Cold War is a twenty-four episode television documentary series about the Cold War that aired in 1998.[1] It features interviews and footage of the events that shaped the tense relationships between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The series was produced by Pat Mitchell and Jeremy Isaacs, who had earlier in 1973 produced the World War II documentary series The World at War in a similar style. Ted Turner funded the series as a joint production between the Turner Broadcasting System and the BBC, and was first broadcast on CNN in the United States and BBC Two in the United Kingdom. Writers included Hella Pick, Jeremy Isaacs, Lawrence Freedman, Neal Ascherson, Hugh O'Shaughnessy and Germaine Greer. Kenneth Branagh was the narrator, and Carl Davis (who also collaborated with Isaacs with The World at War) composed the theme music. Each episode would feature historical footage and interviews from both significant figures and others who had witnessed particular events.

Fidel Castro comes to power following the Cuban Revolution. Cuba aligns itself with the Soviet Union and the government starts nationalising American interests, resulting in the United States imposing an economic boycott, and the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. Following the detection of Soviet medium range missiles stationed in Cuba, the United States imposes a blockade on the island, and the Soviet Union mobilises for war. The Cuban Missile Crisis is eventually resolved through secret negotiations, in which the United States and the USSR agree to withdraw missiles from Cuba and Turkey respectively. Interviewees include Fidel Castro, Walter Cronkite, Pierre Salinger and Theodore Sorensen. The pre-credits scene has interviews of Fidel Castro, Robert McNamara and Anatoly Dobrynin explaining how close they felt the world was to a nuclear holocaust.

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