Cold War #247 – Black Gold & Betrayal (Operation Ajax part V)

Cold War #244 – Operation Ajax (II)

The Shah continued selling the family jewels to the British and Russians, including the entire Iranian tobacco industry. He was eventually assassinated and replaced by his son, who had learned nothing. In 1901 he sold William Knox D’Arcy the entire Iranian oil...
Cold War #247 – Black Gold & Betrayal (Operation Ajax part V)

Cold War #243 – Operation Ajax (I)

In this episode, we delve into the history of Iran, focusing on the US’s role in ending democratic rule in 1953 and installing Mohammad Reza Shah’s dictatorship, a fact well-known in Iran but only admitted by the US in the 90s. This event led to the...
Cold War #247 – Black Gold & Betrayal (Operation Ajax part V)

Cold War #242 – Psychological Warfare

The trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the concept of psychological warfare. The Rosenberg trial, which began in March 1951, was a sensational case involving accusations of espionage for the Soviet Union. The couple, tried alongside fellow Communist Morton...
Cold War #247 – Black Gold & Betrayal (Operation Ajax part V)

Cold War #241 – The Rosenberg Trial

We continue the shocking story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, charged with conspiracy to commit espionage from 1944 to 1950. The US government sought the death penalty and engaged in questionable tactics during the trial, while public debate grew over the extreme...
Cold War #247 – Black Gold & Betrayal (Operation Ajax part V)

Cold War #240 – The H Bomb (part 2)

After Nagasaki, Oppenheimer went to Washington to convince Truman that a bigger bomb wasn’t the solution. He failed. The guy who ended up designing it was Edward Teller with a little help from a computer called ENIAC and a genius called von Neumann. In the meantime,...
Cold War #247 – Black Gold & Betrayal (Operation Ajax part V)

Cold War #239 – The H Bomb

Another thing that happened in 1950 was Truman’s decision to push ahead with building the hydrogen bomb, a weapon hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs that he dropped on Japan. Why did he want even more powerful bombs when the war was over? And who...
Cold War #247 – Black Gold & Betrayal (Operation Ajax part V)

#238 – The “Pumpkin Papers”

Richard Nixon was made the chair of a subcommittee to determine who was lying in the Hiss case. Chambers publicly called Hiss a communist and a spy. As evidence, he produced the “Pumpkin Papers”. Even today, historians can’t agree on whether or not Hiss...