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In the thick of the Cold War, the Soviet Union built an immense vessel to carry their troops across the seas and into Western Europe. Equipped with nuclear warheads and able to blast across the sea at 340 mph, the Lun-class Ekranoplane; part plane, part boat, and part hovercraft — is a Ground Effect Vehicle (GEV). A GEV takes advantage of an aeronautical effect that allows it to lift off with an immense amount of weight, but limits its flight to 16 feet above the waves. Its altitude can never be greater than the length of the wings. Think of...

WASHINGTON: Noting that India is increasingly getting concerned about China's posture on its border, a top US intelligence official on Wednesday said that the Indian Army is strengthening itself for a "limited conflict" with China. "Despite public statements intended to downplay tensions between India and China, we judge that India is increasingly concerned about China's posture along their disputed border and Beijing's perceived aggressive posture in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific region," director of national intelligence James Clapper said in his prepared testimony before the Senate Select Committee on intelligence. "The Indian Army believes a major Sino-Indian conflict is not...

In the thick of the Cold War, the Soviet Union built an immense vessel to carry their troops across the seas and into Western Europe. Equipped with nuclear warheads and able to blast across the sea at 340 mph, the Lun-class Ekranoplane; part plane, part boat, and part hovercraft — is a Ground Effect Vehicle (GEV). A GEV takes advantage of an aeronautical effect that allows it to lift off with an immense amount of weight, but limits its flight to 16 feet above the waves. Its altitude can never be greater than the length of the wings. Think of...

Tomas Alfredson's marvellously chill adaptation of John Le Carré's cold war thriller features a delicate performance from Gary Oldman along with a first-rate supporting cast. A thunderstorm rolled into Venice overnight, flash-bulbing the sky and lancing the boil of heat that has enveloped the city these past six days. One could have sworn that the temperature dropped still further, to practically Baltic levels, during the morning screening of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a marvellously chill and acrid cold war thriller from Swedish director Tomas Alfredson. Right here, right now, it's the film to beat at this year's festival.

"For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets. They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized "cleanroom" where the equipment was stored. They spoke in code...."

This undated image made available by the National Reconnaissance Office is a declassified image of a man standing next to a satellite control section from the Hexagon program. DANBURY, Conn. – For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets. They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized "cleanroom" where the equipment was stored. They spoke in code. Few knew the true identity of "the customer" they met...

The forthcoming launch of an advanced Indian missile has elicited a rebuke of India by the Chinese Communist Party daily. The Indian press fussed about an editorial in the Chinese Communist Party organ, the People's Daily, that expressed concern over the forthcoming February launch of India's new Agni-V missile. This missile with a 6000 km range has MIRV capability, meaning that it can carry multiple warheads. According to the Chinese daily, the launch reflected India's engagement in balance of power politics as well as Indian aspiration to strengthen its military and acquire a military clout commensurate with its status as...

If it's a quiet life you are after or you are worried about the end of the world, this underground bunker could be answer to your dreams. It's nuclear and biochemically bomb proof and has enough room for an army. In fact, this Cold War missile silo was once owned by the U.S. military. Today the 185-acre site which cost $18 million to build back in the Fifties is for sale at $1.72 million (£1.1m). It is owned by cousins and business partners Bruce Francisco and Gregory Gibbons who bought the base in Saranac, upstate New York, in 1991 and...

Lech Walesa said that there would not be a free Poland without Ronald Reagan, during the unveiling of a statue in Warsaw of the late American president on Monday.The former Solidarity leader said that “as a participant in these events,” it was “inconceivable” that such changes would have come about without the last American president during the post-1945 cold-war era. Walesa added that thirty years ago, it seemed that the fall of the communist system would not be possible without a nuclear war. The bronze statue of Reagan has been installed not far from the American Embassy, on Ujazdowskie Avenue,...

WASHINGTON -- The death of Fred Ikle last week inspires me to prophesy. Thus far, only the redoubtable Wall Street Journal has remarked on Fred's passing. That he was a formidable mind during the Cold War and important to the peaceful settlement of that decades-long struggle is remembered thanks to the Journal. Yet, to the rest of the media, he is a minor figure -- perhaps a menacing figure. We shall see what they say, but I am not holding my breath. This is the way liberalism creates the Kultursmog, which is to say, the politicized culture that surrounds us....

I just interviewed MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews about his new book, "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero." You know things didn't go well when, a few minutes after the interview concludes, Matthews' booker emails my producer: "I wish you would've let me know that Larry was planning on attacking Chris. Chris is always up for a good, healthy debate, but that was really not professional or cool." To which my talented, hardworking producer, Jason Rose, responded: "Larry addressed historical accounts directly related to the subject matter of Mr. Matthews' book. Larry doesn't agree with the one-sidedness of the book's portrayal of...

The following is an excerpt from “Bowing to Beijing” (Regnery Publishing, Nov. 14, 2011): In November 1997, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism that “we’re facing the possibility of an electronic Pearl Harbor. … There is going to be an electronic attack on this country some time in the future.” Two years later, he told a secret session of the House Armed Services Committee, “We are at war - right now. We are in cyberwar.” Fast-forward more than a decade, to 2011. President Obama’s choice for secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, tells the Senate...

President Obama is creating a post-American world - one that is ushering in the dominance of China. Mr. Obama is fostering U.S. economic and military decline while simultaneously empowering Beijing’s rise to superpower status. China’s communists are on the march. Unless Americans wake up to the growing threat, both internal and external, our victory in the Cold War will have been useless. This is the disturbing theme of “Bowing to Beijing: How Barack Obama Is Hastening America’s Decline and Ushering a Century of Chinese Domination,” by Brett M. Decker, editorial page editor of The Washington Times, and William C. Triplett...

Operation Urgent Fury Grenada President Reagan orders U.S. Marines, Army Rangers, Navy Special Warfare teams, and other military forces to invade Grenada, citing a takeover of the tiny Caribbean Island by "a brutal group of leftist thugs." U.S. troops, along with a small force from six Caribbean nations, overcome surprisingly strong resistance from Cubans, who support the island's new regime. A day after the invasion, the troops begin evacuating 1,100 U.S. citizens on the island.

"The last of the nation's most powerful nuclear bombs — a weapon hundreds of times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima — is being disassembled nearly half a century after it was put into service at the height of the Cold War. The final components of the B53 bomb will be broken down Tuesday at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, the nation's only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility. The completion of the dismantling program is a year ahead of schedule, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, and aligns with President Barack Obama's goal...

In 1974, a Trabant -- an old East German car -- was chugging through the Thuringian countryside, a province in the communist German Democratic Republic.In its passenger seat sat Professor Joseph Ratzinger and at the wheel was Father Joachim Wanke, then an assistant at a local seminary -- the only one in the GDR.The two priests, writes Rainer Erice, a journalist for the German radio station Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk Thüringen (MDR), were on a harmless sightseeing tour, taking in the historic cities of Jena and Weimar. It was a moment of relaxation during Father Ratzinger's short visit to East Germany, the...

Addressing the ceremony on Bernauer Street, famously divided by the Wall and now site of a memorial, Mayor Wowereit said the capital was remembering the "saddest day in its recent history". "It is our common responsibility to keep alive the memories and pass them on to the next generation, to maintain freedom and democracy and to do everything so that such injustices may never happen again," he said. At a ceremony at a former crossing-point, President Wulff said the wall had been "an expression of fear" of those who created it.

Today, with a statue in the appropriately named Freedom Square in Budapest, Hungarians will honor the man who helped secure their freedom at last from Communist rule. It is just one of four celebrations being held this week across Europe to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan organized by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. The Czech Republic, Poland and Great Britain will also hold events in honor of the 40th president and his legacy in bringing down the Iron Curtain. Reagan pursued his three-pronged strategy to win the Cold War. The first two prongs of this...

South Korean Marines fired rifles at a South Korean commercial aircraft flying near the sea border with North Korea, thinking it was one of the communist North's jet fighters, but they never hit their target, military sources said on Saturday. The shooting illustrates the level of tension between the two Koreas, still technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty, which came close to all-out war last year. A Marine Corps spokesman said two soldiers guarding an island on the waters off the South's western city of Incheon fired their K-2...

WASHINGTON, June 9, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, Voice of Russia (VOR) Radio announces the launch of two U.S. stations in New York and Washington, D.C. The new stations will air live programming with the Russian perspective on international news, culture, arts and events over 1430 AM and 1390 AM frequency, respectively. The stations mark the first time VOR will produce programming directly from the United States rather than broadcasting news from the Moscow-based radio program. "This is a very significant move for Voice of Russia because it is the first time in the history of the station that material being...

There is little doubt that global socialism is on the march and arguably at its peak. America is closer to becoming a socialist state than any time in her history. For the first time we have a president whose world view is more in line with Karl Marx than George Washington. President Obama’s political career was launched in the living room of communist extremist and domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers. He has surrounded himself with more than forty Czars many of which profess to be Marxists and Maoists. In doing so he has been able to usurp Congress’ ability to perform...

This new Middle East cold war comes complete with its own spy-versus-spy intrigues, disinformation campaigns, shadowy proxy forces, supercharged state rhetoric—and very high stakes. "The cold war is a reality," says one senior Saudi official. "Iran is looking to expand its influence. This instability over the last few months means that we don't have the luxury of sitting back and watching events unfold." On March 14, the Saudis rolled tanks and troops across a causeway into the island kingdom of Bahrain. The ruling family there, long a close Saudi ally, appealed for assistance in dealing with increasingly large protests. Iran...

Cold War Neutrals Now Taking Sides, Timidly Europe's Cold War neutrals now taking sides, timidly, as they redefine security policy The Associated Press By KARL RITTER Associated Press STOCKHOLM April 9, 2011 (AP) Swedish fighter jets are roaring into action over Libya under NATO command. Ireland is offering itself as a transit hub for U.S. military deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Even famously independent Switzerland has peacekeepers in Kosovo. For Europe's once-staunchly neutral countries, much has changed in the two decades since the Cold War ended. With no East-West conflict as a reference point, the concept of neutrality has been...

The policy documents published over the last year by the Obama administration indicate that it believes in the efficacy of traditional Cold War deterrence as the remedy to the challenge of rogue states acquiring nuclear weapons. Another assumption is that the Iranian regime is "rational" and hence deterrable. But the cultural propensity of a people toward "rationality" does not determine the behavior of their autocratic leadership. Furthermore, both Sunni and Shiite traditions of Jihad view the willingness to challenge superior force as an exemplary deed. In Shiite Islam, this is augmented by the idealization of suffering and martyrdom. Failure to...

It was a blast from the past this week, as mostly forgotten one-time Life cover boy, radical historian and Yale Professor turned community organizer Staughton Lynd surfaced to add… nothing, to the subject of the Rosenbergs and the atomic bomb spy plot. His article in the Marxist rag, Monthly Review (who knew that still existed, either) was ironically titled, “Is There Anything More to Say about the Rosenberg Case?”I’m willing to say there might be—but Lynd sure didn’t prove it. But he did find some novel ways to say nothing new about the case while exposing the moral idiocy of...

For the better part of the past decade, moviegoers have gotten a new batch of comic-book adaptations every summer. The trend continues in 2011 with Captain America, Thor, Green Lantern, and the latest film in the X-Men franchise, X-Men: First Class. Set in the 1960s, First Class goes back to the origins of the mutant team, before leader Professor Xavier and archenemy Magneto became foes. And as the just-released trailer for the film reveals, this prequel has an unexpected political twist. It seems that the X-Men intervene in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now, there are a couple different directions this...

As we conservatives celebrate the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth amid the uprising in Egypt, we’d do well to reflect upon what it is that made Reagan such a unique, impressive and singular politician. For me, three traits in particular stand out: his strategic vision, his optimism, and his unwavering belief in the universal aspiration for liberty. Unfortunately, all three of these characteristics are sorely lacking, I regret to say, in most of the conservative commentary about Egypt, Islam and the Middle East. Reagan, you will recall, came into office in 1981 when all of the “experts” — including many...

Learning a lesson in Iceland. Ronald Reagan was not always “conservative,” and for this, conservatives love him. The modern conservative mind thinks in a certain box – a good box, not a bad one, but a box, nevertheless. We have an ideology: government can do these specific things, and no more. Tax something and you’ll get less of it, subsidize a thing and you’ll get more of it… etc. We have a host of such pronouncements, and we are usually right. We advocate the limited government of the Constitution, and the free economy of Hayek and Hazlitt, because we believe...

February is one short month long on holidays from the sublime (President's Day, St. Valentine's Day) to the ridiculous (Groundhog Day). And since 1926, February has been designated Black History Month. Three outstanding American Presidents have birthdays this month - one from each century during a defining war in American history: 18th century - the American Revolution: George Washington was our first president under the Constitution, chief among our founders as well as a great general leading the Continental Army in the American Revolution. He was born in colonial Virginia on February 22, 1732. .... 19th century - the Civil...

Many universities have set up centers to examine the history of the Cold War. The Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington D. C., for example, created an offshoot called The Cold War International History Project. That institute has over the years hosted many conferences, with panels of scholars representing all points of view. Two years ago, I was an active participant in a two days session at the CWIHP about Soviet espionage, that was based on the new book Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America. The sponsors were fully aware of contending views on the issue...

U.S. Will Counter Chinese Arms Buildup “I’ve been concerned about the development of the antiship cruise and ballistic missiles ever since I took this job,” he added. “We knew they were working on a stealth aircraft. I think that what we’ve seen is that they may be somewhat further ahead in the development of that aircraft than our intelligence had earlier predicted.” Mr. Gates said he hoped his talks with Chinese leaders would reduce the need for more American weaponry in the Pacific. He also said that if Chinese leaders considered the United States a declining power because of the...

On Sunday, February 6, 2011, the world will turn its eyes to Arlington, TX for Super Bowl XLV, to be held at the Dallas Cowboys' new stadium. February 6 is also notable for another "cowboy" - this one, an actor-turned-President. February 6, 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of this nation's 40th President, Ronald Reagan. (more at link...)

Outspoken former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean apparently isn't planning to celebrate Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday February 6, around which there are coast-to-coast events planned. Instead, the former Vermont governor is shrugging his shoulders, asking what all the fuss is about? At a media roundtable today, Dean suggested that Reagan had little impact other than stopping the social progression begun under FDR and seemed to dismiss the Gipper's efforts to crush communism, giving the last Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev credit for ending the Cold War, a statement sure to draw sneers from Reagan fans and even historians. While Reagan is...

That’s what the FBI was asking itself in 1988. That year is not a typo. Gawker has scans of the FBI documents showing that the reputed Godfather of neo-conservatism was a person of interest in an ongoing investigation into a potential Soviet spy. The FBI heavily redacted the documents—citing national security in many instances—so it’s difficult to make out exactly what happened. But it seems fairly clear that, sometime around May of 1988, the FBI’s counterintelligence division came to possess a notebook or address book belonging to a suspected Soviet agent. And Irving Kristol’s name was in it. That launched...

‘Rockin’ the Wall’ DVD Review: A Splendid Reminder that Rock and Roll Means Freedom! by Ezra Dulis You had to hide it somewhere that no one would find it: your very first record, tape, CD– whatever medium– that Mom and Dad didn’t approve of. You had to listen to it through headphones or when they were out of the house. You had to do this because you knew it was an act of rebellion; your parents did not want you hearing that music performed that way with those lyrics, and you decided that you wouldn’t obey them. According to the...

Despite the end of the Cold War, and the dismantling of over 25,000 nuclear weapons, NATO still maintains a stock of nuclear bombs in Europe. These are American weapons, to be used by NATO allies with U.S. permission. They are not covered by START (the strategic nuclear disarmament treaty) because they are not strategic, they are local, or "theater" weapons. NATO would like to negotiate a disarmament treaty to cover such non-strategic nukes, but to get the Russians to do that, it helps if there are some nukes under NATO control. Like with START, a treaty covering non-strategic weapons would...

'Candy Bomber' to speak at schools on Veterans Day LDR staff editor@lebanondailyrecord.com Nov 5, 2010 Col. Gail Halvorsen garnered worldwide fame in 1948 for bombing Berlin, but he wasn’t dropping explosive devices. He was dropping candy. Halvorsen, known around the world as the Candy Bomber, will be the guest speaker at the Veterans Day assembly, Nov. 11, at the Lebanon Junior and Senior high schools. The junior high assembly will be at 9:30 a.m. at the LJHS field house, and the high school assembly will be at 1:45 p.m. in the Boswell Auditorium. Halvorsen was a pilot during World War...

Today, November 4, marks the thirtieth anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s election as president. It is a fitting time to dispense once and for all with the myth that there is any similarity whatsoever between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Washingtonians and insecure politicians obsess with comparisons but can anyone imagine Lincoln or FDR or JFK or Reagan comparing themselves to previous presidents? Far too secure in their own skin, they enjoyed the presidency as Kennedy said paraphrasing the ancient Greeks that it was "the full use of your powers along lines of excellence." Fellini said, "you must live spherically" and...

An Historic aircraft which was Britain’s last line of defence in the Cold War could be grounded or sold unless its owners can raise £150,000 by the end of tomorrow. The Vulcan, the last all-British designed and built military aircraft, was on around-the-clock standby to drop the atomic bomb on the Soviet Union during the east-west standoff. Now the Vulcan to the Sky Trust, which displays the last flying Vulcan – XH558 – at air shows during the summer, needs to raise money urgently to maintain the aircraft at RAF Lyneham until Christmas.

Alex Anderson, 90, the artist who created the cartoon characters Rocky and Bullwinkle, the flying squirrel and hapless moose who were TV fixtures in the early 1960s, died Oct. 22 at a nursing facility in Carmel, Calif. His wife said he had Alzheimer's disease. Mr. Anderson, who grew up in a cartooning family in California, was also the creator of Crusader Rabbit, which became television's first animated cartoon series in 1949. He spent much of his career in advertising, and his role in creating Rocky and Bullwinkle was overlooked with time. He fought a long legal battle late in life...

Our new documentary film, "Rockin' the Wall," is now out! An 83-minute documentary, this film includes interviews with rock musicians from both sides of the Iron Curtain, including Euro star Leslie Mandoki, who was a student activist and drummer against the Hungarian communist system who escaped to become the music producer for Audi and Volkswagen. Among the American musicians interviewed are Robby Krieger (Doors), Rudy Sarzo (Quiet Riot), Mark Stein and Vinny Martell (Vanilla Fudge), David Paich (Toto), "Mother's Finest," and many others. The music is terrific, the message one of liberty. You'll be shocked at how "pro-American" some of...

Alexander Anderson Jr., a pioneer television cartoonist who created the landmark duo of Crusader Rabbit and Rags the Tiger and two of TV's most enduring characters, Rocky and Bullwinkle, has died. He was 90. [...] The nephew of Paul Terry, whose Terrytoons cartoons included "Mighty Mouse" and "Heckle and Jeckle," the Berkeley-born Anderson had apprenticed at his uncle's studio in New Rochelle, N.Y., as a young man before serving in World War II and returned to work there after the war. [...] Anderson then teamed up with his childhood friend and former UC Berkeley fraternity brother Jay Ward, who had...

The irony evident in the two part article in Cornell Alumni Magazine (July-September 2010), on “Cornell in the Cold War” by Professors Glen Altshuler and Isaac Kramnick, made me laugh. The subtle-as-a-sledgehammer attempt to appear scholarly while ridiculing conservative anti-Communists was also disturbing. For example, they describe Dean Malott (Cornell’s last conservative president): “Publically, Malott, the self-proclaimed conservative, defended dissent and free thought” as if that is something a conservative would never do when he defended the admitted Communist professor, Phillip Morrison. Malott called upon “thinking citizens to stand behind the principles of freedom of thought and expression.” I wonder...

In 2005, then-President Vladimir Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. As time passes, I find myself agreeing with him more and more. To be sure, my regrets are fundamentally different from Putin’s. I’ve been a U.S. citizen for three decades, and my son is as American as they come. The United States is clearly my home, and I consider myself a patriotic American. This is why I decry the disappearance of the Soviet empire. Its demise may have dealt a potentially mortal blow to the United States. The Soviet Union...

For many, the name Chappaquiddick conjures images of a drunken Sen. Edward Kennedy hitting on Mary Jo Kopechne in his Oldsmobile, losing control, and plunging into the water of Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island, adjacent to Martha's Vineyard where President Obama was vacationing. Kopechne, a family friend, drowned; and Teddy fumbled for excuses about what happened. Now, a year after Kennedy died, his lifelong biographer Burton Hersh, armed with fresh interviews with Kennedy's mistress at the time, tells Whispers that the whole July 1969 episode should have been handled as a simple crash, leaving the senator's legacy untainted. "It was...

On this day in 1948, Rep. Richard Nixon (R-CA) and his House Un-American Activities Committee questioned Alger Hiss, a State Department officer suspected of being a Soviet spy. Nixon zeroed in on contradictions in Hiss's testimony, revealing that Hiss had lied about not knowing Whittaker Chambers, another Soviet spy. Though never convicted of being a spy, Hiss did go to prison for perjury. For decades, many Democrats asserted that Hiss was innocent and that Nixon had persecuted an innocent man. After the fall of the Soviet Union, de-classified records revealed that Alger Hiss had indeed been a Soviet spy.

National Security: Think Moscow will violate the New START arms limitation treaty? A just-issued report says it never obeyed the first one. The motto of the Obama administration is blindly trust, don't verify and unilaterally disarm. You can forget about peace through strength, the Reagan doctrine that won the Cold War. Our policy is now peace through wishful thinking. If Neville Chamberlain and Jimmy Carter had a child, his name would be Barack Obama. The president is pushing ahead with what is called the New START Treaty to rid the world of nuclear weapons, but not those who would use...

On May Day, 1960, Francis Gary Powers left the US base in Peshawar on a mission to photograph ICBM sites inside the Soviet Union. It would be the twenty-fourth U-2 spy mission over Soviet territory. Although it was a Soviet holiday, all units of the Soviet Air Defence Forces were on red alert as they suspected a U-2 flight and Powers was subsequently shot down. The United States used NASA to issue a statement saying the plane was a research vessel, but soon Moscow was full of rumors of a downed American spy plane. THe American story was made up...

Our documentary film, "Rockin' the Wall," how rock ripped the Iron Curtain, will premiere in Washington, D.C. at the "March on DC" sponsored by the Tea Party and other affiliated movements, Thursday September 9, 7:00 (and there will be a matinee on Friday, September 10, 1:00) at the Omni-Shoreham Hotel. I will briefly introduce both showings, and will have a short speaking spot at the Mall on September 11. The film features interviews with 60s-70s rock and rollers from both sides of the Iron Curtain, particularly those who played near or behind the Iron Curtain, including members of the Doors,...

What a surprise. It seems that another far-left liberal actor has taken a role with the express intent being to smear a conservative icon. In this case, it’s Meryl Streep allegedly trying to dishonor and cheapen the accomplishments of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. How? By of all things, playing Thatcher in an upcoming film. According to The Daily Telegraph of London, the children of the former prime minister are “…appalled at what they have learnt about the film…they think it sounds like some Left-wing fantasy.” When I was at the Pentagon, I had the honor to meet and help...