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r/coldwar

▲ 85 r/coldwar

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

u/Wild_Neighborhood605 — 3 days ago
▲ 842 r/coldwar

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

u/Wild_Neighborhood605 — 6 days ago
▲ 3.9k r/coldwar+1 crossposts

Babies who lost their parents during the Vietnam War being airlifted back to the United States for adoption, 1975.

u/Wild_Neighborhood605 — 8 days ago
▲ 30 r/coldwar

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

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We report that the specified stamps have been withdrawn from sale in the city of Kiev under an appropriate pretext.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

u/Sputnikoff — 6 days ago
▲ 418 r/coldwar+1 crossposts

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

u/Wild_Neighborhood605 — 8 days ago
▲ 3 r/coldwar+2 crossposts

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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u/shylock92008 — 6 days ago
▲ 18 r/coldwar+1 crossposts

Question about a maybe military jacket I bought

I bought a jacket off depop that looked cool and resembled a military jacket. The description of the jacket was “1960s military jacket” and I was skeptical of course and was not expecting anything like that, but now I’m wondering, is this that? There’s also these numbers near the collar. and these red stains I hope are paint.

u/Life-Flow-7231 — 7 days ago
▲ 947 r/coldwar+1 crossposts

Four “Ranch Hand” C-123 aircraft spray liquid defoliant (AKA Agent Orange) on a suspected Viet Cong position in South Vietnam in September of 1965. The four specially equipped planes covered a 1,000-foot-wide swath in each pass over the dense vegetation.

u/Wild_Neighborhood605 — 11 days ago
▲ 100 r/coldwar

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

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.

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u/johntwit — 9 days ago
▲ 190 r/coldwar+1 crossposts

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

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.

u/MrGaky23 — 9 days ago
▲ 2.1k r/coldwar+3 crossposts

Grassroots Cold War activism: Gas station owner in Toronto, Canada, refusing to fuel Soviet Ladas after the invasion of Afghanistan (1980).

Geopolitics at the local pump. Nothing sums up the early 1980s quite like a Canadian gas station owner introducing his own personal trade embargo against the Soviet Union.

u/GeorgeRobertVitkos — 14 days ago
▲ 42 r/coldwar

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

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

u/MoparMonkey1 — 11 days ago
▲ 98 r/coldwar

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

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

u/MoparMonkey1 — 12 days ago