Beria (Russia) III

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: After clawing his way to the top of the ailing Joseph Stalin's pyramid of bureaucratic terror, Lavrentiy Beria seemed set to succeed the maximum leader.

Intro. A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: In 1938 Stalin brought him to Moscow after Beria had distinguished himself as the bloody enforcer of the Great Purges in Georgia and other southern Soviet provinces near the Caucasus Mountains. He became assistant to Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the NKVD, in the waning days of the purge, and after Yezhov's fall from power and execution, Beria took his place. He became a candidate member of the Politburo and during World War II he sat on the five-member State Defense Committee, which, with Stalin, directed the war effort. Beria was responsible for internal security as well as foreign intelligence operations and the network of forced labor camps he ruled, the Gulag Archipelago, turned out much of the raw material for the Soviet war industry.

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Beria (Russia) II

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: Of the henchmen of Joseph Stalin, none struck fear in the hearts of Russians quite like Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Born of Georgian peasant stock in 1899, Beria became a Marxist sympathizer while attending technical college in Azerbaijan. At the fall of the Russian monarchy, Beria dropped out of school to join the Army, apparently to spread Communist ideas and help undermine morale. When the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional government in the October Revolution, Beria returned home to finish his studies but was soon caught up in his party's counterintelligence service, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage, or CHEKA.

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Beria (Russia) I

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: In a history punctuated by rulers noted for their villainy, Russia produced few leaders as efficiently cruel or as feared as Stalin's exterminator, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: In his long rule over the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin acquired a reputation for ruthlessness and near barbarity in the pursuit and maintenance of his power, yet it was some of his henchmen, anxious to do his bidding and please him, who brought a whole new dimension to the practice of state sponsored terrorism.

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Spy Satellites

PermalinkToday's AMIT, , ,
Lead: It was mid-August 1960. In a White House ceremony, President Dwight D. Eisenhower displayed a United States flag that been recovered from an environmental satellite orbiting the earth. He wasn’t exactly telling the whole truth.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Actually, the flag had been carried into orbit aboard Discoverer XIII and was returned to earth in an ejected capsule which was then recovered from its splash down point northwest of Hawaii by a Navy taskforce. It was the first time an object had been catapulted into earth orbit and brought back without mishap, but this exercise was far more than patriotic chauvinism. The Discoverer program was a ruse, a clever cover-up for a secret reconnaissance operation known as Corona.

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The Cossacks- Part II

PermalinkToday's AMIT
Lead: In the late sixteenth century, the Cossacks, fierce warriors in service to the Czar of Russia, moved from their traditional homes in the Ukraine and began the occupation and conquest of Siberia.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The Cossacks settled in southern Russia and the Ukraine beginning in the late 15th century. Cossacks, fierce fighters and skilled horsemen, were nomads, escaped serfs and outlaws many of whom were of Slavic origin. The Cossacks lived in independent settlements and were given virtual autonomy in exchange for protecting the Russian frontier. The largest group of Cossacks, those living on the lower Don River, known as the Don Cossacks, in 1581, under the leadership of Yermak Timofeyevich, crossed the Ural Mountains and wrested control of the small Tartar khanate, “Sibir” – hence the name Siberia, which means “sleeping land.”

 

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The Cossacks Part I

PermalinkToday's AMIT
Lead: In the late 1500s Russia expanded into the vast and often desolate region of Siberia. Leading the way was a band of fiercely independent military cavalry warriors called the Cossacks.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Cosssack is a derivative of the Turkic word” kazak,” which means “adventurer” or “free man.” Cossacks were escaped serfs, religious refugees, nomads and outlaws drawn together by their common estrangement in present day southern Ukraine and the steppes of western Russia.

 

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Beria III (Russia)

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: After clawing his way to the top of the ailing Joseph Stalin's pyramid of bureaucratic terror, Lavrentiy Beria seemed set to succeed the maximum leader.

Intro. A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: In 1938 Stalin brought him to Moscow after Beria had distinguished himself as the bloody enforcer of the Great Purges in Georgia and other southern Soviet provinces near the Caucasus Mountains. He became assistant to Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the NKVD, in the waning days of the purge, and after Yezhov's fall from power and execution, Beria took his place. He became a candidate member of the Politburo and during World War II he sat on the five-member State Defense Committee, which, with Stalin, directed the war effort. Beria was responsible for internal security as well as foreign intelligence operations and the network of forced labor camps he ruled, the Gulag Archipelago, turned out much of the raw material for the Soviet war industry.

Download [10.58 KB]

Beria II (Russia)

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: Of the henchmen of Joseph Stalin, none struck fear in the hearts of Russians quite like Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Born of Georgian peasant stock in 1899, Beria became a Marxist sympathizer while attending technical college in Azerbaijan. At the fall of the Russian monarchy, Beria dropped out of school to join the Army, apparently to spread Communist ideas and help undermine morale. When the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional government in the October Revolution, Beria returned home to finish his studies but was soon caught up in his party's counterintelligence service, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage, or CHEKA.

Download [10.62 KB]