{"podcast":{"title":"Cold War Conversations - \"vivid & compelling\" The NY Times","slug":"cold-war-conversations-vivid-compelling-the-ny-times-1014119","podcast_index_feed_id":1014119,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/NSR5326520675","website_url":"http://www.coldwarconversations.com","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/4c941332-cd54-11ed-891b-5f881caae663/image/da8be3ef2859660cc8ab746c9a7dd7ed.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"Ian Sanders","episode_count":460,"summary":"Experience the Cold War like never before with Cold War Conversations — an award-winning podcast recommended by The New York Times. Each week, host Ian Sanders brings you raw, firsthand accounts from the people who lived through one of history’s most tense and transformative eras — soldiers, spies, civilians, and more. These aren’t stories from textbooks. They’re unfiltered voices from the frontlines of history — emotional, gripping, and deeply human. This is Cold War history, told from the inside out. We cover subjects such as spies, spying, the Iron Curtain, nuclear weapons, warfare, tanks, jet aircraft, fighters, bombers, transport aircraft, aviation, culture, and politics. We also cover personalities such as Fidel Castro, JFK, Ronald Reagan, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Mikhail Gorbachev, Konstantin Chernenko, Margaret Thatcher, John F. Kennedy, Josef Stalin, Richard Nixon, Lech Walesa, General Jaruzelski, Nicolae Ceaușescu. Other subjects include Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, West Berlin, East Berlin, Cuban missile Crisis, Berlin Airlift, Bay of Pigs, SALT, Perestroika, Space Race, superpower, USSR, Soviet Union, DDR, G…","last_synced_at":"2026-06-13T22:20:29.243580+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cold-war-conversations-vivid-compelling-the-ny-times-1014119"},"episode":{"title":"American MiG Pilot: Inside the Top Secret USAF \"Red Eagles\" MiG Squadron Part 2 (445)","slug":"american-mig-pilot-inside-the-top-secret-usaf-red-eagles-mig-squadron-part-2-445","published_at":"2026-02-28T00:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cold-war-conversations-vivid-compelling-the-ny-times-1014119/american-mig-pilot-inside-the-top-secret-usaf-red-eagles-mig-squadron-part-2-445","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cold-war-conversations-vivid-compelling-the-ny-times-1014119","url":"https://coldwarconversations.com/episode445/","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NSR7383801442.mp3?updated=1771000044","summary":"Lt Col Rob “Z-Man” Zettel is the author of American MiG Pilot - Inside the Top Secret USAF “Red Eagles. He tells the Red Eagles story for the first time through the experiences of a pilot who flew Soviet MiGs to their maximum performance in simulated combat engagements, often several times a day, against some of the very best fighter pilots hand-picked from the ranks of the USAF, US Navy and US Marine Corps. With controls labelled in Russian and the only spare parts being the ones they could salvage, the pilots who climbed into the MiGs - the Red Eagles - accepted all of the risks associated with operating these aircraft. Rob’s vivid accounts of training engagements put the reader right in the cockpit as he describes what it was like to be there day in and day out at one of the most access-restricted airfields in the entire USAF, flying MiGs. In part two of our story, we join him for his first interview for the Red Eagles. Buy the book here and support the podcast⁠ Episode extras here ⁠https://coldwarconversations.com/episode445 Listen to Part 1 here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode444/ Similar episodes: The first Western pilot to fly the MIG-29 Soviet fighter plane https://coldwarconversations.com/episode106/ Low Flying the USAF F-111 Nuclear Bomber & Operation EL Dorado Canyon https://coldwarconversations.com/episode358/ ⁠ Go to ⁠https://surfshark.com/coldwardeal⁠ or use code COLDWARDEAL at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN! Help me preserve Cold War history via a simple monthly donation, You’ll become part of our community, get ad-free episodes, and receive a sought-after CWC coaster as a thank-you, and you’ll bask in the warm glow of knowing you are helping to preserve Cold War history. Just go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/⁠…","meta_description":"Lt Col Rob “Z-Man” Zettel is the author of American MiG Pilot - Inside the Top Secret USAF “Red Eagles. He tells the Red Eagles story for the first time t…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2900,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/cold-war-conversations-vivid-compelling-the-ny-times-1014119/episodes/american-mig-pilot-inside-the-top-secret-usaf-red-eagles-mig-squadron-part-2-445/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cold-war-conversations-vivid-compelling-the-ny-times-1014119/american-mig-pilot-inside-the-top-secret-usaf-red-eagles-mig-squadron-part-2-445.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}