Podcasts by The Cold War Vault
Tales from the most dangerous decades in history.
Further podcasts by Dr. DJ Kinney
Podcast on the topic Gesellschaft und Kultur
All episodes
EP51: Movies of the Cold War ESCALATION from 2022-01-20T16:03:10
In this series we'll break down the greatest films of the Cold War and see each phase of a conflict through the lens of the movies. The first episode is "escalation." What do films have to say a...
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EP50: Aliens in the Sound Channel from 2021-11-16T12:45:54
We start with whales and end with aliens on this episode of the Cold War Vault. By exploring geophysicist Maurice Ewing's contributions to the national defense in submarine warfare, we will...
EP49: An Interview with John McEuen from 2021-09-28T10:53:21
John McEuen was a founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and in 1977 was invited on a musical tour of the Soviet Union. On this episode, John McEuen recounts some stories about the tour a...
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EP48: The Taiwan Crisis of 1958 from 2021-08-17T17:55:55
Recently uncovered documents reveal how close the 1958 Taiwan Crisis came to going nuclear. Important context to have in the current world.
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EP47: Sleeper Agent with Ann Hagedorn from 2021-07-22T14:35:53
An interview with author Ann Hagedorn about an early Cold War espionage ring and the American-born spy who escaped to the Soviet Union--but only after stealing secrets from the Manhattan Project...
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EP46: Mishaps and Missile Men Part2 from 2021-05-31T12:01:06
In this episode we'll look at the most serious mishaps at NORAD during the most tense days of the War Scare years and compare the very similar crisis faced by Stansilav Petrov in the Soviet Unio...
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EP43: Mishaps and Missile Men part 1 from 2021-04-17T14:34:33
A techno-thriller, exploring the technological background of many of the nuclear near misses and close calls of the Cold War. Inferior computer systems and common sense battled it out for the su...
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EP44: 1983 Part 4 - The 1984 Addendum from 2021-01-16T17:17:34
Could it have been that the most dangerous year of the Great War Scare wasn't 1983 with Able Archer, but 1984, when the danger receded into the mechanisms of the Soviet intelligence apparatus? Y...
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EP43: 1983 Part 3 - Able Archer from 2020-12-17T19:20:34
In part three of the 1983 series, we go deeper into what Exercise Able Archer actually was and why it scared the Soviet Union. After all this, was the war scare real? Recently released documents...
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EP42: 1983 Part 2 - The Hammer and the Nail from 2020-11-08T12:22:18
The second part of the series on the Great War Scare goes into even more incidents and accidents that heightened tensions in advance of the events of Autumn Forge 1983. Reagan's rhetoric, the St...
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EP41: 1983 Part 1 - The War Scare from 2020-10-22T13:15:24
We explore the 1981-83 nuclear war scare, what caused it, and what almost set the missiles flying during the Able Archer 83 exercise. This episode offers some background, and an introduction to ...
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EP40: Cults of Personality from 2020-09-21T19:13:48
The stories we tell about ourselves are all fiction. Especially when you are the god-king of a cult of personality. Doing research on a few interesting stories, these outrageous characters neede...
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EP39: Lessons in Imagined Disasters, Part 2 - Doomtown from 2020-08-15T20:23:41
Doomtown. Ah, my home address. This time, we look at the rise and fall of civil defense in the United States, with all of the virtual nuclear wars at the center. From irradiating cans of peaches...
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EP38: Lessons in Imagined Disasters, Part 1 - CoG from 2020-07-28T16:44:08
In Part 1 of this series, the Vault looks at early attempts by the U.S. federal government to save itself in the face of nuclear war. What started out as a hopeful scheme was eventually abandoned w...
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EP37: The Moscow Youth Festival of 1957 from 2020-07-09T18:17:04
In this episode we discover Moscow’s “Summer of Love” of 1957, when Khrushchev, 30 years ahead of his time, attempted a social and cultural “opening.” Nothing embodied this more than the Sixth F...
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EP36: The Korean Balloon Blow-Up from 2020-06-15T10:48:13
On this current events episode, we look at all of the ins, outs, ups, and downs of the Korean Balloon Crisis of June 2020 and speculate about the potential reasons for such an overreaction to wh...
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EP35: The Soviets Go House Hunting from 2020-05-30T15:50:54
When the Soviet ambassador started looking for a new embassy, he couldn't have known it would take decades. This episode looks at the various games each side played as the United States and the ...
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EP34: Coronavirus and the New Cold War from 2020-05-08T14:49:20
A current events episode. How does a global crisis reveal even more clearly the new Cold War with Communist China? Let's explore it together, shall we? I'm going to take heat for this episode. S...
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EP33: Mulholland's Magic Manual from 2020-04-20T09:05:50
Not Quite "Science and the CIA," but definitely a sequel to those last couple of episodes, this show deals with a subproject of MKULTRA called "Magic Manual." Long thought to just be a myth in t...
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EP32: Coronavirus and Conspiracy from 2020-03-11T05:43:21
In this very special episode, we'll look at the very real world examples of times that biological weapons have slipped the grip of their government handlers and posed a risk to all humankind. Listen
EP31: Science and the CIA, Part 2 - MKULTRA and Midnight Climax from 2020-02-25T04:30
This episode delves into the origin and realities of the sometimes mundane (and sometimes insane) world of MKULTRA and particularly its most lurid episode: Subproject 42, also known as Operation...
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EP30: Science and the CIA, Part 1 - The Curious Case of Frank Olson from 2020-01-31T16:13:50
In 1953, a CIA experiment with LSD triggered deep depression in a Department of Defense biochemist. Dr. Frank Olson committed suicide - or was murdered - a few days later. This story is a lense ...
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EP29: Fearmonger Fridays Iran War Edition from 2020-01-13T17:47:33
Fearmonger Fridays brings a little information and sanity to the recent events in the Persian Gulf, reminding everyone that it's not as bad as they make it sound...until it is. Then it's too lat...
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EP28: The Missiles of October, Part Five from 2020-01-06T00:35:46
In the years since the Cuban Missile Crisis, new facts have been revealed that shed light on just how close the crisis came to spiraling out of control. In this final episode of the series, we w...
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EP27: The Missiles of October, Part Four from 2019-12-04T13:43:23
The most dangerous day of the Cuban Missile Crisis was also its last day. There was no cooling-off period. It was going to burn out, or it was going to explode. Saturday just sucked.
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EP26: The Missiles of October, Part Three from 2019-11-24T17:52:32
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 an...
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The Cold War Vault: A Quick Update from 2019-10-29T15:28:09
A quick update on the podcast an appeal for normalcy in the comments section.
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EP25: The Missiles of October, Part Two from 2019-10-25T19:48:02
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 ill...
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EP24: The Missiles of October, Part One from 2019-10-19T14:31:14
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 kn...
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EP23: Operation Gladio and the European Stay-Behind Networks from 2019-10-04T11:55:31
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 ...
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EP22: Left Behind, the Alaskan StayBehind Agents from 2019-09-13T12:49:03
In the 1950s, an unsuspecting group of Alaska residents were recruited by the FBI to stand against the Soviet invaders. This is their story.
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EP21: Listener Question, Skyfall and Scramjets from 2019-08-21T11:44:54
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.
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EP20: Submarine Disasters of 1968 from 2019-08-04T16:36:52
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.
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EP19: Fearmonger Fridays and Grumble in the Gulf from 2019-07-23T15:26:05
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 execute...
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EP18: Cold War on Ice, Part Three: The IGY and the Icecap from 2019-07-11T18:46:38
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 ...
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EP17: Cold War on Ice, Part Two: Camp Century from 2019-06-25T12:11:14
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.
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EP16: Cold War on Ice, Part One: Operation Bluejay from 2019-05-23T20:11:56
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 Gr...
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EP15: News, Missiles, and Radioactive Shrimp from 2019-05-06T13:56:56
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...
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EP14: Chernobyl and the Russian Woodpecker from 2019-04-22T12:06:59
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 Emp...
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EP13: The Otters of Amchitka, Part 3 - "Cannikin 71 and Don't Make a Wave" from 2019-04-05T15:07:34
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 agen...
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EP12: The Otters of Amchitka, Part 2 - "Milrow 69 and Environmental Protest" from 2019-03-28T20:19:17
The Otters of Amchitka Part Two reveals the birth of the environmental movement and all of the conflicting international forces.
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EP11: Fearmonger Fridays - "Terrorism vs. Apocalypse" from 2019-03-16T19:22:36
Understand why new nuclear holocausts on film don't work anymore, and why, while, they exist, they have moved past their time.
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EP10: The Otters of Amchitka, Part 1 from 2019-03-04T19:13:16
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 focu...
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EP09: Fearmonger Fridays - "India and Pakistan and Kashmir, Oh My!" from 2019-03-01T19:15:22
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 ...
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EP08: The Story of the Net Evaluation Subcommittee, Part 4 - "McNamara's Wrath and a Window on War" from 2019-02-21T15:57:18
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!
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EP07: Fearmonger Fridays - "New Nukes for 2019" from 2019-02-11T19:33:07
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.
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EP06: The Story of the Net Evaluation Subcommittee, Part 3 - "John Kennedy and 11 Copies Destroyed" from 2019-02-04T16:02:41
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 o...
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EP05: Fearmonger Fridays - "Withdrawal from the INF" from 2019-02-01T20:44:12
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.
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EP04: The Story of the Net Evaluation Subcommittee, Part 2 - "Eisenhower's Crisis of Faith" from 2019-01-26T15:42:35
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 r...
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EP03: The Story of the Net Evaluation Subcommittee, Part 1 from 2019-01-22T22:21:34
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 analyzin...
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EP02: Last of the Cold War Kids from 2019-01-22T22:20:15
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.
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EP01: The View from Ground Zero from 2019-01-22T22:18:53
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.
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EP00: An Introduction to the Vault from 2019-01-22T22:17:38
A short introduction to me and the show.
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