Cold War

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Sons: Memo Proves Ethel Rosenberg 'Wasn't a Spy'

Document from what later became the NSA indicates she did not engage in husband's work

(Newser) - A top US government codebreaker who decrypted secret Soviet communications during the Cold War concluded that Ethel Rosenberg knew about her husband's activities "but that due to illness she did not engage in the work herself," according to a recently declassified memo that her sons say proves...

Key Lines From Biden's Speech to UN General Assembly

'We are not seeking a new Cold War'

(Newser) - President Biden used his first address before the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to declare that the world stands at an "inflection point in history" and must move quickly to address the issues of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and human rights abuses. Some highlights, via the AP and...

They Should've Been Enemies. Instead, a Cold War 'Bromance'

'The Courier' tells of unlikely spy's real-life drama

(Newser) - Benedict Cumberbatch stars as an English salesman recruited by British and US intelligence services to spy on the Soviet Union during the Cold War in The Courier , based on the true story of one Greville Wynne. Out Friday, the film—which aired at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival under the...

Ever Wanted a KGB-Era Lipstick Gun? Now's Your Chance

NYC museum dedicated to Cold War espionage shuts down for good

(Newser) - What's been billed as the world's largest collection of KGB memorabilia has been on display in Manhattan for nearly two years, the labor of love of a Lithuanian collector who wanted to share with the world these 3,500 or so remnants of the Cold War. Now, per...

It Turns Out a British Spy Named James Bond Did Exist

But Ian Fleming's 007 came first

(Newser) - Ian Fleming apparently forgot to tell us about the time James Bond went behind the Iron Curtain in an attempt to infiltrate Polish military facilities. Poland's Institute of National Remembrance has uncovered the secret mission of James Albert Bond, a British civil servant sent to the Soviet satellite state...

Cold War Concern for Santa Included in JFK Exhibit

Russian bombing threat worried president and an 8-year-old girl

(Newser) - In the throes of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was planning to test a massive nuclear bomb in the Arctic Circle. But in a letter to then-President John F. Kennedy, a young Michigan girl was most concerned about the North Pole's most famous resident. "Please stop the...

'He Handed Them the Formula for the A-Bomb'

Oscar Seborer was part of a family of spies

(Newser) - Three Soviet spies were at Los Alamos during World War II, stealing atomic secrets—that we know. Now the CIA journal Studies in Intelligence reports on Oscar Seborer, a fourth, previously unknown figure who may have "handed" Soviets the A-bomb formula before defecting to the USSR. Born in New...

JFK to Girl Afraid for Santa: 'I Talked With Him... He is Fine'

The former president told a girl during the Cold War that Russian nukes won't harm St. Nick

(Newser) - A little girl who feared for the safety of Santa Claus amid reports of Russian nuclear testing in the North Pole voiced her concern all the way to President Kennedy in 1961 and, astonishingly, got a personal response that would make her a viral sensation of her day. Per The...

Report: US May Put B-52s on 24-Hour Nuclear Alert

Jets armed with nukes would be ready to go at a moment's notice, if order goes through

(Newser) - The security site Defense One reports that the Air Force is considering putting nuclear-armed bomber planes back on 24-hour notice, something that hasn't been in effect since the Cold War. The site emphasizes that no such order has yet been given, but it quotes Air Force chief of staff...

Book: US Secretly Exposed Americans to Radiation Tests

Three congressmen want answers

(Newser) - Three members of Congress are demanding answers after a St. Louis scholar's new book revealed details of secret Cold War-era US government testing in which countless unsuspecting people, including kids, pregnant women, and minorities, were fed, sprayed, or injected with radiation and other dangerous materials. The health ramifications of...

His Poise Under Pressure May Have Stopped Nuclear War


This Man May
Have Saved
World From
Nuclear War
in case you missed it
Sep 23, 2017 1:18 PM CDT

This Man May Have Saved World From Nuclear War

Former Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov credited with averting global catastrophe

(Newser) - A former Soviet officer by the name of Stanislav Petrov has died, and the key point surfacing in obituaries about him is a pretty remarkable one: His poise under pressure may have saved the world from a nuclear war. As USA Today and the New York Times report, Petrov was...

Germany, in Secret, Has Shepherded Half Its Gold Home

The repatriation effort wasn't supposed to finish until 2020

(Newser) - It could be the plot of a Hollywood movie, albeit one where apparently nothing goes wrong: On Aug. 23, Germany announced it had successfully and in secret shepherded half its gold reserves back home, per Reuters . Germany's 3,378 metric tons of gold had for decades been stored in...

Canadian 'Thing in the Woods' Was a CIA Spy Camera

TV viewers helped solve the 55-year-old mystery in just hours

(Newser) - A 55-year-old family mystery was finally solved this week just hours after the story appeared on Canadian television, the CBC reports. In 1962, a woodsman searching for timber in the forest of Lutes Mountain in New Brunswick, Canada, found a large white box hanging from a tree by a parachute....

Hope of Exonerating Ethel Rosenberg May End With Trump

Sons are pressuring Obama to move now to clear mom executed in '50s spy case

(Newser) - With President Obama's term coming to an end, the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are again calling on the president to clear their mother of the espionage charge for which they believe she was wrongly executed in 1953 in an intense Cold War case. Michael and Robert Meeropol...

Kansas Guy Is Pimping Cold War-Era Sub

Scott Waters is rehabbing Pisces VI submarine he found in Wisconsin

(Newser) - A Kansas man and 10 experts are refurbishing a Cold War-era submarine to put it back into the deep seas for exploration. Scott Waters, 29, of Salina, has a team that gathers a few times a year north of Salina to tear apart and modernize a submarine that is one...

Trump's Foreign Policy Speech a 'Blathering Jumble'
Trump's Foreign Policy Speech
a 'Blathering Jumble'
THE RUNDOWN
Aug 16, 2016 6:23 AM CDT

Trump's Foreign Policy Speech a 'Blathering Jumble'

Analysts confused, alarmed by proposals

(Newser) - Donald Trump delivered what one analyst calls a "surprisingly serious" speech on foreign policy and counterterrorism Monday—but serious may not equal coherent. Many analysts were taken aback by the mix of proposals in the speech, which included policies favored by the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, along...

The Sun Nearly Caused Nuclear War in 1967

Solar flares made it seem like the USSR was jamming US radars

(Newser) - The sun was nearly responsible for the Cold War going nuclear 50 years ago, according to a study released this week. On May 23, 1967, three US Ballistic Missile Early Warning System radar sites seemed to be jammed. CBS News reports it appeared to the US Air Force, which was...

Russian PM Claims West Is Rekindling Cold War

NATO, US counter they're only responding to Russia's 'aggression'

(Newser) - Russia's prime minister accused NATO on Saturday of restarting the Cold War amid increased military maneuvers and troop deployments to countries neighboring Russia, moves the alliance's top official defended as a necessary response to aggression from Moscow, the AP reports. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a meeting...

NSA Analyst Who Spied for Soviets Freed After 30 Years

Ronald Pelton was paid $35K for NSA, Navy secrets

(Newser) - A former National Security Agency employee convicted of selling defense and communication secrets he gained during his career has been released from federal custody 30 years after his arrest. The sentence for Cold War-era spy Ronald Pelton, 74, ended on Tuesday. He had been placed on home confinement several months...

Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Dead at 96

Was a major figure in Cold War politics

(Newser) - Helmut Schmidt, the chancellor who guided West Germany through economic turbulence and Cold War tensions, stood firm against a wave of homegrown terrorism, and became a respected elder statesman, died Tuesday at age 96. Schmidt, a center-left Social Democrat, led West Germany from 1974 to 1982. He was elected chancellor...

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