The Hidden History of the Cold War, Part One
Part 1a [1] 47:13 | Part 1b [2] 45:09 | Part 1c [3] 44:38 | Part 1d [4] 47:24 | Part 1e [5] 44:45 | Part 1f [6] 10:47
(Recorded April, 1984)
This broadcast examines international fascism as a reaction to the founding of the former Soviet Union and the growth of socialist movements in other countries and how this development led to World War II. The program focuses on the critical support American industrialists and financiers gave to Hitler’s Germany and how this affected allied military policy during the war, as well as the incorporation of the Third Reich’s intelligence forces into the CIA at the conflict’s conclusion.
Program highlights include: Herbert Hoover’s diversion of aid requisitioned by Congress to Polish and Baltic armies fighting against the U.S.S.R. in the early 1920’s; the growth of Mussolini’s “corporate state” (as he termed his fascist system of government); the Hearst newspaper chain’s glowing portrayal of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy prior to the outbreak of World War II; the American Legion’s awarding of an honorary membership to Mussolini in 1935; the Curtis-Wright Company’s deliberate betrayal of dive-bombing (a closely-guarded U.S. Navy technique) to the Axis powers; Alger Hiss’ role as special counsel to the Nye-Vandenburg committee (investigating American corporations’ aid to the Axis powers); the Allies’ re-storation of fascist infrastructure in French North Africa and Italy following “liberation;” the British political betrayal of and military attacks upon the anti-fascist partisans in Greece before the end of the war; the formation of guerilla groups established by the Nazis during the war’s closing days in order to fight against the Soviet Union; the adoption of the Nazi guerrilla groups by the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies; the fierce warfare conducted by the fascist guerillas (under Western sponsorship) in Poland and the former Soviet Union until 1953; the incorporation of the Nazi Eastern Front intelligence organization into the CIA (under the stewardship of its wartime head, General Reinhard Gehlen); the Third Reich genesis of many of the “catch-phrases” of the Cold War, including “Better Dead than Red” and “Iron Curtain.”