Coming In From The Cold

Returning guest Steve Wills and new comers Vince Manzo and Anya Fink sit down to discuss the history of nuclear weapons, and the events that shaped modern nuclear policy.

David Wallsh and returning guest Steve Wills join Bill to discuss the Yom Kippur War and how it shaped the modern Middle East. 

Ken Gause and Ralph Espach return, to continue the story of how the U.S. government responded to UFO sightings in the mid-1900s. 

On this month’s Coming in From the Cold, Cornell Overfield and Jeffrey Edmonds join Bill to discuss political warfare in Germany during the 1940s and 1950s.  

Michael Connell, the head of CNA’s Iran Studies Program, joins Bill and returning guest Kasey Stricklin to discuss the Iran-Iraq war.

In this episode, the little-known story of QRHELPFUL, a CIA operation in Poland which supported Solidarity during the dark days of Martial Law. 

On October 20, 1981, an infamous crime shook the New York suburb of Nanuet. The botched robbery of an armored Brink’s trunk resulted in the death of two police officers and a Brink’s security guard. When the police first apprehended the robbers, they simply believed them to be a group of well-armed thieves. In fact, they were members of America’s first female terrorist group, the May 19th Communist Organization, the subject of Bill Rosenau’s new book, “Tonight We Bomb the U.S. Capitol.”

In 1947 a wave of UFO sightings was covered by newspapers across the U.S. and Canada. This alarmed the U.S. national security establishment. Guests Ken Gause and Ralph Espach join Bill to discuss the UFO phenomenon and the response of the U.S. Government.

In this episode of Coming in from the Cold, Bill welcomes Rear Admiral Mike McDevitt (Ret.) and Commander Steven Wills (Ret.) to discuss the Maritime Strategy of the 1980s. McDevitt and Wills recall some of the key players surrounding the development of the Maritime Strategy. This includes CNA analysts who used open source data to hypothesize that the goal of the Soviet Navy was to protect their ballistic missile submarines. Additionally, they point to Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, who helped convince the Reagan administration that a 600-ship fleet was necessary to challenge the Soviet Navy. Finally, the group discusses the key role that perception played in the Maritime Strategy, enhancing deterrence by reinforcing in the Soviet mind the idea that they could not win a war with the United States.

In 1983, The Patriot, an Indian newspaper with longstanding Soviet connections, printed an anonymous letter from New York, claiming that AIDS had actually been developed by the U.S. government as a bioweapon.  At the time, the story had little impact, but by late 1985 the story took off. As AIDS spread around the world, people were desperate for an explanation of the terrifying new disease. By the end of the year the story had run in 12 other countries. And where did this pack of lies originate? It was a prime example of Soviet disinformation. Guests Michael Kofman and Kasey Stricklin join our host, Bill Rosenau, to discuss Soviet disinformation tactics and how they compare to methods used by the Russian Federation today.