Free Republic

March 5th is the anniversary of Winston Churchill's epoch-making "iron curtain" speech in 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri - the most famous acknowledgement of the existence of a "Cold War" between Russia and the West, which put an end to the alliance that defeated the Nazis in World War II. The Cold War, which would often became quite hot in places like Korea and Vietnam - and damn near led to a nuclear exchange during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 - continued for 45 years until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. "From Stettin in...

Honoring the Red Army of Josef Stalin Posted at 3:12pm on Jun. 30, 2008 Democrat Congressman Tim Mahoney (FL-16): Honoring Those Who Defended the Soviet Union By Jeff Emanuel Tim Mahoney, freshman Democrat Congressman from Florida, really, really loves the troops. Remember last March, when he responded to questions about whether or not the 'surge' in Iraq would work by famously saying "So what"? Well, forget it -- Tim Mahoney loves the troops, and don't you dare think otherwise.He loves them so much that he wants every person in his district to know how much he loves, and honors, the...

TOKYO - Col. Masanobu Tsuji was a fanatical Japanese militarist and brutal warrior, hunted after World War II for massacres of Chinese civilians and complicity in the Bataan Death March. And then he became a U.S. spy. Newly declassified CIA records, released by the U.S. National Archives and examined by The Associated Press, document more fully than ever how Tsuji and other suspected Japanese war criminals were recruited by U.S. intelligence in the early days of the Cold War. The documents also show how ineffective the effort was, in the CIA's view. The records, declassified in 2005 and 2006 under...

An NRO Q&A Elizabeth Edwards Spalding, assistant professor of government and director of the Washington program at Claremont McKenna College calls Harry Truman the First Cold Warrior. She recently took questions from NRO Editor Kathryn Lopez about her book, The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, And the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism. Kathryn Jean Lopez: Why isn’t FDR the first Cold Warrior? Elizabeth Edwards Spalding: FDR thought he could keep the Soviet Union satisfied through spheres of influence and his personal style of diplomacy. So FDR was willing to legitimate the Kremlin in a way that Truman never allowed. Even...

A Brief History of MADness Mutually Assured Destruction. MAD. It is a doctrine that came into being during the Cold War. The superpowers on the world stage consisted of two nations: the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The USA: a capitalist constitutional republic that believes that the government should serve the people, protecting the inalienable rights given to us by God. The USSR: a union of countries ruled by communism that believes that the government dictates what is best for the people, and that the government determines the rights of the people. Two polar opposites. Both were...

            I stumbled over the website of the Committee on the Present Danger. [1] Senator Jon Kyl, Joseph Leiberman, George Schultz and James Woolsey are honorary Co-Chariman of the group. Believing the organization to be opposed to communism and other forms of terrorism I gave some thought to sending in my application for membership, but before doing so I decided to look into the group a bit further.            While I discovered that the intent and purpose of the group is sound, I am not quite certain what it has actually accomplished toward its objective.            I found that the original purpose...

The Soviet Union might still exist and Saddam Hussein might control the Persian Gulf and possess nuclear weapons had Democrat John Kerry been president when the United States faced those regimes, Vice President Dick Cheney said Saturday. "I think it's a good thing that he wasn't in charge," Cheney said. Kerry asserted Friday that had he been president during the war in Afghanistan, terrorist leader Osama bin Laden would be in captivity or dead. The Democratic nominee has long criticized President Bush for abandoning the pursuit of the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks so that U.S....

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- President Fidel Castro fell, possibly breaking his leg, after giving a graduation speech Wednesday in the central Cuban city of Santa Clara. Sending a buzz through the crowd, the 78-year-old leader appeared to trip as he was walking away from the podium. In an effort to calm the crowd, Castro took the microphone after a few minutes, saying: "Just so that there won't be any speculation, it seems that I broke my knee." He apologized for any concerns he may have caused for those who care about him and then joked how his spill was likely...

For nearly 20 years during the height of the Cold War, Boris Aleksandrovich Solomatin, oversaw most of the KGB's anti-American spy operations. The now-retired major general played a key role in the "handling" of John Walker Jr., the Navy officer who headed the most damaging spy ring ever to operate against the United States. Solomatin also recruited Glenn Michael Souther, a lesser-known Navy officer, who provided the KGB with some of America's nuclear war plans before eluding the FBI and fleeing to Moscow where he committed suicide in 1989. The Souther case is worth noting because he is considered to...