The first woman to graduate from French Commando school (227)

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

Ian Sanders

History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.8 • 865 Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2022

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Maura McCormick was posted to Berlin as a Signals Intelligence voice interceptor (Russian). Her workplace was the Teufelsberg U.S. listening station, aka Field Station Berlin. Maura shares her early impressions of Berlin and working at the Tberg. She talks about her impressions of the infamous James Hall, a United States Army warrant officer and signals intelligence analyst who sold eavesdropping and code secrets to East Germany and the Soviet Union from 1983 to 1988. Maura also recounts a close call with Hüseyin Yıldırım, a Turkish-American auto mechanic who was a Stasi courier for the espionage activities of James Hall. Maura often visited East Berlin where she tells of an unusually close encounter with a chimney sweep that almost resulted in an international incident. In West Berlin, Maura became the first woman to graduate from French Commando school. The commandant had a nightly call to Paris to confirm that she had survived the day's training… Now if you think there is a vast army of research assistants, audio engineers and producers putting together this podcast you’d be wrong. This podcast relies on your support to enable me to continue to capture these incredible stories and make them available to everyone for free. If you’d like to help to preserve Cold War history and enable me to continue to produce this podcast you can via one-off or monthly donations. Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ for more details. Do join our Facebook discussion group where the cold war conversation continues between episodes. Just search Cold War Conversations on Facebook. 0:00 Introduction and Maura McCormick's role in the Cold War 2:35 Interview with Maura McCormick begins 5:56 Maura's first posting in Berlin and impressions of West Berlin 16:21 Maura's interaction with Stasi spies James Hall and Hüseyin Yıldırım 24:52 Maura's acclimatization trip to East Germany and encounters 36:04 Maura's experiences in East Berlin and close encounter with East German leader 44:13 Maura's interactions with East Germans 48:40 How Maura ended up in French Commando school and her training experiences 1:00:53 Exploring Berlin through books and films 1:07:25 Accidental crossing of the border and reflections on Berlin 1:13:15 First impressions of the Berlin Wall and questioning the depth of the Cold War victory 1:14:28 Acknowledgement of the podcast's patrons and invitation to join the Facebook group 1:15:19 Closing remarks and promotion of the podcast store Table of contents powered by PodcastAI✨ More info and videos related to this episode here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode227/ 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 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.
0:06.5	And then they started talking about what was beneath the skirt.
0:10.8	And then it got vulgar.
0:13.5	And I couldn't help myself.
0:15.0	I turned around and I said to them in Russian,
0:17.5	you know,
0:17.7	which means you should be ashamed of? I've got every word.
0:23.4	Which means you should be ashamed of yourselves.
0:24.5	I understood every word.
0:29.8	This is Cold War Conversations.
0:36.6	If you knew here, you've come to the right place to listen to first-hand Cold War history accounts.
0:38.7	Do make sure you follow us in your podcast app so that you don't miss out on future episodes. Moira McCormick was posted to Berlin
0:45.2	as a signal's intelligence voice interceptor, Russian. Her workplace was the Toifelsberg
0:52.1	US listening station, also known as Field Station Berlin.
0:56.6	Moira shares her early impressions of Berlin and working at the Tiberg.
1:01.6	She also shares her impressions of the infamous James Hall,
1:05.9	a United States Army warrant officer and signals intelligence analyst
1:10.1	who sold eavesdropping and
1:12.1	code secrets to East Germany and the Soviet Union from 1983 to 1988.
1:19.2	Mora also recounts a close call with Hussein Yilderim, a Turkish-American auto mechanic who
1:25.9	was a Starzy courier for the espionage activities of James Hall.
1:32.1	Moira often visited East Berlin and she tells of an unusual close encounter with a chimney sweep
	...

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