Posts tagged as:

Cold War

New MI5 Security Service files released

8 March 2010

UK National Archives, 8 March 2010:  Security Service records released today include personal files on US film director Carl Nathan Foreman, Irish playwright Brendan Behan and Nazi propagandist Gottfried Rosel, as well as investigations into the dangers posed by bicycling groups of Hilter Youth and the Communist links of Theatre Workshop. The 196 files cover subjects [...]

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The Capture and Execution of Colonel Penkovsky

5 March 2010

CIA, 5 March 2010: On the afternoon of October 22, 1962, a nondescript man was suddenly seized off the streets of Moscow by the KGB. He had been under surveillance on suspicion of treason. Thus ended Oleg Penkovsky’s career of spying for the United States and Great Britain. Penkovsky is considered one of the most [...]

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Reality tourism gets unnerving at KGB jail

17 February 2010

Metro World News, 17 Feb 10: “You are now the property of the Soviet government!” barks the impossibly huge guard, “Do not think of escaping. There is no way out of here. You will do exactly what we tell you!” As hotel welcomes go, I’ve had gentler. But this is no ordinary hotel, this is [...]

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CIA opens files on project to raise Soviet sub

15 February 2010

AFP, 13 Feb 10: The CIA for the first time has revealed details about an ultra-secret Cold War-era project to raise a sunken Soviet submarine from the depths of the Pacific Ocean in 1974. The high-risk salvage operation, code-named “Project Azorian,” had been shrouded in secrecy for decades but the spy agency broke its silence [...]

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Death anniversary of Cold War spy

12 February 2010

Polish Radio, 11 Feb 10: Today marks the 6th anniversary of the death of Colonel Ryszard Kukliński. One of the top officers of the General Staff in the Polish Armed Forces during the 1970s in communist Poland, he defected to the United States on the eve of the introduction of Martial Law in December 1981. [...]

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NeoClassics Films brings L’AFFAIRE FAREWELL to the US in May; story of KGB officer Vladimir Vetrov

12 February 2010

Broadway World, 11 Feb 10: Canadian-based NEOCLASSICS FILMS LTD. has acquired all US rights to the international hit thriller L’AFFAIRE FAREWELL from Pathé International. A film by Christian Carion, whose MERRY CHRISTMAS was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Foreign Film in 2006, and produced by Christophe Rossignon, the cold war era spy epic [...]

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New exhibits at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC

8 February 2010

We Love DC, 5 Feb 10: Every Friday for the next six weeks, the International Spy Museum (ISM) will be debuting a new exhibit within the museum, including the addition of several new rare artifacts from the shadowy world of espionage. These new additions (some for a limited time only) join the already-extensive collection regarding [...]

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Whittaker Chambers’ Farm in Jeopardy

5 February 2010

AIM, 4 Feb 10: A library featuring the personal papers of anti-communist hero Whittaker Chambers is being planned on the site of his farm in Maryland. Unfortunately, local authorities are considering a water project that could damage part of the property. Chambers’ son John is asking for help to save the farm. Time is of [...]

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Soviet spy map reveals Norfolk secrets

21 January 2010

Norfolk Eastern Daily Press, 21 Jan 10: Even for people who live in Norfolk the pronunciation of names such as Happisburgh, Costessey and Wymondham can prove tricky. However, we are left to wonder if Russian cartographers, given the task of translating the place names for a map of the county produced during the Cold War [...]

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CIA vs KGB: “Moscow Rules” – From Someone Who’s Been There, Done That

11 January 2010

Michael Sellers, 11 Jan 10: I’ve been asked a number of times about “Moscow Rules” — a term which has found its way into the lexicon of intelligence, both fiction and reality, referring to a set of “rules” that describe how intelligence officer’s had to operate in the extraordinarly hostile Moscow environment during the Cold [...]

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Baroness Ashton’s husband Peter Kellner wooed by KGB

7 December 2009

Times of London, 6 Dec 09: THE husband of Europe’s new foreign minister has disclosed that he was targeted by the KGB as a source in the 1980s.
Peter Kellner, the pollster and political commentator who is married to Baroness Ashton, spoke about the encounter as his wife faces scrutiny over her previous role at the [...]

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The accidental uprising: How ‘corpse’ killed Communism

21 November 2009

Independent, 21 Nov 09:  Twenty years after the Velvet Revolution, Victor Sebestyen recalls how the Czech regime fell to a hapless secret plot.
For the past two decades, 17 November has been a national holiday in the Czech Republic. It is the day that marks the beginning of the Velvet Revolution of 1989 that brought down [...]

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Layton man recalls days on the run from Soviet KGB

21 November 2009

Deseret News, 20 Nov 09: At times when he was running for his life, only a few steps ahead of the Soviet KGB, Mike Ramsdell always considered himself a “farm boy from Bear River City, Utah.”
Ramsdell spoke Friday at the Utah Farm Bureau Federation at the Davis Convention Center about the most harrowing ordeal of his [...]

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Springer CEO Saves Potsdam Villa to Recall Cold War Spy Swaps

19 November 2009

Bloomberg, 19 Nov 09: Mathias Doepfner, the chief executive officer of Axel Springer AG, drives past Villa Schoeningen twice a day — once on his way to work in Berlin and again on his way home to Potsdam.
For a long time, the run-down, empty house by Glienicke Bridge, which connects Potsdam to Berlin over the [...]

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Maps show Cold War ‘targets’ in Nottingham, UK

16 November 2009

Nottingham Evening Post, 16 Nov 09: . . . . . Historian Roger Grimes has now, however, found out more about just what went on behind the Iron Curtain. Mr Grimes, 66, of Kimberley, has compiled a collection of former Soviet military maps, which for the first time make public details of Soviet Cold War target [...]

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