that their own country has, according to the research done by my guest today, done the same thing over 80 times since the end of WWII. Today I interview Dov H. Levin Ph.D, Assistant Professor, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Hong Kong about

62:14

#137 - The Ultimate Goal

A COLD WAR ·

2019/11/08

Quite soon after the first Zionist emigration to Palestine, tensions between the Jews and the Muslims started to erupt in small scale violence. Zionist settler Ahad Ha’Am wrote that the other Zionist colonists “behave towards the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass without justification, beat them shamefully without sufficient cause and then boast about it.” Another early settler, Vladimir Dubnow, wrote in October 1882: “The ultimate goal … is, in time, to take over the Land of Israel and to

63:02

#136 - British Interests

A COLD WAR ·

2019/10/31

One fascinating witness of early zionism is Sir Ronald Storrs, who, in 1917 became, in his own words "the first military governor of Jerusalem since Pontius Pilate”. In 1940 he wrote a terrific little book, "Lawrence of Arabia, Zionism and Palestine." This episode explain the roles of Chaim Weizmann, Herbert Samuel and World War I on Britain's support for the zionist agenda in Palestine. The British were eager to get the Jews to help them defeat the Germans and Ottomans. They also hoped that

64:40

#135 - Baksheesh

A COLD WAR ·

2019/10/21

By 1881, on the eve of the start of the Zionist Jewish influx, Palestine’s population was 457,000—about 400,000 of them Muslims, 13,000–20,000 Jews, and 42,000 Christians (mostly Greek Orthodox). In addition, there were several thousand more Jews who were permanent residents of Palestine but not Ottoman citizens. The overwhelming majority of the population was Arab, about 70 percent rural. Most of the Jews and Christians lived in Jerusalem. But then foreign Jews started buying land in Palestine

60:06

#134 - Zionism

A COLD WAR ·

2019/10/10

The idea of Jews returning to Palestine had been around since they were evicted by the Romans, but in a modern sense it really started to take shape in the late 19th century after the pogroms in Russia. On this podcast we talk about the vision some of the early proponents of Zionism had, including Leo Pinsker, Moses Hess, and Theodor Herzl. HOW TO LISTEN If you are seeing this message, it means you aren't a subscriber (or aren't logged in). If you haven't heard any of the series and want to

60:02

#133 - The Creation Of Israel

A COLD WAR ·

2019/10/04

Although you may not think of Israel as part of the Cold War paradigm, it’s played such a huge role in American foreign policy, and we have to cover it. It’s also played, and continues to play, a huge role in the story of oil, which is, of course, a huge part of the Cold War story. Because, as you know, the Cold War was all about economics. In this episode, we give a quick overview of anti-Semitism and the creation of the State of Israel. In our next episodes we're going to go deep into the story of

80:00

#132 - A LAND WAR IN ASIA

A COLD WAR ·

2019/09/20

Kim's "invasion" of the South gave the US the pretext they needed to ramp up military spending via NSC-68 and to support Rhee directly and indirectly by committing one of the classic blunders: never get involved in a land war in Asia. Admiral Forrest Sherman, Chief of Naval Operations, declared later: ‘I was fully aware of the hazards involved in fighting Asiatics on the Asiatic mainland, which is something that, as a naval officer, I have grown up to believe should be avoided if possible." But they

60:17

#131 - THE UN V NORTH KOREA

A COLD WAR ·

2019/09/11

WWII had created a strong US economy, mostly for military spending coming out of the public treasury. Lots of industrialists made a fortune during that period. And it was going away after the war. In the aftermath of World War II, US armed forces had not merely been reduced – they had been allowed to crumble to the brink of collapse. Truman's new Defense Secretary, Louis Johnson, had cut the military to the bone. It makes sense that they needed to find a way to keep the country on a war footing in

65:58

#130 - The China Lobby

A COLD WAR ·

2019/09/09

Americans were told that the invasion by North Korea was a total surprise. It was positioned as another Pearl Harbour. But this isn’t exactly true. They must have known it was coming and when it was coming. They just chose to ignore it. Why? Who stood to benefit from the invasion?

93:38

#129 - Who Started The War?

A COLD WAR ·

2019/08/23

In the South, despite claims of "freedom", the US administration shut down the KPR, the ‘Korean People’s Republic’, a popular political party lead by Yo Un-hyung, and closed down the most prominent Seoul newspaper that was sympathetic to the KPR. Meanwhile the free market introduced in the South lead to a 3000% spike in rice prices as people engaged in speculation and profiteering. So the US then cancelled the free market. The UN decided to have a nationwide vote for a new government of Korea. The

60:08

#128 - Kim Il Sung

A COLD WAR ·

2019/08/14

Meanwhile in the North, the Soviets chose Kim Il Sung to be their hand-picked President. Unlike Rhee, who had spent most of the last 35 years of Japanese occupation chilling in Hawaii, Kim had spent his life fighting the Japanese occupation, first as a guerrilla, then as a Major in the Soviet Red Army. But the actual architect of the North Korean state was Soviet General Terentii Shtykov. HOW TO LISTEN If you are seeing this message, it means you aren't a subscriber (or aren't logged in). If

82:27

#127 - Syngman Rhee

A COLD WAR ·

2019/08/10

In the early hours of June 25, 1950, North Korean forces attacked across the 38th parallel that divided the country into a pro-Western regime in the south and a pro-Soviet regime in the north. It officially kicked off the first major conflict of the Cold War. The Korean War. According to Paul M Edwards, the founder and Executive Director of the Center for the Study of the Korean War in Missouri: "Whether intentional or not, America’s history of misunderstandings, misjudgments, misdirections,

98:19

#126 - The Berlin Airlift

A COLD WAR ·

2019/07/26

As part of their plan to re-build Germany, the USA secretly released a new currency, the Deutsche Mark, printed in New York, to replace the old Reichsmark. Frustrated at how the US, UK and France were re-building their zones of Germany without first reaching an agreement with the USSR, on June 24 1948, Stalin erected a physical blockade (or, as he preferred to call it, "a defensive measure") around West Berlin to prevent all traffic from Trizonia from entering into the city. The response of the

65:30

#125 - The Berlin Blockade

A COLD WAR ·

2019/07/20

The fault of the Berlin Blockade is often laid at the feet of Stalin. But the truth is a little more complicated. By 1948, the situation in Germany was still messy. The Four Powers (USA, USSR, UK, France) in control of Germany couldn't agree on a path forwards. Russia and France wanted to keep Germany weak. The USA and UK wanted to build it back up into a European economic power. And they wanted it to be firmly in the capitalist economic bloc. So the USA and UK took a dump on the principles of the

76:17

#124 - Freedom Under God

A COLD WAR ·

2019/07/12

In 1951, the American Congregational minister James Fifield and his team of geniuses came up with a brilliant idea. To mark the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, they proposed to hold a massive series of events devoted to the theme of “Freedom Under God." The campaign was supported by everyone with wealth who hated the New Deal: Republicans leaders of industry and politics. The goal was to convince Americans think Christianity, laissez-faire capitalism and America

75:29

#123 - The Apostle To Millionaires

A COLD WAR ·

2019/06/29

After Father Coughlin was shut down, another anti-Communist Christian leader rose in his place - James Fifield aka "The Apostle to Millionaires", aka "St. Paul of the Prosperous" aka "the Thirteenth Apostle of Big Business". Unlike Father Coughlin, Fifield was happy to associate himself with rich capitalists - and to take their money to pay for his mansion, his butler, and his limousine. It was Fifield - and his rich patrons - who cracked the code of how to associate Christianity with Capitalism in

70:11

#122 - Father Charles Coughlin

A COLD WAR ·

2019/06/21

Today we talk more about Christians who opposed the New Deal. In the 30s there was a guy called Father Charles Coughlin, a Canadian-American Roman Catholic priest based near Detroit. Commonly known as “the radio priest", he was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience: first took to the airwaves in 1926, broadcasting weekly sermons over the radio. By the early 1930s the content of his broadcasts had shifted from theology to economics and politics, with an estimated

65:20

#121 - Truman's Hysteria

A COLD WAR ·

2019/06/14

In 1950 Harry Truman complained about a “great wave of hysteria” sweeping the nation - the Red Scare. He should know. He was really largely responsible for creating it. Between the launching of his "loyalty program" in March 1947 and it's finish in December 1952, some 6.6 million persons were investigated to see if they were Communist sympathizers. Not a single case of espionage was uncovered, though about 500 persons were dismissed in dubious cases of “questionable loyalty" - which was never

68:27

#120 - The Trials Of Harry Bridges

A COLD WAR ·

2019/05/31

In his "New Deal", FDR brought back the ideals of the "Social Gospel", a 19th century Christian reform movement, to justify the creation of the modern welfare state. For a while, at least, some American Christian leaders were big fans of socialism. However, starting with FDR, and for the next 25 years, successive American administrations tried every trick in the book to kick Aussie union leader Harry Bridges out of their country. They all failed. HOW TO LISTEN If you're already a subscriber, you

55:31

#119 - Red Scare Part 5

A COLD WAR ·

2019/05/22

Manufacturers and the media also used the Dies Committee to silence their critics. Any attempt to criticise the behaviour of industrialists was called "socialism". Along with communist witch hunts, another tactic industrialists used to protect themselves against the New Deal was the newly invented idea of Public Relations - a fancy name for corporate propaganda. HOW TO LISTEN If you're already a subscriber, you can listen to the full show in the player below or subscribe through iTunes or any

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