Cold war. Vol. 3. Episodes 9-12: M.A.D.

Volume three of the six volume television series “Cold War” features episodes 9 to 12 and covers the period from 1958 to 1972. The division between East and West Berlin gradually widened as Khrushchev pushed for total control of Berlin. In September 1959 he became the first Soviet leader to visit the United States where he met with President Eisenhower. However with the shooting down of a US spy plane in Soviet air space, relations between the two super powers became decidedly icy. Thousands of East Berliners flowed into West Berlin and in an effort to stem the flow, East German and Soviet troops, on the morning of 13 August 1961, sealed the East German border with barricades which eventually became the Wall, the supreme symbol of the Cold War’s cruelty and Europe’s division. Meanwhile in 1959 a revolution was taking place in Cuba lead by the charasmatic Fidel Castro. Cuban land and industry had been almost totally controlled by American corporations but under Castro’s rule, nationalisation became the agenda. John F. Kennedy became President of the United States in January 1961 and immediately found himself embroiled in a CIA plot to overthrow Castro and subsequently the famous Bay of Pigs invasion which almost brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster as Khrushchev (supporting Castro) and JFK played out a deadly game of power. Also featured in this volume is the history of the Vietnam Conflict from its beginning in 1954 in Dien Bien Phu when the French, backed by the United States lost control of their Vietnamese colony and were defeated by the Communist lead army of General Giap. And finally the 1960s and the arms race between the super powers where the world’s safety relied on a nuclear paradox known as “Mutually Assured Destruction” or “MAD” where if either side initiated nuclear warfare, the other side would respond with sufficient power to inflict unacceptable damage. With Vietnam and the Six Day War in the Middle East, tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States almost reached bursting point finally leading to negotiations in 1969 known as SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks). Narrated by Kenneth Branagh. (For more information see www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold war)