In this episode, Cameron and Ray pick up the Cuban Revolution story at its most fragile moment: Fidel Castro has just landed in eastern Cuba with 82 men, most of them dead, scattered, or captured within days. Batista’s regime confidently declares Castro dead, the international press runs with it, and the revolution appears finished before it has begun. But history, as usual, has other plans. From hiding under sugarcane leaves to scraping together a band of 19 survivors in the Sierra Maestra, Castro learns guerrilla warfare the hard way. The episode traces his first small victories, the brutal countermeasures of the Batista regime, and the human cost borne by peasants caught in between. The story then pivots to one of the most consequential acts of propaganda in Cold War history: Castro’s calculated courtship of the international press. Through Herbert Matthews’ risky journey into the mountains and his front-page New York Times reporting, the world learns that Fidel Castro is very much alive, organised, and growing. This episode explores how myth, media, theatre, and violence intertwine at the birth of a revolution—and how a handful of men with rifles, cigars, and a journalist changed global perceptions overnight.

This is going to be the first in a series of episodes where we talk about economics and war. I know – economics is a scary boring subject, but it’s really just the study of how people make and spend money. In this episode we’re going to argue that economics (money) was a significant factor in the genesis of the Cold War (and pretty much every other war in history too). We’ll talk about imperialism, gunboat diplomacy, big stick diplomacy, dollar diplomacy, propaganda, Edward Bernays, Walter Lippman, economic hit men, and the Monroe Doctrine. As Major General Smedley Butler wrote: “War is a racket”.

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”.

This week we dig into the messy aftermath of Castro’s victory — the revolutionary tribunals, the firing squads, and the international blowback that followed. We also get into Fidel’s complicated personal life, including his stunning mistress Naty Revuelta, his secret illegitimate daughter Alina, and the gatekeeper Celia Sanchez who kept everyone at arm’s length. Plus, Britain tells Castro to get stuffed when he asks for an apology, and Castro fires back at American media hypocrisy with some genuinely ballsy rhetoric.

The British PM sends a fascist Catholic member of the British elite, Sir Richard Stokes, to talk to Moss the Boss. Mossadegh says he wants a divorce. As he’s leaving Iran, Harriman meets with the Shah and “suggests” it might be time for Mossadegh to go.

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.

Ever wondered why the heads of MI6 are called “M”? Well they aren’t. They are called “C”. It all started with Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, who signed his docs with a green “C.” This guy was a true legend—a retired Navy man who became the spymaster extraordinaire, famous for his love of gadgets and high-speed Rolls-Royce drives. His dramatic life included cutting off his own foot after a car crash to save his son. MI6 has always been shrouded in secrecy, with its chiefs staying out of the limelight. But thanks to novels and movies, especially those by Ian Fleming, the real-life adventures of these spies have become legendary.

This is the first of two episodes about the Cambridge Five!

This week – Kim Philby, arguably the most effective spy in the history of spying.

Fidel is the newly installed as Prime Minister of Cuba — and immediately does on a charm offensive to the United States, where he wows crowds, spars with Richard Nixon, and somehow convinces a CIA analyst he’s basically anti-communist. Meanwhile, back in Washington, Eisenhower is conveniently playing golf… and quietly ordering the CIA to start planning Castro’s removal.

In this episode, Cam and Ray bring their trademark banter and historical nerdery to the story of Fidel Castro’s first attempt at revolution — the ill-fated 1953 Moncada Barracks attack. What starts as a coup joke about Batista’s boredom quickly spirals into a lively mix of history and comedy. We follow a 26-year-old Fidel as he decides that ballots and lawsuits won’t topple a corrupt regime, so he turns to bullets instead. The episode explores his planning, paranoia, and sheer audacity as he leads a small group of poorly armed men in a doomed assault on one of Cuba’s largest military garrisons. Along the way, the boys detour into mobsters, Catholic apostles, ham-radio fanatics, and whether Ray actually has friends who play pool. By the end, we’re left with Fidel’s first great failure — the Moncada disaster — and the foreshadowing of the revolution to come.

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.