Cold War — Bunk History

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Photos and newspaper clippings connected with red string

How We Lost Our Minds About UFOs

No, aliens haven’t visited the Earth. Why are so many smart people insisting otherwise?

by Nicholson Baker via Intelligencer on January 31, 2024

A kindergarten teacher coaches a group of crouched children to duck and cover in a national air raid drill, Chicago, 1954.

The Politics of Fear Is Damaging American Education—And Has Been for Decades

Politicians have often sought to remedy educational panic with remedies that do more harm than good.

by Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz via Made By History on December 14, 2023

A few people are gathered at the Atoms For Peace bus, a mobile exhibit about nuclear power operated for a time by the Atomic Energy Commission. c. 1947.

‘Atoms for Peace’ Was Never All That Peaceful—And the World Is Still Living With the Consequences

The U.S. sought to rebrand nuclear power as a source of peace, but this message helped mask a violent history.

by Tommy Song via Made By History on December 8, 2023

Nixon examining a roll of microfilm with a magnifying glass.

Microfilm Hidden in a Pumpkin Launched Richard Nixon’s Career 75 Years Ago

On Dec. 2, 1948, evidence stashed in a hollowed-out pumpkin incriminated suspected Soviet spy Alger Hiss and boosted a young Richard Nixon’s political status.

by Gordon F. Sander via Retropolis on December 2, 2023

A People’s Obituary of Henry Kissinger

For decades, Kissinger kept the great wheel of American militarism spinning ever forward.

by Greg Grandin via The Nation on November 30, 2023

Henry Kissinger, Who Shaped World Affairs Under Two Presidents, Dies at 100

He was the only person ever to be national security adviser and secretary of state at the same time. He was also the target of relentless critics.

by Thomas W. Lippman via Washington Post on November 30, 2023

Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies

In a demonstration of why he was able to kill so many people and get away with it, the day of his passage will be a solemn one in Congress and newsrooms.

by Spencer Ackerman via Rolling Stone on November 30, 2023

Henry Kissinger, 1975.

Henry Kissinger: The Declassified Obituary

The primary sources on Kissinger’s controversial legacy.

by Peter Kornbluh, Tom Blanton, William Burr via National Security Archive on November 29, 2023

The crime scene. A woman's body lies in the middle of a clearning next to the river, surrounded by coroners and police

Bad Shot, Mary

The mistress of JFK, there was a lot more than wealth, whiteness, and femininity to make Mary Pinchot Meyer a target of murder.

by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Apocalypse Confidential on November 22, 2023

British trade unionists blockade a weapons factory on November 10th, 2023.

The Problem of the Unionized War Machine

Union workers in the US weapons industry present a paradox for anti-war labor activists, but a history of “conversion” campaigns offers a route.

by Jeff Schuhrke via Jewish Currents on November 22, 2023

From left: snow, three men, and several vehicles with large tires.

The U.S. Army Tried to Build a Secret Nuclear City under Greenland’s Ice

Long before Greenland’s shifting ice threatened sea level rise, it doomed one of the military’s most audacious Cold War projects.

by George Bass via Washington Post on November 13, 2023

Hand holding a gun painted like the American flag.

The Real Origins of America’s Gun Culture

“Gun Country” chronicles the transformation of guns from tangible weapons to ideological ammunition during the Cold War.

by Becca Rothfeld via Washington Post on November 9, 2023

Israeli artillerymen plug their ears while laying down a barrage on Syrian positions.

The Arab-Israeli War 50 Years Ago Brought Us Close to Nuclear Armageddon

As world leaders scramble to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from escalating, it is often forgotten just how close the Yom Kippur War came to all-out nuclear war.

by Gordon F. Sander via Washington Post on October 10, 2023

Woman leading a group of twelve other women in floor exercises.

Fit Nation

A conversation about "the gains and pains of America’s exercise obsession."

by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Lara Freidenfelds via Nursing Clio on September 27, 2023

Two Cheers for the Cold War Liberals

There are certainly good grounds to criticize Cold War liberalism. But Samuel Moyn's new book, like similar critiques, has a classic baby-bathwater problem.

by Joseph Stieb via War on the Rocks on September 15, 2023

Dangers and Enemies Everywhere

How Cold War liberalism abandoned the vocabulary of hope—and how we still live with the consequences.

by George Scialabba via Democracy Journal on September 14, 2023

"Spy vs. Spy" pointy-headed characters facing each other

Rethinking Spy vs. Spy: A Hand From One Page, A Bomb From Another

Like the spies themselves, the image we have of something is often what gets us in trouble.

by Gyasi Hall via Longreads on September 12, 2023

Students hiding under desks during an air raid test

Is Liberalism a Politics of Fear?

A conversation about the Cold War’s profound and negative influence on the liberal worldview.

by Samuel Moyn, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on September 11, 2023

John F. Kennedy shaking hands with Lyndon Johnson and Walter George

Samuel Moyn Can’t Stop Blaming Trumpism on Liberals

"Liberalism Against Itself" makes an incoherent attack on liberalism.

by Jonathan Chait via Intelligencer on September 7, 2023

Cover of "Liberalism Against Itself"

Memo to Liberals: The Cold War is Over

In “Liberalism Against Itself,” Samuel Moyn stresses the need to resuscitate an earlier and more rousing wave of thinkers.

by Becca Rothfeld via Washington Post on August 11, 2023

George Kennan sitting at his desk.

George Kennan, Loser

The American foreign policy sage was driven as much by pessimism about the US as antipathy to the Soviet Union.

by Ivan Krastev, Leonard Benardo via New Statesman on August 10, 2023

Figurine of man with his head in a kiln (from the Metropolitan Museum of Art).

The Corporatization of Creativity

Our ways of thinking about thinking are a product of postwar business culture.

by Charlie Tyson via The Chronicle of Higher Education on July 24, 2023

J. Robert Oppenheimer

"Cry Baby Scientist": What Oppenheimer the Film Gets Wrong about Oppenheimer the Man

The so-called "father of the bomb" helped bring us prematurely into the age of existential risk.

by Haydn Belfield via Vox on July 22, 2023

Actor portraying Oppenheimer.

The Real History Behind Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer'

The "father of the atomic bomb" has long been misunderstood. Will the new film finally get J. Robert Oppenheimer right?

by Andy Kifer via Smithsonian on July 18, 2023

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signing the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Reduction Treaty in Washington, D.C., in December 1987.

The Myth of Reagan’s Cold War Toughness Haunts American Foreign Policy

Hawks may claim that uncompromising defense policies won the Cold War. But his pursuit of peace was more important.

by Sean T. Byrnes via The New Republic on July 6, 2023

Franz Kafka

How Franz Kafka Achieved Cult Status in Cold War America

And the origins of the term “Kafkaesque.”

by Brian K. Goodman via Literary Hub on July 5, 2023

Illustrated portrait of Don DeLillo against a firey background.

Secret Histories

Don DeLillo's Cold Wars.

by Siddhartha Deb via The Nation on June 26, 2023

Daniel Ellsberg speaking to the press.

Daniel Ellsberg’s Life Beyond the Pentagon Papers

After revealing the government’s lies about Vietnam, Ellsberg spent six decades as an anti-nuclear activist, getting arrested in civil-disobedience protests.

by Ben Bradlee Jr. via The New Yorker on June 16, 2023

Mexican president José López Portillo at a press conference on May 19, 1980.

Declassified Documents Uncover Yet Another Mexican President’s CIA Ties

Recently declassified documents have exposed former Mexican president José López Portillo as a CIA asset.

by Fernando Herrera Calderón via Jacobin on June 13, 2023

Shredded "Don't Tread On Me" flag.

The Long Afterlife of Libertarianism

As a movement, it has imploded. As a credo, it’s here to stay.

by Benjamin Wallace-Wells via The New Yorker on May 29, 2023

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