ABC Radio National: Torn Curtain - The Secret History of the Cold War

It’s almost impossible to imagine now that for nearly half a century, the fate of much of the world was shaped by the struggle between Communism and capitalism, between two superpowers equipped with weapons with the potential to kill hundreds of millions of people and devastate continents.

We all know now that the Cold War ended, not with a bang, but the popping of champagne corks at the Berlin Wall.

Yet many of the threats and challenges we’re dealing with today—terrorism, failed states, the proliferation of nuclear weapons—are all part of the unfinished business of the Cold War. Since the collapse of Communism, a whole secret history has emerged from the shadows—and Torn Curtain documents that history.

With the opening of archives in both East and West, we now have some extraordinary and often chilling insights into how the Cold War was really fought—in Washington, Moscow, Beijing—and Canberra. Originally broadcast in February 2006, the series has been updated with a new episode on China and the Cold War.

Torn Curtain casts a stark new light on a hidden world of high strategy, dirty politics, and ideological warfare—and prompts us to ask how much Cold War thinking still shapes the world today.

The series is presented and produced for Hindsight on ABC Radio National by Tom Morton.

The Cold War was both a geo-political contest and an ideological struggle. The contest of ideas was fought out within societies as vigorously—sometimes as viciously—as it was between east and west.

This episode focuses on the global protests of 1968 and draws connections between events in Prague, Paris, Berlin and Berkeley.

A story of revolution, rock'n'roll—and the power of the powerless.

In July 1949 a brilliant young Australian physicist and member of the Communist party, Tom Kaiser, who had just completed his PhD research at Oxford, took part in a demonstration outside Australia House in London.

Within days, he was caught up in a web of Cold War intrigue stretching from Canberra to London and Washington.

At stake was Australia's bid to become a nuclear weapons state—and the activities of a Soviet spy ring at the highest levels of the Australian government.

Richard Nixon has just been elected on a promise of peace with honour—a promise to get American troops out of Vietnam and heal the deep divisions in American society.

But within six months of moving into the White House, Nixon would embark on a highly secret strategy of massively escalating the war—and bluffing the Soviet Union that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons.

We'll also hear some surprising revelations about how Soviet leaders saw the Vietnam war—and their involvement in it.

Explores the background to Richard Nixon’s secret visit to China in 1972.

The handshake between President Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao had repercussions which were felt around the world, and shifted the balance of world power for evermore.

This program charts the geo-political shifts underway during the later years of the Cold War which led to Richard Nixon’s ‘opening to China’, the part Australia played in these events, and the ramifications of the slow thaw between east and west.

Today, the 1980s are remembered as the decade in which American strength and determination under the presidency of Ronald Reagan led to the final collapse of communism and the liberation of eastern Europe. Yet the world nearly paid a terrible price for Reagan's uncompromising stand against the 'evil empire' in the early 80s.

In late 1983, the world came closer to the brink of nuclear war than at any time since the Cuba crisis. Deeply paranoid Soviet politicians and military leaders believed that the US was preparing to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union—and argued that the Soviets should prepare to strike first if necessary.