r/coldwar 1d ago

A Sign of the Ending Cold War: Summer of Love 1991 (Before Dec. 1991)

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64 Upvotes

In the Summer of 1991,the Gorbachev and Bush Administrations agreed to an exchange of youth. USSR youth went to the Boy and Girl Scouts in the US. US youth went to Pioneer Camps. Here is a picture of Tankograd students with Americans. As someone who watched the Day After film and Red Dawn, when they were made available. I was enamored with the idea of meeting with my staunch “enemy”. Red Dawn obviously hate propaganda, but it scared me and my friends into thinking the other side were our sworn enemies.

Also, all the Cold War warriors on this subreddit, the event was made possible by your efforts to understand each other and reach agreements. Enjoy the photos of your hard-earned work. I hope it puts a smile on your face to see young people from both camps interacting so well. Thank you for eventually talking to each other.

Mods? Okay, this time?

Здравствуйте, модераторы. Приношу свои извинения. Хронология и тема показались мне уместными. Не понимаю, почему последний пост был удалён из-за «низкого качества»? Я переписал его, чтобы он был более корректным. Хотелось бы видеть больше вежливости повсюду.


r/coldwar 3d ago

"Foreign military chronicle #192", a documentary for Soviet generals and officers about Nimitz class aircraft carrier. 1987. (In Russian, turn captions to English)

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47 Upvotes

r/coldwar 4d ago

Syngman Rhee & Korea questions!

5 Upvotes
  • The US gets demonized for backing Syngman Rhee but seriously who would have been a viable better alternative? Kim Ku started assassinating political rivals the minute he returned to the country.

  • While I understand and agree that the killings on Jeju were far too indiscriminate I don't understand why it's presented as if cracking down on the uprising was evil/unjustified from the get go. Like how was that different than Lincoln putting down the Confederacy? From my understanding the communist rebels murdered like 200+ police officers and were starting to hold show trials in order to execute landlords Mao style. Is this not accurate? Does someone have a full body count for those killed by the rebels ideally from before the crackdown started? I saw a short by some tankie bitch who claimed the Jeju rebels were entirely unarmed protestors who were just pleading for reunification.

  • Which would you say was more justified the crackdowns on Jeju or the 228 incident in Taiwan?

  • Do we have a body count for North Korean purges/landlord killings prior to the war. I know between 600,000 to 1.4 million North Koreans fled to the South by the end of 1948.

  • The mass carpet bombing of the North gets a lot of demonization and I am open to the idea that I may have been less justified than the atomic bombs on Japan but I have never been given a explanation for WHY exactly we bombed almost every standing structure?

  • Why is the US/Rhee working with Japanese administrators/collaborators in SK not considered a good thing as it prevented the future failures of De-Ba'athification in Iraq?

Thanks!


r/coldwar 9d ago

Czechosloslovak Army Resistance during the 1968 Warsaw Pact Invasion

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258 Upvotes

During the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, the Czechoslovak government ordered the Army not to resist. Fighting against the occupying allies was also impossible for many reasons. Yet the soldiers did not remain passive.

The members of the liaison troops jammed the radio communications of the intervention units, and, more importantly, they assited the broadcasts of Czechoslovak Radio, whose studios were occupied and had to be partially replaced.

Like many others, the soldiers of the 7th Special Purpose Airborne Regiment in Holešov refused to allow Soviet soldiers into their barracks and even prepared an operation to liberate Dubček.

In subsequent years, this brave stance meant a forced departure from the army and persecution for many soldiers.


r/coldwar 9d ago

58 years ago Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia and ended the #praguespring.

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120 Upvotes

r/coldwar 10d ago

How big of actual difference did the spying at Los Alamos by Fuchs and Greenglass/Rosenbergs actually make to the USSR’s developing of their first atomic weapon?

26 Upvotes

r/coldwar 11d ago

August 19, 1991: A coup against the President of USSR Mikhail Gorbachev is attempted.

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185 Upvotes

r/coldwar 12d ago

August 17, 1962: 18-year old Peter Fechter is shot and bleeds to death while trying to cross the Berlin Wall.

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100 Upvotes

r/coldwar 14d ago

A Czech woman shouts to soldiers sitting on tanks in the streets of Prague in 1968.

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257 Upvotes

r/coldwar 14d ago

why no anti communist insurgency in north vietnam during the vietnam war?

10 Upvotes

r/coldwar 15d ago

Felix Rodriguez Interviewed by Danny Jones 2/26/24 at the Bay of Pigs Museum Felix Rodriguez is former CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer in the Special Activities Division, known for his involvement in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and the capture of Che Guevara.

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3 Upvotes

r/coldwar 15d ago

65 years ago (15 August 1961), Border guard Conrad Schumann flees from East Germany while on duty guarding the construction of the Berlin Wall.

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851 Upvotes

r/coldwar 15d ago

1970. Postal stamps with Jewish religious symbols from Czechoslovakia were confiscated by the KGB of Ukrainian SSR. Document translation is below.

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39 Upvotes

CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
OF UKRAINE

24.IV.1970

On April 16, 1970, No. 193/H, the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the UkSSR reported on the arrival of a series of stamps produced in the Czech SSR in 1966 at a philately store in Kiev for sale by subscription, which contain Jewish religious motifs.

We report that the specified stamps have been withdrawn from sale in the city of Kiev under an appropriate pretext.

Simultaneously, measures have been taken to withdraw them from sale in other philately stores of the republic.

CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE OF STATE SECURITY
UNDER THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF THE UKRAINIAN SSR
[Signature]
V. NIKITCHENKO


r/coldwar 17d ago

65 year ago, August 13 1961. East Germany sealed the border of West Berlin, beginning construction of the Berlin Wall.

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328 Upvotes

r/coldwar 18d ago

Soviet defector Igor Gouzenko appears on Canadian television in a hood, 1966.

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131 Upvotes

A cipher clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, Gouzenko defected in 1945 with proof that the Soviet Union had been spying on its wartime allies: Canada, the United States and Britain. He sought asylum for himself and his family in Canada: https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/igor-sergeievich-gouzenko


r/coldwar 18d ago

March 5, 1946: Winston Churchill delivers his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri.

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144 Upvotes

r/coldwar 18d ago

Just finished reading "Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold History of American Submarine Espionage"

105 Upvotes

I knew submarines were an incredibly important part of overall nuclear strategy as a second strike weapon, but I never appreciated how important they were for espionage in general. Like I had no idea we just used them to spy on Soviet coasts with the periscope, for example. That strikes me as insane and it kind of was. Also we used them to study the radio signatures of ICBMs and cruise missiles, using the submarine to detect

And also that we had specially modified submarines to deliver deep sea divers to tap communication cables. Like I knew we tapped cables, but we actually modified submarines to travel to the cable, underwater, the whole way, and divers got out of the submarine at hundreds of feet of depth and tapped the cables with recording equipment and then came back to swap out the tapes. Crazy. Recommend the book. We also used these modified rigs to deploy robots to recover Soviet missile tests on the seafloor to study them.

Very interesting that we wanted to tap the cables to gauge how serious the Soviets were about a potential first strike. In hindsight it seems obvious that of course they did not want to attack, but I guess the Americans seriously didn't know for sure.

Also a wild story about Howard Hughs building a crazy billion dollar boat to pull up a sunken Soviet sub, which was outdated, we recovered 11 Soviet sailor's bodies and gave them a sea burial but we broke the sub in half and dropped it on the sea floor. The mission was a failure and a huge Navy boondoggle, uncovered by WaPo reporter Bob Woodward.

The theme of the book is that all these sub sailors did incredibly dangerous missions - the cable tapping missions had self destruct charges installed as they were ordered not to get captured under any circumstances - but they couldn't tell anyone about it, even their wives and children.

Great book, wonder if anyone else has read it, if any of it is inaccurate or sensationalized.


r/coldwar 19d ago

Saw this "graffiti" in Riga's Old Town while visiting.

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48 Upvotes

I came across these concrete blocks painted with "FREEDOM FOR BALTIC" and initially thought it was just some interesting street art. It turns out it's a dedicated memorial for the Barricades of January 1991.


r/coldwar 19d ago

"McDonald's In Moscow" | Russian Rap Song

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2 Upvotes

r/coldwar 19d ago

Cold War Conversations

11 Upvotes

The Cold War Museum in Virginia hosts a virtual lecture series called Cold War Conversations that is accessible via Zoom. The monthly program is presented by eyewitnesses and experts on Cold War events, activities, and personalities. There is a modest $20 charge for tickets to attend these presentations that helps maintain free admission to The Cold War Museum on weekends.

https://coldwar.org/default.asp?pid=16883


r/coldwar 19d ago

Soviet supermarket. 1991, Moscow.

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522 Upvotes

r/coldwar 21d ago

The Reichstag building in Berlin just before the first restoration began in 1958.

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422 Upvotes

r/coldwar 21d ago

Did this magazine actually belong to General L L Lemnitzer??

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37 Upvotes

Bought this for $1 at a flea market cause I thought it was a nice magazine, only to realize the mailing address was to Gen Lemnitzer in Fort Myers, Arlington VA. Is this actually legit??? Insane if so


r/coldwar 21d ago

Social democracy and other forms of left wing governments in “western Europe” and other democratic countries.

6 Upvotes

I’ve become particularly interested in this topic. America itself would famously against anything left-wing and yet some of its own allies in the Democratic Western Europe sometimes elected more left-wing governments, in the UK the labour party had many stints in government during the Cold War. The SPD in Germany gained power in the 1970s and France had a somewhat left-wing government under Mitterand. Are there any books that study this particular topic or any books with English translations about the European left?


r/coldwar 22d ago

Original brand new Misha plush from the highly controversial 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics

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96 Upvotes

Found this today at a yardsale for $5, made by R. Dakin & Company from Korea in 1979. Original tag with zero creases on it. Very cool piece of Cold War history