Cameron and Ray pick up Fidel Castro’s story in 1948 as he returns from Colombia in the wake of the Bogotazo riots. We follow Castro through his early 20s as he campaigns for Eduardo Chibás, clashes with Havana police over accusations of corruption, and narrowly escapes being framed for murder. The conversation dives into the student-led bus fare protests—linked to shady U.S. business deals—that propelled Castro into the spotlight. We hear about his whirlwind romance and three-month honeymoon in the United States, his growing fascination with Marxist thought, and his balancing act between rival student gangs and political factions. The episode ends with the murder of his close friend, fellow activist Manolo Fuentes, a turning point that forces Castro to reconsider his alliances and the dangerous reality of Havana’s violent political landscape.

When the U.S. troops landed in Cuba, it changed the nature of the war. The old racism returned. Of course, when the war was over in July, the U.S. had no intention of letting the Cuban people have their independence. As the commander of US forces in Cuba said: “Why, these people are no more fit for self-government than gunpowder is for hell.” In the fight for freedom, lives had been lost and the country had been wiped out economically. Yet the Cubans still weren’t going to get their independence.

In this raucous and revelatory episode of _The Cold War Podcast_, Cameron and Ray finally reach the man of the hour: Fulgencio Batista. From humble military stenographer to kingmaker of a chaotic Cuba, Batista’s rise is traced through coups, constitutions, and crushing dissent. Cameron performs a blistering freestyle rap tribute to Ray (“Ray Bear Has No Hair”), then the duo dive into Batista’s reign, the boom years of WWII, puppet governments, violent suppression of opposition, and the eerie parallels to authoritarian creep in modern democracies. The episode also explores the cultural fallout of constant violence, Fidel Castro’s formative influences, and the suicide of Eduardo Chibás on live radio—a moment that cemented Castro’s revolutionary zeal. Come for the history, stay for the dick jokes, cos this one’s got everything.

Professor Campbell Craig is the Professor of International Relations at Cardiff University.

He has held senior fellowships at Yale University, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the European University Institute, and, most recently, at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Bristol, and has given invited lectures at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Chicago, Columbia, Cambridge, Sciences-Po, the Free University of Berlin, the London School of Economics, University of Copenhagen, and other universities.

His most recent books are The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War (with Sergey Radchenko), and America’s Cold War: the Politics of Insecurity (with Fredrik Logevall).

Some people have said 1983 was the most dangerous year in human history. On four separate occasions, the U.S.A. and the USSR nearly ended up in a hot nuclear war. Soviet leaders apparently became deeply worried that the US was preparing to launch a surprise nuclear attack on the USSR under the cover of a NATO exercise titled ‘Able Archer.’ Brian J. Morra is a former U.S. intelligence officer and a retired senior aerospace executive who took part in the events of 1983 and has written an excellent and terrifying book on the topic, “The Able Archers”. He’s our guest today. We talk about the events of 1983, why 2024 might be even more dangerous, and why world leaders haven’t learned the lessons of 1983. 

In this episode of Cold War, Cameron and Ray dig into the aftermath of Batista’s March 1952 coup in Cuba and how it shaped Fidel Castro’s early strategies. The conversation explores Castro’s proclamation denouncing the coup, his first failed attempts to rally the public, and why the Cuban people weren’t yet ready for revolution. We see how Castro pivoted from politics to pamphlets, protests, lawsuits, and eventually the realization that only a professional revolutionary force could succeed. Along the way, the hosts connect Batista’s propaganda playbook with U.S. media bias, draw parallels to Iran’s 1953 coup, and reflect on the timeless tactics of seizing power. They also detour into the Mob’s growing influence in Havana and the darker history of honeypot operations linking Epstein, Maxwell, and intelligence agencies.

We all know that Tibet and China have a history, and that the U.S.A. is always in the middle of it. But you may not know that The United States recognizes Tibet to be part of the People’s Republic of China or that the UK and the U.S.A. have spent over a century trying to wrest control over Tibet away from China. This is part one of that story.

As the Yalta conference now turns to whether or not France should have a role in the occupation of Germany, the Allied Control Commission and the UN Security Council, we thought it was a good time to do a quick bio on France’s post-WWII leader, Charles de Gaulle, aka “The Big Asparagus Stalk”, aka “Chucky D”.

 Part One of our mini-biography of everyone’s favorite wheelchair pilot, FDR. His family background (opium traders), his rise, his polio, his affairs, his reforms, his ballsy attitude, his assassination attempt, his concentration camps and how incredibly fucked America was when he was sworn in. In 1933, the US was in dire straits. Three years into the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and a third-rate military. When he died in 1945, it was the world’s leading economic and military superpower.

Today we interview Andrea Balis & Elizabeth Levy, co-authors of the book “Witch Hunt: The Cold War, Joe McCarthy, and the Red Scare”, a cutting-edge look into a pivotal moment in US history: McCarthy’s infamous “witch hunt” for communists during the 1950’s Red Scare.

Today we have another special guest – Pulitzer Prize-winning author, the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Professor of History in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences – Prof Fredrik Logevall. He’s also the co-author of America’s Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity (co-authored with Campbell Craig, who we had on in episode 20).

Part 3 of our three-part series on economics and war, where we drill down into the various ways companies profiteer from war and how it stimulates the economy via “Military Keynesianism”.