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The CIA: Cold War Operations

The CIA, Cold War espionage, and covert operations come under the microscope in this meticulously researched history podcast that pulls back the curtain on America's most secretive intelligence agency. From the shadow wars of the 1950s to the proxy conflicts and psychological operations that defined the latter half of the twentieth century, The CIA: Cold War Operations takes listeners deep inside the coups, assassinations, defections, and disinformation campaigns that shaped the modern world — and that most history books still won't touch. Each episode focuses on a single pivotal operation, reconstructing events through declassified documents, firsthand accounts, and expert analysis. We ask not just what happened, but why it happened, who gave the order, and what the world looks like today as a result. Beginning with Iran 1953 — the blueprint coup that launched a generation of covert intervention — the show traces how a fledgling postwar agency transformed itself into a global force capable of toppling governments and rewriting history. Whether you're a Cold War history enthusiast, a fan of true espionage, or simply someone who wants to understand the hidden machinery behind twentieth-century geopolitics, this podcast delivers the context, the characters, and the consequences that mainstream history often leaves out. New episodes drop regularly. Subscribe now and never look at the headlines the same way again.

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13 episodes · Verified by YesOui

Episodes

Latest episodes

10 Jul 2026 · 15 min

The Hostage Loop: How Iran-Contra Collapsed Under Its Own Weight

The Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran, funnelled the profits to Nicaraguan rebels, and then lied to Congress about all of it — Iran-Contra was the moment forty years of CIA covert logic finally broke. This episode follows the scheme from Oliver North's basement operation to William Casey's testimony, and asks how a constitutional crisis was allowed to build in plain sight.
9 Jul 2026 · 12 min

Arms, Hostages, and the Contra Loop: Inside Iran-Contra's Hidden Architecture

Iran-Contra wasn't just a scandal — it was a covert system: arms to an enemy state, hostage money rerouted to a proxy war, and a White House basement operation that rewrote the rules of American power. This episode dismantles every thread of the deal that couldn't officially exist.
8 Jul 2026 · 13 min

Operation Cyclone: The Weapons America Sent — and Left Behind

Operation Cyclone was the largest covert program in CIA history — but arming the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets planted seeds that would haunt America for decades. This episode traces the pipeline: Charlie Wilson, the Stinger missile debate, and the ISI distribution network that shaped the modern world.
7 Jul 2026 · 14 min

The Church Committee: When Congress Forced the CIA to Answer

In 1975, the Church Committee tore open decades of CIA covert operations — assassinations, illegal surveillance, and coups — forcing the first real public reckoning with American intelligence. This is the episode where the machine had to explain itself.
6 Jul 2026 · 11 min

Washington's Embrace: Recognising Pinochet Within 48 Hours

Salvador Allende won a free election — Nixon and Kissinger spent three years ensuring it didn't matter. This episode traces the CIA's covert war on Chilean democracy and the White House's swift embrace of what replaced it.
5 Jul 2026 · 12 min

Make the Economy Scream: Chile, 1970–1973

Salvador Allende won a free election — so the CIA set about destroying him anyway. This is the full story of Track One, Track Two, and the coup that brought Pinochet to power.
4 Jul 2026 · 13 min

Phoenix Program: The War Inside the War

The CIA's Phoenix Program didn't fight the Viet Cong army — it systematically dismantled the shadow government beneath it. This is the story of index cards, midnight raids, and 81,000 'neutralisations' that haunted a generation.
3 Jul 2026 · 14 min

Operation Gold & the U-2: When the CIA's Best Secrets Were Already Blown

The Berlin Tunnel and the U-2 programme were two of the CIA's most daring Cold War intelligence gambits — and both were compromised before they ever delivered a clean secret. This episode uncovers how George Blake and Francis Gary Powers brought two audacious operations crashing down.
2 Jul 2026 · 12 min

Mongoose: The Assassination Plots That Unravelled a Superpower

Operation Mongoose promised to remove Fidel Castro by any means necessary — exploding cigars, poisoned milkshakes, mob hitmen, and a fungus-laced diving suit. This is the story of how Cold War fear dismantled the CIA's judgment entirely.
1 Jul 2026 · 12 min

Plausible Deniability: Why the Bay of Pigs Was Doomed Before Dawn

In April 1961, the CIA landed 1,400 Cuban exiles on a remote beach and watched the operation collapse within 72 hours — not from bad luck, but from compounding institutional failures built into the plan from the start. This is the full story of how confidence became catastrophe.
30 Jun 2026 · 12 min

PBSUCCESS: The Playbook Is Written in Guatemala

In June 1954, the CIA toppled Guatemala's democratically elected president Jacobo Árbenz using a fake radio station, a handful of exiles, and a blueprint that would define covert regime change for decades. This is how PBSUCCESS worked — and why the lessons the agency took from it were the wrong ones.
29 Jun 2026 · 12 min

Operation Ajax: How the CIA Learned to Topple Governments

In 1953, Britain sold America its first coup — and the CIA bought it. Operation Ajax set the template for covert regime change that would define the Cold War for decades.
28 Jun 2026 · 17 min

Iran 1953: The Coup That Built the CIA's Playbook

In 1953, the CIA toppled Iran's democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh — and invented the template for every covert regime-change operation that followed. This is where the doctrine of plausible deniability stopped being theory and became policy.