Four satellite launches into the Space Race, and the score—in terms of pounds put into orbit—is Communism, 1300; Capitalism, 33. And the humiliations keep on coming. Playing it safe, America loses a chance to put the first man in space. Instead, they opt to fly a steely-eyed missile chimp. The Russians knock a grand slam homer out of the park as Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin does on the first manned mission what it would take America three more launches to accomplish. In history's biggest sales pitch ever, the Soviet Union is handing the United States its backside on a platter. In Part 2 of What We Saw, we will watch as America continues its serial humiliation. But then, the space equivalent of a candy apple red '66 Corvette Stingray convertible starts to dig in and get some real traction as the Cold War gets hotter.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Clock is Running and We're Underway! | Part 2

The Cold War may be over, but the tension between Russia and the West remains.  Join Bill Whittle as he narrates this compelling series about two competing ideologies battling for global supremacy in the ashes of World War II.

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Get ready to unpack the exciting untold history of heroes who saved America in some of its darkest hours. Subscribe NOW to America’s Forgotten Heroes on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and everywhere you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss an episode! 

America's Forgotten Heroes on Apple: https://utm.io/uduT7
America's Forgotten Heroes on Spotify: https://utm.io/uduT8
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A New Podcast from Bill Whittle: America's Forgotten Heroes

Nixon goes to China and in a masterstroke of diplomacy turns a two-power Cold War into three-power triangular diplomacy, giving the United States the leverage for Détente, a chance for a soft landing for the Cold War in the 1970s. But Watergate destroys not only the Nixon administration; it reduces American morale and determination to its lowest point during the entire conflict. The Soviet perception of American weakness leads to their invasion of Afghanistan, and the likelihood of nuclear Armageddon unleashed in a picturesque German town named Fulda. 

And then, seemingly overnight, the situation reverses itself: engaged in their own quagmire in Afghanistan, mired in the Brezhnev Stagnation, and plagued by an embarrassing series of fossilized leaders, the Soviets fall ever farther behind. And across the Atlantic, America's oldest President brings youthful vigor, renewed optimism and unprecedented resolve to a dying national identity, and decides on a plan to resolve the forty-year running stalemate and end the Cold War with a win. 
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A Pizza Hut Parade | Part 13

A change of commanders comes too late to reverse the situation in Southeast Asia as Richard Nixon's program of 'Vietnamization' eases America out of its worst-directed war. But long before the last American serviceman leaves Vietnam, a new generation of liberators rise to the challenge of saving American tactics, weaponry and doctrine from themselves.

Thirty thousand feet above the Green Spot at Nellis Air Force Base, a loud, uncouth, unpleasant warrior / poet emerges. Starting with his almost supernatural feel for what a fighter jet can and cannot do, he will spend a decade teaching himself the engineering skill and mathematical language necessary for him to quantify what works in the lethal world of aerial combat, and what does not. Fighting an uphill battle against arrogance, ignorance and intransigence, his legendarily irrefutable Pentagon briefings will forever change the way America builds the fighter aircraft that will guarantee the Air Superiority needed to prevail on the Cold War battlefield of central Germany. And a fellow liberator, just a kid who grew up hunting in his native Arkansas, will just as effectively revolutionize American ground tactics through sheer courage, concentration and willpower, and usher in the age of Special Forces.
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The Liberators | Part 12

Mired not only in the jungles of Southeast Asia but, worse, mired in outdated, rigid doctrine, fossilized tactics, and declining morale, a light can be made out in the middle of America's darkest night. A swaggering fighter jock, married to a movie star, turns a demoralized, undertrained and under-led group of dispirited American flyers into a snarling Wolfpack that pulls off a supersonic ambush in one of the greatest military operations of all time. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the continued loosening of the leash of fear in the Soviet Union can be felt by what its citizens have to joke about. But in Prague, the hopeful spring of liberal reforms gets crushed by a Russian bear that remains in full possession of a nasty set of teeth and claws. 
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From The Jaws Of Defeat | Part 11

You stepped out of a big, air-conditioned silver bird, out into the kind of heat, sunlight and humidity that even Americans raised in the Deep South could not believe. You would wander around, wondering where your ground transport was, and what your barracks might be like, and once the immensity of the new reality fully hit, someone with more time in-country might notice your expression and mutter, "Hey man. Welcome to the suck."
When USS Maddox came under attack from North Vietnamese torpedo boats while in international waters in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson uses the incident to open the throttle on the war to contain communism in Vietnam. Advising him is a Madison Avenue Wonder Boy, using computer formulas to triangulate on an elusive victory. And a dangerous, potentially fatal fossilization of politics and military doctrine slowly but inexorably plunges the United States into its darkest years of the Cold War. 
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The Clock is Running and We're Underway! | Part 2

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