A British Journalist under Stasi Surveillance (125)

Cold War Conversations - "vivid & compelling" The NY Times

Ian Sanders

Society & Culture, Documentary, History

4.8 • 863 Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2020

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We talk to Mark Brayne again in a wide ranging chat about his career as a Reuters & BBC journalist including details of his Stasi file, his time in the Soviet Union, Hungary & Poland as well as the perils of editing analogue tape in a non-digital age. Among his interviewees we talk about the Dalai Lama, Lech Walesa as well the ordinary people of the Warsaw Pact countries. If you are enjoying the podcast please leave a written reviews in Apple podcasts or share us on social media. By telling your friends you can really help the podcast grow. If you can spare it I’m asking listeners to contribute $3 USD per month to help keep us on the air (larger amounts are welcome too) plus you can get a sought after CWC coaster as a monthly financial supporter of the podcast and you bask in the warm glow of knowing you helping preserve Cold War history. Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ Thanks to latest Patreons Back to today’s episode, part 2 of three episodes with Mark and as you will hear we have a lot of fun recording this... We welcome Mark Brayne to our Cold War conversation… There’s further information on this episode in our show notes, which can also be found as a link in your podcast app. https://coldwarconversations.com/episode125/ If you like what you are hearing, please leave reviews in Apple podcasts and share us on social media. If you can’t wait for next week’s episode do visit our Facebook discussion group where guests and listeners continue the Cold War Conversation. Just search Cold War Conversations in Facebook. Thank you very much for listening. It is really appreciated – goodbye. Radio GDR If you are interested in East Germany we can highly recommend our friends over at Radio GDR. Support the project! https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColdWarPod Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/coldwarconversations/ Youtube https://youtube.com/@ColdWarConversations 0:00 Introduction and overview of Mark Brayne's career 2:30 Discussion on Mark Brayne's Stasi files and experiences in East Berlin 10:18 Examination of Mark's Stasi files, including photos and recorded details 20:21 Mark Brayne shares his experiences with Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov and reflections on his time in Russia 27:30 Conversation about Mark Brayne's time in Romania and his role as BBC Central European correspondent 31:38 Mark Brayne's time in China and interview with the Dalai Lama 43:22 Mark Brayne's ban from Romania and transition to China 51:42 Mark Brayne on covering the Gorbachev visit and the Tiananmen Square incident 53:05 Teaser for Mark Brayne's story about Romania in 1989 53:28 Closing remarks by Ian Sanders and information about the podcast's Facebook discussion group Chapters powered by PodcastAI✨ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War.
0:06.1	And our bedroom, as we discovered after the fall of the wall and suspected at the time,
0:11.2	the wall was absolutely riddled with bugs.
0:14.0	And the upper Centrale, as in lives of others, the movie Lives of Others,
0:19.4	the Stasi agents were sitting literally on the
0:21.8	other side of the wall from the end of our bed.
0:25.3	This is Cold War Conversations. If you're new here, you've come to the right place to listen
0:31.9	to first-hand Cold War history accounts. Do make sure you follow us in your podcast app or join our emailing list
0:39.6	at cold warconversations.com. In this episode we talk to Mark Brain again and it's a
0:48.8	wide-ranging interview about his career as a Reuters and BBC journalist including
0:54.1	details of his Stasi file,
0:56.3	his time in the Soviet Union, Hungary and Poland, as well as the perils of editing analog tape
1:02.4	in a non-digital age. Among his interviewees, we talk about the Dalai Lama and Lech Valencia,
1:10.0	as well as the ordinary people of the Warsaw Pact countries.
1:14.4	If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave a written review in Apple Podcasts or share us on social media by telling your friends you can really help the podcast grow.
1:26.3	And if you can spare it, I'm asking listeners to contribute three US dollars per month to help keep us on the air.
1:34.4	Larger amounts are welcome to.
1:36.6	Plus, you get a sought after Cold War Conversations coaster as a monthly financial supporter,
1:46.8	and you bask in the warm glow of knowing you are helping to preserve Cold War history. Just go to cold warconversations.com
1:53.8	slash donate. So back to today's episode, this is part two of three episodes with Mark.
2:04.1	And as you will hear, we had a lot of fun recording this.
2:08.5	We welcome Mark Brain back to our Cold War conversation.
	...

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