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/.

We have made the first few years of episodes free, but if you want to listen to the rest of the episodes, mostly those made in the last year, you’ll need to sign up to become a member of our site. It’s cheap and easy, so sign up today and don’t miss out on our […]

Beetle Smith’s last act as CIA director is to come up with the idea of a CIA “Murder Board”. After Eisenhower is elected POTUS, the new CIA director is Allen Dulles, brother of the new Sec of State, John Foster Dulles.

The CIA’s first attempt to train foreign agents and parachute them into Soviet territory ended in disaster. So did their second attempt. And their third. And so on. But they did it anyway. Then the Korean War happened and Bedell Smith became the fourth CIA director in as many years. He inherited a disaster.

The CIA wanted to secretly funnel American cash to European politicians, criminals and businesses that would do their bidding. They also wanted to influence public opinion about capitalism, communism, but without appearing to. To accomplish this, they set up an enormous number of front groups, many of which still exist today. They also hid known fascist murderers in the US because they thought they might be useful.

The CIA wanted to secretly funnel American cash to European politicians, criminals and businesses that would do their bidding. They also wanted to influence public opinion about capitalism, communism, but without appearing to. To accomplish this, they set up an enormous number of front groups, many of which still exist today. They also hid known fascist murderers in the US because they thought they might be useful.

On September 1, 1948, Frank Wisner took charge of the CIA’s covert operations. Known as the OPC - The Office of Policy Co-ordination. Although the CIA was a publicly known entity, the OPC was top secret. One of the first things he did was establish a multinational media conglomerate for spreading anti-Communist and pro-American propaganda. He spent millions trying to tip the political scales around the world by interfering in elections. In his mind, he was preparing for WWIII. According to...

Even the CIA’s original legal counsel warned them that covert missions were illegal - but they did them anyway. On December 14, 1947, they were ordered to execute “covert psychological operations designed to counter Soviet and Soviet-inspired activities." Their first mission was to spend tens of millions of dollars of secret cash to influence the Italian elections. “We were terrified…. and going beyond our charter,” according to an early CIA operative.

On this episode we talk about the Independent State of Croatia, or NDH, lead by Ante Pavelić, and his Catholic fascist group, the Ustasha.

As caretaker secretary of the Yugoslav Party from 1937 to 1940, Tito first moved the Central Committee from Paris to Zagreb, then built up a new, young leadership loyal to him. These guys would be his inner circle for decades to come. When, in February 1941, the Yugoslav regent Prince Paul did a deal with Hitler to avoid an invasion of Yugoslavia, the Serbian Orthodox went nuts and overthrew Paul's government, installed 18 year old King Peter, tore up the pact with Germany, and destroyed the...

Back to Tito and Yugoslavia. In 1934, the Croat Catholics rose up against the Serb King Alexander, leading to his assassination by a Ustasha agent while visiting France. Meanwhile Stalin purged the leadership of the Yugoslav Communist Party, opening the door to a new generation of younger, more radical leadership, with Tito becoming the General Secretary. While living in Paris, he loved to visit to graves of the original “dictatorship of the proletariat” – the Paris Communards, who took power...

My guest today is Archie Brown, emeritus professor of politics at the University of Oxford and an emeritus fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, where he served as a professor of politics and director of St Antony's Russian and East European Centre. He has written widely on Soviet and Russian politics, on communist politics more generally, on the Cold War, and on political leadership. His new book is The Human Factor, about the end of the Cold War.

By the time Tito got back to his home country in 1920, the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, German and Ottoman empires had all been broken up. In their place were the independent states of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, commonly known as Yugoslavia. It was then that Tito began his career as a revolutionary.

In order to understand the career of Josip Broz Tito, we need to understand the religious and political history of the Balkans. As historian Richard West says: anyone who approaches the Yugoslavs without some knowledge of their religious history is like a chicken trying to understand a ladder. So on this episode, we do a quick review of the region from the fall of Rome through to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Josip Broz Tito grew up in poverty on a small farm in Croatia. He dropped out of school at 13, and apprenticed as a locksmith and mechanic. In 1913 he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army and ended up in WWI, where he was injured and captured by Russians. When the Russian Revolution broke out in 1917, he became a Bolshevik and fought with them against the White Army.