Cold War (TV series)
| Cold War | |
|---|---|
 Poster | |
| Genre | Documentary |
| Narrated by | Kenneth Branagh |
| Composer | Carl Davis |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 24 |
| Production | |
| Producers | Pat Mitchell and Jeremy Isaacs |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | 46 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | CNN |
| Release | September 27, 1998 – April 4, 1999 |
Cold War is a twenty-four episode television documentary series about the Cold War that first aired in 1998.[1] It features interviews and footage of the events that shaped the tense relationships between the Soviet Union and the United States.
The series was produced by Pat Mitchell and Jeremy Isaacs, who had earlier in 1973 produced the World War II documentary series The World at War in a similar style. Ted Turner funded the series as a joint production between the Turner Broadcasting System and the BBC. It was first broadcast on CNN in the United States between September 27, 1998, and April 4, 1999,[2] and BBC Two in the United Kingdom. Writers included Hella Pick, Jeremy Isaacs, Lawrence Freedman, Neal Ascherson, Hugh O'Shaughnessy and Germaine Greer. Kenneth Branagh was the narrator, and Carl Davis (who also collaborated with Isaacs with The World at War) composed the theme music. Each episode would feature historical footage and interviews from both significant figures and others who had witnessed particular events.
After the series was broadcast it was released as a set of twelve (NTSC) or eight (PAL) VHS cassettes.[1]
The series was released on DVD by Warner Home Video on May 8, 2012, in North America.[3] The archival footage has been cropped for widescreen presentation instead of being left in the original format [4]
The series excluded several Cold War issues and topics, including the Communist takeovers of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in 1975, the subsequent unification of Vietnam and Vietnamese refugee crisis, the mass killings of Communists in Indonesia in 1965, China after
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
, Bulgaria, Albania, and more details on the Dominican crisis of 1965.
Episodes
Each episode lasts approximately 46 minutes.
| No. | Title | Timeline | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Comrades" | 1917–1945 | |
|
Both the United States and the Soviet Union drifted apart after the Vladimir Yerofeyev, Zoya Zarubina, Hugh Lunghi and George Elsey. The pre-credits scene shows the US Congress nuclear bunker at The Greenbrier, and introduces the television series by explaining how for several decades the world was close to a nuclear holocaust . | |||
| 2 | "Iron Curtain" | 1945–1947 | |
|
The wartime allies demobilise – the United States enjoys its economic strength and resurgence while Britain and the rest of Europe is exhausted. A new series of purges takes place in the Soviet Union, and is ravaged by Lord Annan, Sir Frank Roberts and Paul Nitze. The pre-credits scene features Winston Churchill's 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton in the United States, which set the tone for confrontation. | |||
| 3 | "Marshall Plan" | 1947–1952 | |
|
For both altruistic and self-serving purposes, the United States provides massive grants of aid to the countries of Europe in the form of the Vladimir Yerofeyev, Gianni Agnelli and Giulio Andreotti. The pre-credits scene portrays the squalor in post-war Italy, and Truman delivering his Truman Doctrine speech of 1947. | |||
| 4. | "Berlin" | 1948–1949 | |
|
By 1947, the United States placed as a high priority the revival of the German economy, an approach opposed by the Soviet Union. After the introduction of a Berlin airlift in operation. | |||
| 5. | "Korea" | 1949–1953 | |
|
Korea after the Second World War was occupied by both the Soviets and the Americans, who respectively installed Paik Sun Yup and John Glenn . The pre-credits scene shows a battle in progress – the first "hot war" of the Cold War. | |||
| 6. | "Reds" | 1948–1953 | |
|
The fears the leadership of both sides had were projected inwards towards their own people. In the United States the Doctors' Plot, just before Stalin's sudden death in 1953. Interviewees include Arthur Kinoy, Ralph de Toledano and Boris Pokrovsky . The pre-credits scene shows a Soviet labour camp and its victims. | |||
| 7. | "After Stalin" | 1953–1956 | |
|
Poland and, most significantly, Hungary. Interviewees include Anatoly Dobrynin, Charles Wheeler and Sergei Khrushchev . The pre-credits scene shows life in Soviet Union under Stalin's personality cult. | |||
| 8. | "Sputnik" | 1949–1961 | |
|
As a consequence of the space race after Yuri Gagarin's successful return to Earth. Interviewees include Joseph Rotblat, Boris Chertok, Andrew Goodpaster, Herbert York and Gherman Titov . The pre-credits scene features the first Soviet nuclear test in 1949. | |||
| 9. | "The Wall" | 1958–1963 | |
|
West Germany, and West Berlin, become more affluent, prompting a surge of East Germans to cross the borders in Conrad Schumann . The pre-credits scene features East Berliners seeking to flee into the West. | |||
| 10. | "Cuba" | 1959–1962 | |
|
Theodore Sorensen. The pre-credits scene has interviews of Fidel Castro, Robert McNamara and Anatoly Dobrynin explaining how close they felt the world was to a nuclear holocaust. | |||
| 11. | "Vietnam" | 1954–1968 | |
|
After losing the Bui Diem, Jack Valenti and Clark Clifford. The pre-credits scene portrays the destruction caused by the Vietnam War . | |||
| 12. | "MAD" | 1960–1972 | |
|
The United States Palomares incident, not without risk. However some small promise of arms control comes from the SALT Treaty. Interviewees include Russell E. Dougherty, William Kaufmann and Harold Brown. The pre-credits scene has McNamara explaining how MAD was the foundation for deterrence . | |||
| 13. | "Make Love Not War" | 1960s | |
|
The United States entered the 1960s with strength and self-confidence. Kennedy increased arms production, bringing an economic boom to Irwin Allen Ginsberg, Rennie Davis, Bobby Seale and Eugene McCarthy. The pre-credits scene shows The Beatles touring the United States. | |||
| 14. | "Red Spring" | 1960s | |
|
Likewise the Soviet Union started the decade with Vasil Biľak and Yevgeny Yevtushenko. The pre-credits scene show Khrushchev and Czechoslovak leader Antonín Novotný demonstrating solidarity in 1964, in contrast to the Soviet Union ruling by brute force four years later. | |||
| 15. | "China" | 1949–1972 | |
|
Following the Nixon's visit to China, only six years after the Cultural Revolution . | |||
| 16. | "Détente" | 1969–1975 | |
| Nixon builds closer relations with China and the USSR, hoping to leverage an honourable US exit from Indochina. The Soviet Union is fearful of a US-Chinese alliance, but summits between Nixon and Brezhnev lead to a relaxation of tensions and concrete arms control agreements. . The pre-credits scene shows a Soviet cartoon demonstrating the futility of the arms race. | |||
| 17. | "Good Guys, Bad Guys" | 1967–1978 | |
| Under détente the superpowers continued their rivalry, but carefully avoided direct conflict by courting allies in the . The pre-credits scene shows a group of Africans watching a film possibly about Communism, with the narrator noting American fears of Soviet expansionism in the post-colonial world. | |||
| 18. | "Backyard" | 1954–1990 | |
|
The United States saw the emergence of leftist movements in different Latin American countries as threatening to its commercial interests, and secretly plotted with military strongmen and middle class interests concerned with the land reforms and Sandinista government; eventually military actions and economic sanctions push Nicaraguans into voting for anti-Sandinista politician Violeta Chamorro in 1990. Interviewees include Frank Wisner, Hortensia Bussi, Nikolai Leonov, Violeta Chamorro and Daniel Ortega. The pre-credits scene explains that although the USSR avoided intervening in the region, following the Cuban Revolution Castro and Che Guevara sought to spark "100 Vietnams" across Latin America by initiating guerrilla movements. | |||
| 19. | "Freeze" | 1977–1981 | |
|
Carter's ambitious proposals for total multilateral nuclear disarmament are rejected by Brezhnev; his championing of Lech Walesa, Václav Havel and Helmut Schmidt. The pre-credits scene shows the United States basking in confidence during its bicentennial , with the narrator noting détente would shortly be over. | |||
| 20. | "Soldiers of God" | 1975–1988 | |
|
comes to power in Afghanistan and attempts to modernise the country on Marxist-Leninist lines, provoking a rebellion from more traditional power brokers in the country. The Soviets are initially reluctant to intervene militarily, but respond after Taraki is violently replaced by Hafizullah Amin who is considered to be destabilising influence. The Soviets invade Afghanistan, and soon find themselves unprepared facing a hostile army of mujahideen insurgents, secretly armed by the Americans who see the war as an opportunity to wear down the Soviet Union. To achieve mobility in Afghanistan's rugged terrain the Soviet Union uses helicopters, but are thwarted by Stinger missiles. Atrocities are committed by Soviet and mujahideen forces. Eventually Soviet forces would leave Afghanistan under the terms of the Geneva Accords, but bloodshed would continue with rival mujahideen forces fighting each other. Interviewees include Caspar Weinberger, Artyom Borovik and Zbigniew Brzezinski. The pre-credits scene shows a battle in progress and presents the views of the superpowers – the Soviet Union did not want to lose face by being defeated in a proxy war . | |||
| 21. | "Spies" | 1944–1994 | |
|
Throughout the Cold War both sides sought intelligence about their opponents using double agents operating in its midst from information provided by a CIA mole, Aldrich Ames. One such agent, Oleg Gordievsky, managed to flee the Soviet Union, but Adolf Tolkachev and Dmitri Polyakov were arrested, tried and executed. Interviewees include Markus Wolf, Ted Hall, Oleg Kalugin, George Blake, Yuri Modin and Aldrich Ames (who was serving a life sentence). The pre-credits scene shows Polyakov being arrested by the KGB. | |||
| 22. | "Star Wars" | 1981–1988 | |
|
Reagan's 1983 " doveryai, no proveryai. Interviewees include Donald Regan, Sir Charles Powell, Roald Sagdeev and Mikhail Gorbachev . The pre-credits scene shows an advertisement for Reagan's 1984 election campaign. | |||
| 23. | "The Wall Comes Down" | 1989 | |
|
Gorbachev makes clear Eastern European countries were free to determine their own destinies. In Poland dissent in China is never far from the minds of protesters. Just as protests reach a peak, Soviet forces in East Germany are stood down, and Honecker is replaced by an unimpressive Egon Krenz. As a concession travel restrictions are lifted but the new regulations are miscommunicated, and the Berlin Wall is suddenly and irrevocably breached by masses of East Germans. In the momentum, the fate of communism in East Germany is sealed. Interviewees include Mikhail Gorbachev, Miklós Németh, Egon Krenz and George H. W. Bush . The pre-credits scene includes Gorbachev explaining that by 1989, force alone could not secure the world. | |||
| 24. | "Conclusions" | 1989–1991 | |
|
Gorbachev and Bush meet at coup. Boris Yeltsin is instrumental in rallying the public and military to defeat the coup. Sidelining Gorbachev, Yeltsin sets the course for Russia to leave the Soviet Union by establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Soviet Union ends on 26 December 1991, and in his Christmas Day address Bush announces the Cold War is over. The cost of the Cold War is considered in retrospect. Interviewees include Mircea Dinescu, Alexander Rutskoy and Condoleezza Rice . The pre-credits scene features Bush and Gorbachev explaining how uncertain the world had suddenly become. | |||
VHS vs DVD editions
The VHS version is formatted with 4:3 aspect ratio, common for CRT television sets. The interviews are cropped on the sides to fit television screen.
The DVD version is formatted with 16:9 aspect ratio, suitable for widescreen television sets. The archival film is cropped on top and bottom to achieve wider aspect ratio.
-
Archival film example, VHS (left) vs. DVD (right) -
Interview example, VHS (left) vs. DVD (right)
Further reading
- Lowinsky, Benjamin D. "The CNN Series on the Cold War: History as Narrative and Entertainment" (Review). Left History, Vol. 6, No. 1, March 1998, pp. 101–107. .
- Beichman, Arnold, ed. CNN's Cold War Documentary: Issues and Controversy. Hoover Institution, 2000.
References
- ^ a b "Episode 1: Comrades, 1917-1945". CNN: Cold War. Archived from the original on December 10, 2008.
- ^ "Cold War". CNN. Archived from the original on 28 October 2000. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
- ^ "Warner Home Video Press Release: Cold War". hometheaterforum.com, May 8, 2012. Archived from the original.
- ^ "DVD Review: Cold War - The Complete Series". moviefreak.com, May 15, 2012. Archived from the original.
External links
- CNN official website for the series (2014 version)
- CNN official website for the series (original 1998 version, archived by the Wayback Machine)
- The Cold War over CNN's Cold War, Hoover Institutepublication.
- Cold War at IMDb
- All episodes at the Internet Archive
- Extended interviews at the National Security Archive.
