Forty Years Covering the Cold War

Historian Jeff Shesol recalls the early days of the space program, when Cold War fears ruled and no one knew if John Glenn would survive America's first orbital flight. Originally broadcast June 2021.

Author Scott Anderson chronicles the formative years of America's spy agency by focusing on four soldiers who became intelligence agents after World War II. Originally broadcast Sept. 1, 2020.

In his new book, Mercury Rising, Jeff Shesol writes about Friendship 7, the United States' first mission to put an astronaut in orbit around the Earth and, more broadly, about how Cold War fears fueled the early days of the space program.