Korean War Podcast

In this final episode of this season, I will be discussing nuclear weapons and the threat of a nuclear war which hung over the world during the cold war.

After Che Guevara left Cuba, he would try to led two revolutions in the Congo and in Bolivia, neither of which would succeed.  He would be captured by the Bolivian Army and murdered in cold blood but he death, he would become an idea to many young people with left wing values.

An American U2 spy plane is shot down over Cuba by a Soviet Surface to Air missile.  The tension between the United States and the Soviet Union increases but President Kennedy decides not to bomb Cuba.  He uses a message from the Soviet leader to end the crisis and the Soviet nuclear missiles are withdrawn from Cuba.

An American U2 spy fight discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba.  The American military chiefs wanted an invasion of Cuba but President Kennedy decides above a naval blockade of Cuba instead.  President Kennedy address the nation on television to tell them of the Soviet missiles now based in Cuba.

The Soviets send nuclear weapons and fifty thousand military personal to Cuba, all without being observed by the Americans.  The Soviet nuclear missiles pose a serious danger to the United States.  A biography of the Soviet military commander in Cuba, General Pliev.  In October 1963, an American U2 flight will plunge the world into crisis.

Cuban exiles with the secret support of the American Government would in 1961, attempt a landing on the south coast of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.  The invasion was crushed by the Cuban Army, President Kennedy would not allow the American military to become directly involved, although the American Government involvement soon became known. 

When Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959, his mask of being a liberal and a democrat fell.  There would be no free elections in Cuba.  Those who had fought in the Cuban revolution for a free and democratic Cuba would become the victims of repression, imprisonment and execution, another revolution was eating its children.

1958 saw the Guerrilla armies in Cuba grow in number.  The Cuban Army was sent to crush Fidel Castro and his rebels in operation summer, it nearly success but Fidel Castro led his men out of a trap.  The American Government turn against the Cuban dictator and he is forced to flee.  In December 1958, the rebels overcame the Cuban Army.

During 1957, Fidel Castro guerrilla band would grow in numbers, they attacked isolated Army garrisons in Eastern Cuba and the Cuban Army would abandon parts of the countryside to the rebels.  Fidel Castro would prove to  a master of public relations and reassure the world he was a democrat not a Communist.  A biography of his brother Raul.

Fidel and Raul Castro would form a small army of Cuban exiles in Mexico, to train and return to Cuba, to try to overthrow the Cuban dictatorship.  They would be joined by an Argentina doctor Che Guevara, his biography is given.  They and eighty other rebels would travel back on a boat the Granma but within a few days most would be dead. 

Fidel Castro in 1952, when Cuba fell under a military dictatorship.  He founded the Movement an underground resistance to the Cuban Dictatorship.  The Movement in July 1953 launched an attack on a army garrison the attack was a failure and Fidel and his brother Raul were sent to prison but not for long for they would be released and would go into exile in Mexico.

After the Spanish - American War, Americans dominated Cuba's economy.   Elections are often were marred by fraud.  In 1933 a revolution brought in a left wing Government but it lasted only a hundred days. It was overthrown by Batista a former sergeant who became Cuba's military strongman, he would overthrown another Democratically elected Government in 1952 and introduce a brutal dictatorship into the island.

The story of Latin America's most brutal dictator Trujillo who govern the Dominican Republic for 31 years and killed 50,000 of his people.  Yet even after his death the country was political unstable and in 1965, President Johnson would sent American troops to the country to put down a left wing revolt.  Also a look at decolonisation in the British West Indies and Canada's foreign policy.

A political review of the states of South and Central America between 1945 and 1965.  Sadly it will be a story mainly of dictators, repression, unstable political environments, corruption and poverty.  Power largely in the hands of elites not the people.  Armies more active in overthrowing their Governments than defending them.

American involvement in Central America in the first half of the 20th Century.  The story of two countries, in the post war period which the Americans supported coups, one in Costa Rica, which established a stable democracy and in Guatemala which overthrow and a left wing democratic Government and would led to a 36 year long civil war.

The story of the early years of the American Central Intelligence Agency and it most important director Allan Dulles.  The CIA go on from a disappointing start during the Korean War to became the oversea convert operations agency for the American Government but some of its actions would latter be questioned.

When Eisenhower ran for President in 1952, the Korean War was an important issue during the election campaign.  When he became President he tried to end the Korean War, at first time without success but then in March 1953, Stalin died and it was possible to begin talks to end the war.

For years President Truman had failed to invest in South Korea's defence, the North Korea invasion invasion in June 1950 came as a shock but Truman decided to commit American troops to the defence of South Korea.  General Mac Arthur invasion at Inchon turned around the Korean but his relation with the Truman became strained leading to the firing of the General.

The rise and fall of Senator Joe McCarthy, a biography of him is given.  Following a speech by him in 1950 he became the most famous anti-communist in American.  Hearing he chaired destroy the reputation of many.  However when he started to investigate the Army, President Eisenhower was prepared to the same tactics to bring down Senator McCarthy. 

By 1945, the Soviet Union had established a highly effective spy ring operating in the United States.  Many of their spies were key figures within the American Government, they also spies in the atomic bomb programme, who would pass on information which helped the Soviets build their own atomic bomb.  A biograph of two Soviet spies who would be executed, Julius and Ethel Rosenburg.