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There are many online resources for teaching #ColdWarHist. Here is one unexpected resource I stumbled upon—the 40-year archive of interviews with diplomats and authors on @nprfreshair! Students can hear firsthand accounts or engaging stories. Here are a few highlights.
Longtime diplomat Paul Nitze—principal author of NSC 68 that provided the blueprint for containment through the Cold War—has two interviews. One in 1985 about his role in the Cold War, another in 1989 on his memoir “From Hiroshima to Glasnost.” https://freshairarchive.org/guests/paul-h-nitze
The two books by Richard Rhodes on the making of the atomic and hydrogen bombs are highly readable but probably too big to assign to students. He has an interview for each book that highlights the science, politics, and dilemmas behind the bombs’ creation. https://freshairarchive.org/index.php/guests/richard-Rhodes
Interviews tend to be dominated by American perspectives but one exception is Anatoly Dobrynin on his memoir “In Confidence.” He was USSR ambassador to US from 1962 to 1985 and personally witnessed some of the most vivid episodes of the Cold War. https://freshairarchive.org/segments/former-soviet-ambassador-united-states-anatoly-dobrynin
For more non-US Cold War stories, see Anne Applebaum’s interview on her book “Iron Curtain” and the Sovietization of Eastern Europe. https://freshairarchive.org/segments/crushing-eastern-europe-behind-iron-curtain
Pop culture and Cold War intersect in this interview looking back at American fears of the Soviet Union and communism reflected in films, tv shows, magazines, comics, and even children bubble gum! https://freshairarchive.org/index.php/segments/pop-culture-residue-cold-war
Interviews about the Cold War outside the US or Europe are comparatively few. But here is one with John Dower and his classic “Embracing Defeat” about the US occupation of Japan—how a foe was remade into an ally and democracy imposed autocratically. https://freshairarchive.org/index.php/segments/american-occupation-japan
There are many more interviews on the Cold War on everything including nuclear weapons, spy craft, and its legacies. The link below contains just a handful! https://freshairarchive.org/index.php/topics/cold-war-1945-1989
