In this raucous and revelatory episode of _The Cold War Podcast_, Cameron and Ray finally reach the man of the hour: Fulgencio Batista. From humble military stenographer to kingmaker of a chaotic Cuba, Batista’s rise is traced through coups, constitutions, and crushing dissent. Cameron performs a blistering freestyle rap tribute to Ray (“Ray Bear Has No Hair”), then the duo dive into Batista’s reign, the boom years of WWII, puppet governments, violent suppression of opposition, and the eerie parallels to authoritarian creep in modern democracies. The episode also explores the cultural fallout of constant violence, Fidel Castro’s formative influences, and the suicide of Eduardo Chibás on live radio—a moment that cemented Castro’s revolutionary zeal. Come for the history, stay for the dick jokes, cos this one’s got everything.

After the assassination of Razmara, Mossadegh’s oil committee voted unanimously to nationalise the AIOC. Iran went crazy for Mossadegh. It was Mossa-Mania. The British were furious and tried to appoint a new Prime Minister, the latest in the line of “guys they were sure could get the job done”. It backfired. Massively.

When the U.S. troops landed in Cuba, it changed the nature of the war. The old racism returned. Of course, when the war was over in July, the U.S. had no intention of letting the Cuban people have their independence. As the commander of US forces in Cuba said: “Why, these people are no more fit for self-government than gunpowder is for hell.” In the fight for freedom, lives had been lost and the country had been wiped out economically. Yet the Cubans still weren’t going to get their independence.

Episode 298 follows Fidel Castro’s disastrous return to Cuba aboard the *Granma* and the near-total collapse of his carefully laid plans within days of landing. What was meant to be a coordinated uprising turns into a brutal fight for survival as delays at sea, bad weather, poor logistics, and immediate detection by Batista’s forces leave Castro’s men sick, starving, scattered, and under constant aerial and ground attack. Drawing heavily on Castro’s later reflections and Che Guevara’s diaries, the episode explores leadership under failure, revolutionary psychology, and the razor-thin line between annihilation and persistence. With only a handful of surviving fighters and a few rifles, Castro reframes catastrophe into resolve, convinced that even seven guns are enough to win a revolution.

Today we have another special guest – Pulitzer Prize-winning author, the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Professor of History in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences – Prof Fredrik Logevall. He’s also the co-author of America’s Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity (co-authored with Campbell Craig, who we had on in episode 20).

Part two of our “quick” biography on Fidel Castro, using the New York Times’ obituary, breaking it down, line by line, to uncover the propaganda. And we’re making these Castro episodes free to guests.

Cameron and Ray pick up Fidel Castro’s story in 1948 as he returns from Colombia in the wake of the Bogotazo riots. We follow Castro through his early 20s as he campaigns for Eduardo Chibás, clashes with Havana police over accusations of corruption, and narrowly escapes being framed for murder. The conversation dives into the student-led bus fare protests—linked to shady U.S. business deals—that propelled Castro into the spotlight. We hear about his whirlwind romance and three-month honeymoon in the United States, his growing fascination with Marxist thought, and his balancing act between rival student gangs and political factions. The episode ends with the murder of his close friend, fellow activist Manolo Fuentes, a turning point that forces Castro to reconsider his alliances and the dangerous reality of Havana’s violent political landscape.

After The Peel Commission recommending moving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians off their land by force, the Arab Revolt re-emerged with hundreds of terrorist attacks during 1937-38 against the British and Jews – and even against Arab collaborators. The British cracked down and deported many of their leaders. Irgun, the Jewish militant group, met this threat with their own terrorism. Hitler used the situation to score propaganda points against the Jews and the British.

In this episode, Fidel Castro steps out of prison in 1955 and straight into revolutionary planning. We trace his transformation from imprisoned dissident to a man preparing an armed insurrection in exile. We explore his belief in luck, conviction and humility, his frustrating attempt to re-enter Cuban politics, his move to Mexico, and his first electrifying meeting with Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Cameron and Ray dig into why Castro’s charisma made him dangerous to Batista, how Che’s time in Guatemala radicalised him, and how American corporate interests helped crush democracy in Latin America. Along the way we hear about cigars, motorcycle diaries, CIA “successes” that produced decades of bloodshed, Cuban rum, and why delusional certainty sometimes wins revolutions.

Part 3 of our three-part series on economics and war, where we drill down into the various ways companies profiteer from war and how it stimulates the economy via “Military Keynesianism”.

Some people have said 1983 was the most dangerous year in human history. On four separate occasions, the U.S.A. and the USSR nearly ended up in a hot nuclear war. Soviet leaders apparently became deeply worried that the US was preparing to launch a surprise nuclear attack on the USSR under the cover of a NATO exercise titled ‘Able Archer.’ Brian J. Morra is a former U.S. intelligence officer and a retired senior aerospace executive who took part in the events of 1983 and has written an excellent and terrifying book on the topic, “The Able Archers”. He’s our guest today. We talk about the events of 1983, why 2024 might be even more dangerous, and why world leaders haven’t learned the lessons of 1983. 

We start in August 1942. Churchill is still in Moscow, getting down with Uncle Joe. Stalin accuses the British of being a bunch of pussies, too scared to fight the big bad Nazis.
To try to break up the UK/USA/USSR love nest, the Nazis dig up 3000 dead bodies of Polish generals (Katyn massacre) and lay the blame on the Soviets who deny it (but their fingers are crossed behind their backs). And Stalin dissolves the Comintern, pretending, for the moment, that he has no intention of trying to spread Communism any further around the globe.