17 popular UK Cold War era geopolitical myths and false beliefs

Over view

Here are some popular UK Cold War era geopolitical myths and false beliefs.

Mongolia

• The British had the false belief that it was part of the USSR either as a soviet republic (a SSR) or an autonomous region (a ASSR) of the Russian SSR .

Bolshevik Russia\Russia Empier\USSR

• The British had the false belief that the USSR was only Russia proper, was ethnically Russian (bar the odd Jew, Ukrainian, Baltic States national, Belorussian, Tartar and Siberian nomad) or had annexed Mongolia.

Chairman Mao

• The British had a accrued over the years the false belief that both Chairman Mao and Moist China were a human rights utopia, comparable to Sweden.

The IRA's economic viewpoint

• The British had the false belief that the IRA had no economic viewpoint or opinion on longtime Irish and British fiscal policy.

Tanks

• The British had the long term false belief that Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Denmark, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria had no tanks.

Ireland

• That it was communist until the 1970s.

The Southern Balkans

• The British had the false belief that Albanians were Slavs or Hellens mixed with Turks, not Irillians mixed with Turks.
• The British had the false belief that the Yugoslavia's Macedonian Republic, today's FYROM, was violently excised of Greece and/or Bulgaria by Yugoslavia in the wake of WW2.
• The British had the false belief that all the Serbs, Bulgarians and Albanians spoke either Greek/Bulgarian/Russian/Serbian.

Kent State University Shooting

• A false rumor circulated shortly afterwards among some leftist and youth circles that a Light armored vehicle, such as a Cadillac Gage Commando, had fire a shell at the crowd which had exploded on impact and thus caused several minor injuries to the rebelling students.

Political alignment

• The British had a accrued over the years the false belief that Egypt, Argentina, Chile, India, Greece, Malaysia, Oman, N. Yemen, Iraq, S. Africa, El Salvador, Pakistan, Thailand, S. Africa and Iceland were Marxist dictatorships.

Cruise missiles

• A false rumor circulated as part of a government disinformation campaign, that they were to be stationed at RAF Caistor and RAF Upper Heyford so as to cover for there initial instillation at RAF Molesworth.

Germany

• That the West was brutally occupied by the USA, while the Soviets left the East after the Berlin airlift because the GDR enjoyed life under communism.

Hungary

• That the 1956 uprising was successfully expelled the USSR for the rest of the cold war.

Korean War

• The British had a accrued over the years the false belief that more British troops died than North or South Korean troops.

Nukes

• A NATO panic report and following Warsaw Pact political bluff pulling lead to a popular belief in the mid 1960s that the USSR had vastly more nukes than the USA, UK and France combined.
• There is a popular myth nukes have to be big. This is not true, beyond the first few years, due to the advance of technology. Yield and weight are also major factors in the size of the weapon.

.One of the Mk 39 nuclear weapons at Goldsboro, largely intact, with its parachute still attached. Close up of one of two Mk.39 thermonuclear bombs rests in a field in Faro, NC after falling from a disintegrating B-52 bomber in an incident known as the "1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash."

Photograph of a U.S. developed M-388 Davy Crockett nuclear weapon mounted to a recoilless rifle on a tripod, shown here (1961) at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland in March 1961. It used the smallest nuclear warhead ever developed by the United States.

A replica of the Tsar Bomba.

A B-61 nuke.

The end

These myths and rumors were officially debunked in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Also see

1. The Cold War
2. 30 popular English Eurosceptic and nationalist myths and false beliefs
3. Major Cold War wars that killed over 250,000 people

Sources

UK newspapers and TV news in the late 1980s and early 1990s.