Two Minutes to Midnight 1953 - The Year of Living Dangerously - Roger Hermiston

Category: History, Political
Language: English
Keywords: Churchill Cold War Eisenhower Imperialism Soviet Union Stalin War

Written by Roger Hermiston
Read by Jonathan Keeble
Format: M4B
Bitrate: 64 Kbps

January 1953. Eight years on from the most destructive conflict in human history, the Cold War enters its deadliest phase.

An Iron Curtain has descended across Europe, and hostilities have turned hot on the Korean peninsula as the United States and Soviet Union clash in an intractable and bloody proxy war. Former wartime allies have grown far apart. An ageing Winston Churchill yearns for peace with the Kremlin - but new American President Dwight Eisenhower cautions the West not to drop its guard. Joseph Stalin, implacable as ever, conducts vicious campaigns against imaginary internal enemies.

Meanwhile, the pace of the nuclear arms race has become frenetic and for the first time, the Doomsday Clock is set at two minutes to midnight, with the risk of a man-made global apocalypse increasingly likely. As the Cold War powers square up, every city has become a potential battleground.

Soundings, Jan 2025
14 hours and 19 minutes