

Cold War Conversations - "vivid & compelling" The NY Times
Ian Sanders
"Listening to even one episode of "Cold War Conversations" will make this sprawling, potentially intimidating period of history feel vivid and compelling." The New York Times
Experience the Cold War like never before with Cold War Conversations — an award-winning podcast.
Each week, host Ian Sanders brings you raw, firsthand accounts from the people who lived through one of history’s most tense and transformative eras — soldiers, spies, civilians, and more.
These aren’t stories from textbooks. They’re unfiltered voices from the frontlines of history — emotional, gripping, and deeply human.
This is Cold War history, told from the inside out.
We cover subjects such as spies, spying, the Iron Curtain, nuclear weapons, warfare, tanks, jet aircraft, fighters, bombers, transport aircraft, aviation, culture, and politics.
We also cover personalities such as Fidel Castro, JFK, Ronald Reagan, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Mikhail Gorbachev, Konstantin Chernenko, Margaret Thatcher, John F. Kennedy, Josef Stalin, Richard Nixon, Lech Walesa, General Jaruzelski, Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Other subjects include Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, West Berlin, East Berlin, Cuban missile Crisis, Berlin Airlift, Bay of Pigs, SALT, Perestroika, Space Race, superpower, USSR, Soviet Union, DDR, GDR, East Germany, SDI, Vietnam War, Korean War, Solidarność, Fall of the Wall, Berliner Mauer, Trabant, Communist, Capitalist, Able Archer, KGB, Stasi, STB, SB, Securitate, CIA, NSA, MI5, MI6, Berlin Wall, escape, defection, Cuba, Albania, football, sport, Bulgaria, Soviet Union, Poland, China, Taiwan, Austria, West Germany, Solidarity, espionage, HUMINT, SIGINT, OSINT, IMINT, GEOINT, RAF, USAF, British Army, US Army, Red Army, Soviet Army, Afghanistan, NVA, East German Army, KAL007, T-72, T-64, Chieftain, M60
The podcast is for military veterans, school teachers, university lecturers, students and those interested in Cold War history, museums, bunkers, weapons, AFVs, wargamers, planes, A Level, GCSE students studying Superpower Relations and the Cold War.
- 20 episodes
- Updated Friday
- weekly
- 1 hr 4 min on average
Episodes 20
S35 · E468Friday · 44 min
S35 · E467July 31 · 42 minGrowing Up Grey: Childhood in Cold War Romania (467)
S35 · E466July 24 · 41 minDefection, Spies and the Shadow of Georgi Markov (466)
S35 · E465July 17 · 59 minMy Father - The Enemy of the People: A Bulgarian Family’s Cold War Story (465)
S35 · E464July 10 · 1 hr 12 minFace to Face with the Srebrenica War Criminals (464)
S35 · E463July 3 · 1 hr 9 minInside a Cold War USAF Fighter Squadron (463)
S35 · E462June 26 · 1 hr 5 minThe Cambridge Five - new files reveal untold stories (462)
S35 · E461June 19 · 1 hr 5 minMalta & West Germany - Memories of an RAF Childhood Abroad (461)
S34 · E460June 12 · 52 minCold War Football: A History in Ten Matches (460)
S34 · E459June 5 · 1 hr 6 minCIA and MI6 Covert Action in Communist Albania at the Dawn of the Cold War (459)
S34 · E458May 29 · 1 hr 18 minOn the edge of war: A V-Force pilot during the Cuban Missile Crisis (458)
S34 · E457May 22 · 1 hr 13 minConscripted to a West German Nuclear Missile Unit (457)
S34 · E456May 15 · 53 minFakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Cold War Disinformation Front Line (456)
S34 · E455May 8 · 47 min30 Miles from the North Korean Border - A US Military Childhood (455)
S34 · E454May 1 · 1 hr 24 minThe JFK Assassination: The human narratives behind one of history's most scrutinised events (454)
S34 · E453April 24 · 1 hr 13 minChornobyl: Anatomy of a Catastrophe (453)
S34 · E452April 17 · 1 hr 34 minFrom East Berlin to West Ireland (452)
S34 · E451April 10 · 1 hr 8 minGuarding the Wire at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (451)
S33 · E450April 3 · 1 hrSoviet - Afghan War, Mujahideen Resistance: The Brutal Fight for Zhawar (450)
S33 · E449March 28 · 1 hr 17 minFormer MI5 & MI6 Legal Director Looks Back at His Time in Cold War Berlin (449)