Radio Free Europe
Encyclopedia
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress
that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe
, Central Asia
, and the Middle East
"where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed". RFE/RL is supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors
, a bi-partisan federal agency overseeing all US international broadcasting services.
Founded as an anti-communist propaganda source during the Cold War
, RFE/RL was headquartered at Englischer Garten in Munich
, Germany
, from 1949 to 1995. In 1995, the headquarters were moved to Prague
in the Czech Republic
. European operations have been significantly reduced since the end of the Cold War. In addition to the headquarters, the service currently maintains 20 local bureaus in countries throughout their broadcast region, as well as a corporate office in Washington, D.C.
RFE/RL broadcasts in 28 languages to 21 countries including Russia
, Iran
, Afghanistan
, Pakistan
, and Iraq
.
(NCFE), a US anti-communist organization that was formed in New York City
in 1949. The committee was composed of an "A list" of powerful U.S. citizens including former ambassador and first NCFE chairman Joseph Grew
; Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) director Allen Dulles; Reader's Digest
owner Dewitt Wallace
; former diplomat and the co-founder of Public Opinion Quarterly Dewitt Clinton Poole; and prominent New York investment banker Frank Altschul. Its mission was to support the refugees and provide them with a useful outlet for their opinions and creativity. The NCFE divided its program into three parts: exile
relations, radio
, and American contacts. Although exile relations were initially its first priority, Radio Free Europe (RFE) became the NCFE's greatest legacy.
RFE was developed out of a belief that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means. American policymakers such as George Kennan
and John Foster Dulles
acknowledged that the Cold War
was essentially a war of ideas
. The United States, acting through the CIA, funded a long list of projects to counter the Communist appeal among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world.
RFE was modeled after Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) a U.S. government-sponsored radio service initially intended for Germans
living in the American sector
of Berlin
(but more widely listened to in East Germany). Staffed almost entirely by Germans with minimal U.S. supervision, the station provided free media to German listeners. In order to establish a broadcast presence in Europe like RIAS, the NCFE began an extensive fundraising
effort known as the "Crusade for Freedom". The bulk of its RFE initial funding, however, came from the CIA. In January 1950 the NCFE obtained a transmitter base at Lampertheim
, West Germany
and on July 4 of the same year RFE completed its first broadcast aimed at Czechoslovakia
.
In late 1950, RFE began to assemble a full-fledged foreign broadcast staff, becoming more than a "mouthpiece for exiles." Teams of journalists were hired for each language service and an elaborate system of intelligence gathering provided up-to-date broadcast material. Most of this material came from a network of well-connected emigres and interviews with travelers and defectors. RFE did not use paid agents inside the Iron Curtain
and based its bureaus in regions popular with exiles. RFE also extensively monitored Communist bloc
publications and radio services, creating an impressive body of information that would later serve as a resource for the CIA and other government organizations.
In addition to its regular broadcasts RFE was also known for its balloon operation (1951–1956), a project that involved dropping anti-Communist propaganda
from balloons. Meteorological balloons were stuffed with leaflets and floated over the Iron Curtain into Eastern Europe. The nature of the leaflets varied, and included messages of support and encouragement to citizens suffering under communist oppression, satirical criticisms of communist regimes and leaders, information about dissident movements and human rights campaigns, and messages expressing the solidarity of the American people with the residents of Eastern European nations. The project served as a publicity
tool to solidify RFE's reputation as an anti-communist broadcaster.
(Amcomlib) in 1951. Amcomlib was a CIA funded organization that was similar to the NCFE but dealt with exiles from the Soviet Union
. Radio Liberty began broadcasting from Lampertheim
on March 1, 1953, gaining a substantial audience when it covered the death of Joseph Stalin
four days later. By March 1954 Radio Liberty was broadcasting six to seven hours daily in eleven languages. It had a base at Oberwiesenfeld Airport on the outskirts of Munich. It hired several former Nazi agents who had been involved in the Ostministerium under Gerhard von Mende
during WWII. Radio Liberty broadcast targeted the Soviet Union whereas Radio Free Europe targeted the satellite countries.
Both broadcasters dealt with significant technical challenges while trying to reach their intended audiences. In 1951, RFE supplemented its shortwave transmissions
from Lampertheim with broadcasts from a transmitter base at Glória
. In 1955 Radio Liberty began airing programs to Russia's eastern provinces from shortwave transmitters located on Taiwan
, while in 1959 Radio Liberty commenced broadcasts from a base at Playa de Pals, Spain
.
era Eastern Europe. Its audience increased substantially following the failed Berlin riots of 1953 and the highly publicized defection of Józef Światło. Its Hungarian
service's coverage of Poland's
Poznań riots
in 1956 arguably served as an inspiration for the Hungarian revolution
.
RFE's Hungarian service was accused of precipitating the 1956 Hungarian revolution
by giving its Hungarian listeners false hope of Western military assistance. However, later investigations of RFE's involvement in the Hungarian revolution cleared the organization of these accusations, while also urging more caution in its broadcasts. RFE's Broadcast Analysis Division was established to ensure that broadcasts were accurate and professional while maintaining the journalists' autonomy.
Others argue, alternatively, that Radio Free Europe's broadcasts may also have precipitated the Soviet crackdown on Hungary on November 3–4, 1956. Inflammatory broadcasts by emigres may have caused Soviet leaders to doubt Hungarian leader Imre Nagy's managerial skills, fear the power vacuum in Hungary, and conclude that a second military invasion was necessary. Moreover, the early balloon and leaflet operations initiated by the National Committee for Free Europe during Nagy's first term as Hungarian prime minister (1953–1955)—namely "Operation Focus"—arguably antagonized Nagy and spawned a stern neutralism (later, hostility) toward him among U.S. diplomats and RFE broadcasters during the crisis.
During the Cold War RFE was often criticized in the United States as not being sufficiently anti-communist. Although its nongovernmental status spared it from full scale McCarthyist
investigations, several RFE journalists including director of the Czech service, Ferdinand Peroutka
were accused of being soft on Communism. Fulton Lewis
a U.S. radio commentator and fervent anti-communist was one of RFE's sharpest critics throughout the 1950s. His critical broadcasts inspired other journalists to investigate the inner workings of the organization including its connection to the CIA. Eventually it was exposed as a CIA-front organization in the 1960s, and funding responsibility shifted to Congress.
In late 1960, an upheaval in the Czechoslovak service led to a number of dramatic changes in the organization's structure. RFE's New York headquarters could no longer effectively manage their Munich
subsidiary, and as a result major management responsibilities were transferred to Munich, making RFE a European-based organization.
Broadcasts were often banned in Eastern Europe and Communist authorities used sophisticated jamming
techniques in an attempt to prevent citizens from listening to them. Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa
and Russian reformer Grigory Yavlinsky would later recall secretly listening to the broadcasts despite the heavy jamming.
Communist governments also sent agents to infiltrate RFE's headquarters. Although some remained on staff for extended periods of time, government authorities discouraged their agents from interfering with broadcast activity, fearing that this could arouse suspicions and detract from their original purpose of gathering information on the radios' activities. In 1965–71 an agent of the Służba Bezpieczeństwa (Communist Poland's security service) successfully infiltrated the station with an operative, Captain Andrzej Czechowicz. According to former Voice of America
Polish service director Ted Lipien, "Czechowicz is perhaps the most well known communist-era Polish spy who was still an active agent while working at RFE in the late 1960s. Technically, he was not a journalist. As a historian by training, he worked in the RFE’s media analysis service in Munich. After more than five years, Czechowicz returned to Poland in 1971 and participated in programs aimed at embarrassing Radio Free Europe and the United States government."
Other espionage incidents also included a failed attempt by a Czechoslovak Intelligence Service (StB) agent in 1959 to poison the salt shakers in the organization's cafeteria.
The CIA stopped funding Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in 1972. In 1974 they came under the control of an organization called the Board for International Broadcasting
(BIB). The BIB was designed to receive appropriations
from Congress, give them to radio managements, and oversee the appropriation of funds. In 1976, the two radios merged to form Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and added the three Baltic
language services to their repertoire.
files opened after 1989 indicated that the bombing was carried out by a group under the direction of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (AKA Carlos the Jackal), and paid for by Nicolae Ceauşescu
, president of Romania.
. President Ronald Reagan
, a fervent opponent of Communism, urged the stations to be more critical of the communist regimes. This presented a challenge to RFE/RL's broadcast strategy, which had been very cautious since the controversy over its alleged role in the Hungarian Revolution.
During the Mikhail Gorbachev
era in the Soviet Union, the radios worked hand in hand with Glasnost
and benefited significantly from the Soviet regime's new openness. Gorbachev stopped the practice of jamming the radios' broadcasts, and dissident politicians and officials could be freely interviewed by the radios for the first time without fearing persecution or imprisonment. By 1990 Radio Liberty had become the most listened-to Western radio station broadcasting to the Soviet Union. Its coverage of the 1991 August coup enriched sparse domestic coverage of the event and drew in a wide audience from throughout the region. The broadcasts allowed Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin
to stay in touch with the Russian people during this turbulent period. Boris Yeltsin later expressed his gratitude through a presidential decree allowing Radio Liberty to open a permanent bureau in Moscow.
RFE/RL also played a significant role in the 1989 Velvet Revolution
, which brought an end to the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Following the November 17 demonstrations and brutal crackdown by Czechoslovak riot police, RFE/RL's Czechoslovak service reported that a student, Martin Šmid
, had been killed during the clashes. Although the report later turned out to be false – Šmid was alive and well – the story is credited by many sources with inspiring Czechoslovak citizens to join the subsequent (larger) demonstrations which eventually brought down the communist government.
Upon hearing about the story, RFE/RL did not run it immediately, but attempted to find a second corroborating source for the story, as per official RFE/RL policy. While a second source was never found, RFE/RL eventually decided to run the story of Šmid's death after it was reported by several major news organizations, including Reuters
, the Associated Press
, and the Voice of America
.
In addition, Pavel Pechacek, the director of RFE/RL's Czechoslovak service at the time, was mistakenly granted a visa to enter the country by the Czechoslovak authorities prior to the demonstrations. He reported live from the demonstrations in Wenceslas Square
, and was virtually the only reporter covering the events fully and openly in the Czech language for a Czech audience.
On January 31, 2004, RFE/RL launched broadcasts to the former Yugoslavia
in Serbo-Croatian (Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian-Montenegrin). In the late 90's RFE/RL launched broadcast to Kosovo
in Albanian and to Macedonia
in Macedonian. In 1995, RFE/RL moved its headquarters from Munich to Prague. The Clinton Administration reduced funding significantly and placed the radios under the United States Information Agency's
oversight. RFE/RL ended broadcasts to Hungary
in 1993 and stopped broadcasts to Poland
in 1997. Broadcast to the Czech Republic
proceed for three more years under the agreement with Czech Radio. In 2004 RFE/RL stopped broadcasting to Estonia
, Latvia
, Slovakia
, Croatia
, Montenegro
, Bulgaria
, and Romania
. That was the real end of Radio Free Europe since all the original European states except Russia
were off the air. RFE/RL proceeded with reduced broadcasts to only six European countries: Moldavia
, Serbia
, Bosnia, Montenegro
, Macedonia
, and Kosovo
. Meanwhile, it has launched broadcasts to Iran
, Iraq
, Afghanistan
, and the North Caucasus
.
The safety of RFE/RL's journalists and freelancers, who often risk their lives to broadcast information to their listeners and readers, has been a major concern throughout RFE/RL's broadcast history and continues to be a major issue as reporters are threatened and persecuted on a regular basis. RFE/RL also faces a number of central security concerns including cyberterrorist attacks and general terrorist threats. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, American and Czech authorities agreed to move RFE/RL's Prague headquarters away from the city center in order to make it less vulnerable to terrorist attack. On February 19, 2009, RFE/RL began broadcasting from its new state-of-the-art headquarters located east of the city center.
RFE/RL continues to struggle with authoritarian regimes for permission to broadcast freely within their countries. Starting January 1, 2009, Azerbaijan
has imposed a ban on all foreign media in the country, including RFE/RL. Kyrgyzstan
has also suspended broadcasts of Radio Azattyk, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz language service, requesting that the government be able to pre-approve its programming. Other states such as Belarus
, Iran
, Turkmenistan
, Tajikistan
, and Uzbekistan
prohibit re-broadcasting to local stations, making programming difficult for average listeners to access.
In 2008, Afghan president Hamid Karzai
urged his government to provide assistance to a rape victim after listening to her story on Radio Azadi, RFE/RL's Afghan service. Radio Azadi is currently the most popular radio station in Afghanistan, and Afghan listeners mail in hundreds of hand-written letters to the station each month.
In September 2009, RFE/RL announced that it would begin new Pashto-language broadcasting to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
In October 2009, RFE/RL introduced a daily, one-hour Russian-language broadcast to the breakaway regions of South Ossetia
and Abkhazia
. The program, called Ekho Kavkaza (Echo of the Caucasus), focuses on local and international news and current affairs, and is organized in coordination with RFE/RL's Georgian Service.
On January 15, 2010, RFE/RL began broadcasting to the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan in Pashto. The service, known as Radio Mashaal
, was created in an attempt to counter the growing number of "pirate" Islamic extremist radio stations broadcasting in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. These pirate stations broadcast pro-Taliban messages as well as fatwas (religious edicts) by radical, pro-Taliban clerics.
Radio Mashaal
broadcasts local and international news with in-depth reports on terrorism, politics, women's issues, and health care (with an emphasis on preventive medicine). The station features roundtable discussions and interviews with tribal leaders and local policymakers in addition to regular call-in programs.
until 1972. Since then, it has been funded by regular, open Congressional appropriations through the Broadcasting Board of Governors
(BBG) and has received no funds from the CIA.
The CIA's relationship with the radios began to break down in 1967, when Ramparts magazine published an expose claiming that the CIA was channeling funds to civilian organizations. Further investigation into the CIA's funding activities revealed its connection to both RFE and RL, sparking significant media outrage. Investigations into the legal basis of the relationship jeopardized the existence of both radios, which could not survive without the CIA's funding.
In 1971 the radios came under public spotlight once again when prominent U.S. Senator
Clifford Case introduced the Senate Bill 18 which would remove funding for RFE and RL from the CIA's budget, appropriate $30 million to pay for fiscal year 1972 activities and have the United States Department of State
temporarily oversee the radios. This was only a temporary solution, however, as the State Department was reluctant to take on such a significant long-term responsibility.
In May 1972 President Richard Nixon
appointed a special commission
to deliberate RFE/RL's future. The commission proposed that funding come from the United States Congress and that a new organization, the Board for International Broadcasting
(BIB) would simultaneously link the radios and the federal government and serve as an editorial buffer between them.
Although both radios initially received most of their funding from the CIA, RFE maintained a strong sense of autonomy. Under Cord Meyer
, the CIA officer in charge of overseeing broadcast services from 1954 to 1971, the CIA took a position of minimal government interference in radio affairs and programming.
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
, and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
"where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed". RFE/RL is supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors
Broadcasting Board of Governors
The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for all non-military, international broadcasting sponsored by the U.S government. It was previously a department within the United States Information Agency until 1999.-Origins:Starting in...
, a bi-partisan federal agency overseeing all US international broadcasting services.
Founded as an anti-communist propaganda source during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, RFE/RL was headquartered at Englischer Garten in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, from 1949 to 1995. In 1995, the headquarters were moved to Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
in the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
. European operations have been significantly reduced since the end of the Cold War. In addition to the headquarters, the service currently maintains 20 local bureaus in countries throughout their broadcast region, as well as a corporate office in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
RFE/RL broadcasts in 28 languages to 21 countries including Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, and Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe was created and grew in its early years through the efforts of the National Committee for a Free EuropeNational Committee for a Free Europe
The National Committee for a Free Europe was an American anti-communist organization, founded on March 17, 1949 in New York, which worked for the spreading of American influence in Europe and to oppose Stalin's Soviet occupation and dictatorship...
(NCFE), a US anti-communist organization that was formed in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1949. The committee was composed of an "A list" of powerful U.S. citizens including former ambassador and first NCFE chairman Joseph Grew
Joseph Grew
Joseph Clark Grew was a United States diplomat and career foreign service officer. He was the chargé d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Vienna when Austria-Hungary severed diplomatic relations with the United States on April 9, 1917. Later he was the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark 1920–1921 and U.S....
; Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
(CIA) director Allen Dulles; Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
owner Dewitt Wallace
DeWitt Wallace
DeWitt Wallace , also known as William Roy was a United States magazine publisher. He co-founded Reader's Digest with his wife Lila Wallace and published the first issue in 1922.Born in St...
; former diplomat and the co-founder of Public Opinion Quarterly Dewitt Clinton Poole; and prominent New York investment banker Frank Altschul. Its mission was to support the refugees and provide them with a useful outlet for their opinions and creativity. The NCFE divided its program into three parts: exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
relations, radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
, and American contacts. Although exile relations were initially its first priority, Radio Free Europe (RFE) became the NCFE's greatest legacy.
RFE was developed out of a belief that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means. American policymakers such as George Kennan
George F. Kennan
George Frost Kennan was an American adviser, diplomat, political scientist and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War...
and John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959. He was a significant figure in the early Cold War era, advocating an aggressive stance against communism throughout the world...
acknowledged that the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
was essentially a war of ideas
War of ideas
The War of Ideas is a clash of opposing ideals, ideologies, or concepts through which nations or groups use strategic influence to promote their interests abroad...
. The United States, acting through the CIA, funded a long list of projects to counter the Communist appeal among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world.
RFE was modeled after Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) a U.S. government-sponsored radio service initially intended for Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
living in the American sector
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
(but more widely listened to in East Germany). Staffed almost entirely by Germans with minimal U.S. supervision, the station provided free media to German listeners. In order to establish a broadcast presence in Europe like RIAS, the NCFE began an extensive fundraising
Fundraising
Fundraising or fund raising is the process of soliciting and gathering voluntary contributions as money or other resources, by requesting donations from individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies...
effort known as the "Crusade for Freedom". The bulk of its RFE initial funding, however, came from the CIA. In January 1950 the NCFE obtained a transmitter base at Lampertheim
Lampertheim
Lampertheim is a town in the Bergstraße district in Hesse, Germany.-Location:Lampertheim lies in the southwest corner of Hesse in the Rhine rift at the Biedensand Conservation Area and borders on Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate...
, West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
and on July 4 of the same year RFE completed its first broadcast aimed at Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
.
In late 1950, RFE began to assemble a full-fledged foreign broadcast staff, becoming more than a "mouthpiece for exiles." Teams of journalists were hired for each language service and an elaborate system of intelligence gathering provided up-to-date broadcast material. Most of this material came from a network of well-connected emigres and interviews with travelers and defectors. RFE did not use paid agents inside the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
and based its bureaus in regions popular with exiles. RFE also extensively monitored Communist bloc
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
publications and radio services, creating an impressive body of information that would later serve as a resource for the CIA and other government organizations.
In addition to its regular broadcasts RFE was also known for its balloon operation (1951–1956), a project that involved dropping anti-Communist propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
from balloons. Meteorological balloons were stuffed with leaflets and floated over the Iron Curtain into Eastern Europe. The nature of the leaflets varied, and included messages of support and encouragement to citizens suffering under communist oppression, satirical criticisms of communist regimes and leaders, information about dissident movements and human rights campaigns, and messages expressing the solidarity of the American people with the residents of Eastern European nations. The project served as a publicity
Publicity
Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public's perception of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people , goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.From a marketing perspective, publicity is one component of promotion which is one...
tool to solidify RFE's reputation as an anti-communist broadcaster.
Radio Liberty
Radio Liberty was originally called Radio Liberation when formed by American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of RussiaAmerican Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia
The American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia , also known as the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism, was an American anti-communist organization founded in the late 1940s which worked for the liberation of Russia from Communism...
(Amcomlib) in 1951. Amcomlib was a CIA funded organization that was similar to the NCFE but dealt with exiles from the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Radio Liberty began broadcasting from Lampertheim
Lampertheim
Lampertheim is a town in the Bergstraße district in Hesse, Germany.-Location:Lampertheim lies in the southwest corner of Hesse in the Rhine rift at the Biedensand Conservation Area and borders on Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate...
on March 1, 1953, gaining a substantial audience when it covered the death of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
four days later. By March 1954 Radio Liberty was broadcasting six to seven hours daily in eleven languages. It had a base at Oberwiesenfeld Airport on the outskirts of Munich. It hired several former Nazi agents who had been involved in the Ostministerium under Gerhard von Mende
Gerhard von Mende
Dr. Gerhard von Mende was a Baltic German who was head of the Caucasus division at the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territory, or Ostministerium, in Nazi Germany...
during WWII. Radio Liberty broadcast targeted the Soviet Union whereas Radio Free Europe targeted the satellite countries.
Both broadcasters dealt with significant technical challenges while trying to reach their intended audiences. In 1951, RFE supplemented its shortwave transmissions
Shortwave
Shortwave radio refers to the upper MF and all of the HF portion of the radio spectrum, between 1,800–30,000 kHz. Shortwave radio received its name because the wavelengths in this band are shorter than 200 m which marked the original upper limit of the medium frequency band first used...
from Lampertheim with broadcasts from a transmitter base at Glória
Glória do Ribatejo
Glória do Ribatejo is a parish of the Salvaterra de Magos municipality in Portugal, with a total area of 55.03 km², and a total population of 3,427 inhabitants according to the 2001 census....
. In 1955 Radio Liberty began airing programs to Russia's eastern provinces from shortwave transmitters located on Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, while in 1959 Radio Liberty commenced broadcasts from a base at Playa de Pals, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
Cold War years
RFE played a critical role in Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
era Eastern Europe. Its audience increased substantially following the failed Berlin riots of 1953 and the highly publicized defection of Józef Światło. Its Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
service's coverage of Poland's
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
Poznań riots
Poznan 1956 protests
The Poznań 1956 protests, also known as Poznań 1956 uprising or Poznań June , were the first of several massive protests of the Polish people against the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland...
in 1956 arguably served as an inspiration for the Hungarian revolution
Hungarian Revolution
Hungarian Revolution may refer to:* The Hungarian Revolution of 1848.* The Hungarian Revolution of 1919, which led to the formation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic headed by Béla Kun.* The Hungarian Revolution of 1956....
.
RFE's Hungarian service was accused of precipitating the 1956 Hungarian revolution
Hungarian Revolution
Hungarian Revolution may refer to:* The Hungarian Revolution of 1848.* The Hungarian Revolution of 1919, which led to the formation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic headed by Béla Kun.* The Hungarian Revolution of 1956....
by giving its Hungarian listeners false hope of Western military assistance. However, later investigations of RFE's involvement in the Hungarian revolution cleared the organization of these accusations, while also urging more caution in its broadcasts. RFE's Broadcast Analysis Division was established to ensure that broadcasts were accurate and professional while maintaining the journalists' autonomy.
Others argue, alternatively, that Radio Free Europe's broadcasts may also have precipitated the Soviet crackdown on Hungary on November 3–4, 1956. Inflammatory broadcasts by emigres may have caused Soviet leaders to doubt Hungarian leader Imre Nagy's managerial skills, fear the power vacuum in Hungary, and conclude that a second military invasion was necessary. Moreover, the early balloon and leaflet operations initiated by the National Committee for Free Europe during Nagy's first term as Hungarian prime minister (1953–1955)—namely "Operation Focus"—arguably antagonized Nagy and spawned a stern neutralism (later, hostility) toward him among U.S. diplomats and RFE broadcasters during the crisis.
During the Cold War RFE was often criticized in the United States as not being sufficiently anti-communist. Although its nongovernmental status spared it from full scale McCarthyist
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
investigations, several RFE journalists including director of the Czech service, Ferdinand Peroutka
Ferdinand Peroutka
Ferdinand Peroutka was a Czech journalist and writer.-Life:Peroutka was born to a Czech-German family in Prague in 1895. In 1913 he began his career as a journalist. After World War I, he became a editor-in-chief of a new newspaper Tribuna...
were accused of being soft on Communism. Fulton Lewis
Fulton Lewis
Fulton Lewis, Jr. was a prominent conservative American radio broadcaster from the 1930s to the 1960s.-Early life and career:...
a U.S. radio commentator and fervent anti-communist was one of RFE's sharpest critics throughout the 1950s. His critical broadcasts inspired other journalists to investigate the inner workings of the organization including its connection to the CIA. Eventually it was exposed as a CIA-front organization in the 1960s, and funding responsibility shifted to Congress.
In late 1960, an upheaval in the Czechoslovak service led to a number of dramatic changes in the organization's structure. RFE's New York headquarters could no longer effectively manage their Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
subsidiary, and as a result major management responsibilities were transferred to Munich, making RFE a European-based organization.
Broadcasts were often banned in Eastern Europe and Communist authorities used sophisticated jamming
Radio jamming
Radio jamming is the transmission of radio signals that disrupt communications by decreasing the signal to noise ratio. Unintentional jamming occurs when an operator transmits on a busy frequency without first checking whether it is in use, or without being able to hear stations using the frequency...
techniques in an attempt to prevent citizens from listening to them. Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa
Lech Wałęsa
Lech Wałęsa is a Polish politician, trade-union organizer, and human-rights activist. A charismatic leader, he co-founded Solidarity , the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland between 1990 and 95.Wałęsa was an electrician...
and Russian reformer Grigory Yavlinsky would later recall secretly listening to the broadcasts despite the heavy jamming.
Communist governments also sent agents to infiltrate RFE's headquarters. Although some remained on staff for extended periods of time, government authorities discouraged their agents from interfering with broadcast activity, fearing that this could arouse suspicions and detract from their original purpose of gathering information on the radios' activities. In 1965–71 an agent of the Służba Bezpieczeństwa (Communist Poland's security service) successfully infiltrated the station with an operative, Captain Andrzej Czechowicz. According to former Voice of America
Voice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
Polish service director Ted Lipien, "Czechowicz is perhaps the most well known communist-era Polish spy who was still an active agent while working at RFE in the late 1960s. Technically, he was not a journalist. As a historian by training, he worked in the RFE’s media analysis service in Munich. After more than five years, Czechowicz returned to Poland in 1971 and participated in programs aimed at embarrassing Radio Free Europe and the United States government."
Other espionage incidents also included a failed attempt by a Czechoslovak Intelligence Service (StB) agent in 1959 to poison the salt shakers in the organization's cafeteria.
The CIA stopped funding Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in 1972. In 1974 they came under the control of an organization called the Board for International Broadcasting
Board for International Broadcasting
The Board for International Broadcasting is a commission established in the United States as a privately incorporated organization in 1973 by the International Broadcasting Act of 1973, Public Law 93-129, on October 19, 1973. This primarily covered Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty , established as...
(BIB). The BIB was designed to receive appropriations
Appropriation (law)
In law and government, appropriation is the act of setting apart something for its application to a particular usage, to the exclusion of all other uses....
from Congress, give them to radio managements, and oversee the appropriation of funds. In 1976, the two radios merged to form Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and added the three Baltic
Baltic states
The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
language services to their repertoire.
1981 bombing of RFE/RL's headquarters
On February 21, 1981, RFE/RL's headquarters in Munich was struck by a massive bomb, causing $2 million in damage. Several employees were injured, but there were no fatalities. StasiStasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
files opened after 1989 indicated that the bombing was carried out by a group under the direction of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (AKA Carlos the Jackal), and paid for by Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
, president of Romania.
The 1980s and the fall of communism
Funding for RFE/RL increased during the Reagan AdministrationReagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
. President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, a fervent opponent of Communism, urged the stations to be more critical of the communist regimes. This presented a challenge to RFE/RL's broadcast strategy, which had been very cautious since the controversy over its alleged role in the Hungarian Revolution.
During the Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
era in the Soviet Union, the radios worked hand in hand with Glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
and benefited significantly from the Soviet regime's new openness. Gorbachev stopped the practice of jamming the radios' broadcasts, and dissident politicians and officials could be freely interviewed by the radios for the first time without fearing persecution or imprisonment. By 1990 Radio Liberty had become the most listened-to Western radio station broadcasting to the Soviet Union. Its coverage of the 1991 August coup enriched sparse domestic coverage of the event and drew in a wide audience from throughout the region. The broadcasts allowed Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
to stay in touch with the Russian people during this turbulent period. Boris Yeltsin later expressed his gratitude through a presidential decree allowing Radio Liberty to open a permanent bureau in Moscow.
RFE/RL also played a significant role in the 1989 Velvet Revolution
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...
, which brought an end to the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Following the November 17 demonstrations and brutal crackdown by Czechoslovak riot police, RFE/RL's Czechoslovak service reported that a student, Martin Šmid
Martin Šmíd
Martin Šmíd was a fictitious Czechoslovak university student, who was supposedly killed in the police attack on the November 17, 1989 student demonstration in Prague that launched Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution. The rumor of Šmíd's death was spread by Drahomíra Dražská, a porter at a student...
, had been killed during the clashes. Although the report later turned out to be false – Šmid was alive and well – the story is credited by many sources with inspiring Czechoslovak citizens to join the subsequent (larger) demonstrations which eventually brought down the communist government.
Upon hearing about the story, RFE/RL did not run it immediately, but attempted to find a second corroborating source for the story, as per official RFE/RL policy. While a second source was never found, RFE/RL eventually decided to run the story of Šmid's death after it was reported by several major news organizations, including Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
, the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, and the Voice of America
Voice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
.
In addition, Pavel Pechacek, the director of RFE/RL's Czechoslovak service at the time, was mistakenly granted a visa to enter the country by the Czechoslovak authorities prior to the demonstrations. He reported live from the demonstrations in Wenceslas Square
Wenceslas Square
Wenceslas Square is one of the main city squares and the centre of the business and cultural communities in the New Town of Prague, Czech Republic. Many historical events occurred there, and it is a traditional setting for demonstrations, celebrations, and other public gatherings...
, and was virtually the only reporter covering the events fully and openly in the Czech language for a Czech audience.
On January 31, 2004, RFE/RL launched broadcasts to the former Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
in Serbo-Croatian (Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian-Montenegrin). In the late 90's RFE/RL launched broadcast to Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
in Albanian and to Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
in Macedonian. In 1995, RFE/RL moved its headquarters from Munich to Prague. The Clinton Administration reduced funding significantly and placed the radios under the United States Information Agency's
United States Information Agency
The United States Information Agency , which existed from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to "public diplomacy". In 1999, USIA's broadcasting functions were moved to the newly created Broadcasting Board of Governors, and its exchange and non-broadcasting information functions were...
oversight. RFE/RL ended broadcasts to Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
in 1993 and stopped broadcasts to Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
in 1997. Broadcast to the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
proceed for three more years under the agreement with Czech Radio. In 2004 RFE/RL stopped broadcasting to Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. That was the real end of Radio Free Europe since all the original European states except Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
were off the air. RFE/RL proceeded with reduced broadcasts to only six European countries: Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
, Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, Bosnia, Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, and Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
. Meanwhile, it has launched broadcasts to Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, and the North Caucasus
North Caucasus
The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....
.
RFE/RL today
RFE/RL states that its mission is to serve as a surrogate free press in countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established. It maintains 20 local bureaus, but authoritarian governments often attempt to obstruct the radios' activities through a range of tactics, including extensive jamming, shutting down local re-broadcasting affiliates, or finding legal excuses to close down offices. In many of these countries, RFE/RL is often the first and most reliable source of domestic news for citizens.The safety of RFE/RL's journalists and freelancers, who often risk their lives to broadcast information to their listeners and readers, has been a major concern throughout RFE/RL's broadcast history and continues to be a major issue as reporters are threatened and persecuted on a regular basis. RFE/RL also faces a number of central security concerns including cyberterrorist attacks and general terrorist threats. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, American and Czech authorities agreed to move RFE/RL's Prague headquarters away from the city center in order to make it less vulnerable to terrorist attack. On February 19, 2009, RFE/RL began broadcasting from its new state-of-the-art headquarters located east of the city center.
RFE/RL continues to struggle with authoritarian regimes for permission to broadcast freely within their countries. Starting January 1, 2009, Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
has imposed a ban on all foreign media in the country, including RFE/RL. Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
has also suspended broadcasts of Radio Azattyk, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz language service, requesting that the government be able to pre-approve its programming. Other states such as Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...
, Tajikistan
Tajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....
, and Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
prohibit re-broadcasting to local stations, making programming difficult for average listeners to access.
In 2008, Afghan president Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai, GCMG is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking office on 7 December 2004. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001...
urged his government to provide assistance to a rape victim after listening to her story on Radio Azadi, RFE/RL's Afghan service. Radio Azadi is currently the most popular radio station in Afghanistan, and Afghan listeners mail in hundreds of hand-written letters to the station each month.
In September 2009, RFE/RL announced that it would begin new Pashto-language broadcasting to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
In October 2009, RFE/RL introduced a daily, one-hour Russian-language broadcast to the breakaway regions of South Ossetia
South Ossetia
South Ossetia or Tskhinvali Region is a disputed region and partly recognized state in the South Caucasus, located in the territory of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic....
and Abkhazia
Abkhazia
Abkhazia is a disputed political entity on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, called the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny...
. The program, called Ekho Kavkaza (Echo of the Caucasus), focuses on local and international news and current affairs, and is organized in coordination with RFE/RL's Georgian Service.
On January 15, 2010, RFE/RL began broadcasting to the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan in Pashto. The service, known as Radio Mashaal
Radio Mashaal
Radio Mashaal is a member of Radio Free Europe in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was launched in January 2010. It broadcasts in the Pashto language. Its headquarters are both in Prague, Czech Republic, and in Islamabad, Pakistan.-External links:*...
, was created in an attempt to counter the growing number of "pirate" Islamic extremist radio stations broadcasting in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. These pirate stations broadcast pro-Taliban messages as well as fatwas (religious edicts) by radical, pro-Taliban clerics.
Radio Mashaal
Radio Mashaal
Radio Mashaal is a member of Radio Free Europe in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was launched in January 2010. It broadcasts in the Pashto language. Its headquarters are both in Prague, Czech Republic, and in Islamabad, Pakistan.-External links:*...
broadcasts local and international news with in-depth reports on terrorism, politics, women's issues, and health care (with an emphasis on preventive medicine). The station features roundtable discussions and interviews with tribal leaders and local policymakers in addition to regular call-in programs.
Relationship with the CIA
RFE/RL received funds from the Central Intelligence AgencyCentral Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
until 1972. Since then, it has been funded by regular, open Congressional appropriations through the Broadcasting Board of Governors
Broadcasting Board of Governors
The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for all non-military, international broadcasting sponsored by the U.S government. It was previously a department within the United States Information Agency until 1999.-Origins:Starting in...
(BBG) and has received no funds from the CIA.
The CIA's relationship with the radios began to break down in 1967, when Ramparts magazine published an expose claiming that the CIA was channeling funds to civilian organizations. Further investigation into the CIA's funding activities revealed its connection to both RFE and RL, sparking significant media outrage. Investigations into the legal basis of the relationship jeopardized the existence of both radios, which could not survive without the CIA's funding.
In 1971 the radios came under public spotlight once again when prominent U.S. Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Clifford Case introduced the Senate Bill 18 which would remove funding for RFE and RL from the CIA's budget, appropriate $30 million to pay for fiscal year 1972 activities and have the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
temporarily oversee the radios. This was only a temporary solution, however, as the State Department was reluctant to take on such a significant long-term responsibility.
In May 1972 President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
appointed a special commission
Presidential Commission (United States)
In the United States, a Presidential Commission is a special task force ordained by the President to complete some special research or investigation...
to deliberate RFE/RL's future. The commission proposed that funding come from the United States Congress and that a new organization, the Board for International Broadcasting
Board for International Broadcasting
The Board for International Broadcasting is a commission established in the United States as a privately incorporated organization in 1973 by the International Broadcasting Act of 1973, Public Law 93-129, on October 19, 1973. This primarily covered Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty , established as...
(BIB) would simultaneously link the radios and the federal government and serve as an editorial buffer between them.
Although both radios initially received most of their funding from the CIA, RFE maintained a strong sense of autonomy. Under Cord Meyer
Cord Meyer
Cord Meyer, Jr. was an American Central Intelligence Agency official.-Early life:Meyer's father, Cord Meyer Sr., was a diplomat and former real estate developer. His grandfather, also called Cord Meyer, was a property developer and a chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee. He was...
, the CIA officer in charge of overseeing broadcast services from 1954 to 1971, the CIA took a position of minimal government interference in radio affairs and programming.
See also
- Broadcasting Board of GovernorsBroadcasting Board of GovernorsThe Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for all non-military, international broadcasting sponsored by the U.S government. It was previously a department within the United States Information Agency until 1999.-Origins:Starting in...
- Operation MockingbirdOperation MockingbirdOperation Mockingbird was a secret Central Intelligence Agency campaign to influence foreign media beginning in the 1950s.The activities, extent and even the existence of the CIA project remain in dispute: the operation was first called Mockingbird in Deborah Davis' 1979 book, Katharine the Great:...
& White propagandaWhite propagandaWhite propaganda is propaganda which truthfully states its origin. It is the most common type of propaganda. It generally comes from an openly identified source, and is characterized by gentler methods of persuasion than black propaganda and grey propaganda... - Radio Free AsiaRadio Free AsiaRadio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation that operates a radio station and Internet news service. RFA was founded by an act of the US Congress and is operated by the Broadcasting Board of Governors . The RFA is supported in part by grants from the federal government of the United States...
- Reporters Without BordersReporters Without BordersReporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...
External links
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Official Website)
- Hoover Institution Archives: Radio Liberty: 50 Years - Time Line
- Open Society Archives: Records of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute
- The Sig Mickelson papers are available at the Hoover Institution Archives
- The Arch Puddington collection is available at the Hoover Institution Archives
- The Ferdinand Peroutka papers are available at the Hoover Institution Archives
- Pals Radio Station Museum/
- The Cold War Leaflet Campaign of Radio Free Europe
- Documentary about RFE - Tell us your story
- Museum of the Radio Transmitter in Playa de Pals (shortwave radio Liberty station in Spain)
- European English Language Radio Stations
- Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, volume XII (Soviet Union, January 1969-October 1970)
- FRUS volume XIV (Soviet Union, October 1971-May 1972)
- United States Government Support of Covert Action Directed at the Soviet Union: Memorandum for the 303 Committee Washington, December 9, 1969 Mentions a FY 1970 budget of $13,130,000 for the Radio Liberty Committee
- Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty