CIA lClandestine Radio Broadcasts to Eastern Europe and Soviet Union: Success or Failure? ©

 

 

The CIA's Clandestine radio broadcasts were not only a tool, but also a strategic weapon in the United State's psychological and political warfare operations. They played a crucial role in the 'battle for men's minds' of those who found themselves in the borderlands in the immediate post–World War II years. In July 1956, NSC 5608 officially scaled backed the objectives of America’s covert operations: “U.S. policy should be directed toward the weakening and the eventual elimination of dominant Soviet power over these peoples, although the accomplishment of this goal in the near future cannot be expected. The more im- mediate criteria for judging the desirability of any particular measures would be their effectiveness in promoting and encouraging evolutionary change toward the weakening of Soviet controls and the attainment of national independence by the countries concerned”. 

 

Who listened to the clandestine broadcasts? There were no organized audience research mechanisms in the early Cold War to answer the question. One method the CIA used to measure the effectiveness of the clandestine radio broadcasts was to look at how the East Bloc regimes reacted to them. 

 

For example, at the 21^st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in January 1959 Politburo member and Minister of Culture Yekaterina Furtseva spoke about strengthening Marxist-Lenin ideology and Communist consciousness of the peoples of the USSR: “At the service of the organizers of the Cold War are all sorts of private committees, funds, and unions, and numerous radio stations with provocative names like Bajkal, Kavkaz (Caucasus), Nova Ukraina, Nasha Rossiya, Osvobodoshdenie (Radio Liberation), Svobodnaya Evropa (Radio Free Europe) and so forth.” The author of this information added, “The fact that Furtseva found it necessary to mention the ‘diversionary’ work of our black radios, thus publicizing them before the great masses of listeners and readers of her speech is proof of the significance the ruling clique of the USSR-CPSU attaches to the role of these radios in the overall Psychological War effort of the Free World against Communism.” 

 

In Washington on 15 September 1959, there was a meeting between Yuri Zhukov, Soviet Chairman of the State Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, and George Allen, Director of the United States Information Agency (USIA). Zhukov began the meeting by telling Allen that the Voice of America's broadcasts were no longer jammed. He added, "This was an experiment—whether the Voice of America would cease pursuing the Cold War and be the real voice of America." They then spoke briefly about Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Zhukov said, "All these were established for the purpose of overthrowing Soviet power." Zhukov then again spoke about Radio Baikal and Radio Caucasus: Radio Baikal emanated from Okinawa and Radio Caucasus from a ship near Rhodes. Mr. Zhukov read some excerpts from Radio Caucasus broadcasts in the ensuing discussion. 

 

Mr. Allen noted that these stations were not under his control and said he was not certain that the United States had anything to do with these stations. He questioned whether any of them emanated from a ship near Rhodes, as the only ship of that kind was a USIA ship, which transmitted only VOA broadcasts.

During a KGB and East German Stasi intelligence officers meeting on 13 November 1969, KGB First Deputy S. K. Zvigun mentioned CIA-sponsored clandestine radio stations: “A particularly important role in the struggle against the Soviet Union is played by radio propaganda. In addition to legal radio stations like the BBC, RFE, and “Voice of America,” there are also illegal stations directly run by intelligence services like “Radio Baikal,” “Radio Caucasus,” “Free Russia,” and “Free Ukraine.” They broadcast daily for many hours the vilest slander in Russian and the different languages of the Soviet people. They exploit certain negative phenomena from Soviet life based on the central and local press. Also, they receive information from the émigré circles. It is difficult to rebuke this slanderous propaganda. Usually, the broadcasts are shrewdly embedded in music. Wavering people, youths in particular, are getting softened up by this, and individual people are led in the wrong direction.”   

   

There was no way of polling the listening audience in the respective counties. In some cases, the CIA's foreign intelligence operations, i.e., penetration of agents into the target countries, were also used to gather information about the audibility of these clandestine radio broadcasts. 

Did the radio broadcasts have the intended effect on the listeners? Did they make a difference? The questions go beyond the scope of this overview. The short answer is no. The detailed answers lie in further research on the effect on the indigenous listeners who remained behind the Iron Curtain, especially Communist Party apparatchiks. Researchers could use this overview as a stepping stone for further research and analysis in media studies and Cold War historiography. For example, the CIA has released millions of classified documents, but millions remain classified and closed to researchers. In many cases in Eastern Europe, inculpatory files were destroyed. In the case of the former East German Stasi files, for example, it will be years before the shredded documents are readable. 

 

Questions and Answers concerning Carlos and the bombing of Radio Free Europe in 1981©

1 / On 21 February 1981, a bomb exploded at Radio Free Europe. How do you learn the news? What are you doing at the time?

It was Saturday night, and I was at home, a few kilometers from RFE, when I heard a very loud explosion. At first, I thought it was a sonic boom, but that seemed unlikely for Munich at around 10 PM on a Saturday. Shortly after, one of my security staff at RFE called to inform me about the explosion. My security supervisor also phoned and then came to pick me up, driving me to RFE. On arrival, I had to identify myself to the Munich police, who had set up a cordon around the building, before they allowed me inside. When I saw all the broken windows and damage, my first thought was that it had been a gas explosion. The building had never been attacked before in over 30 years, and there had been no warning, so I did not suspect a bomb.

2 / What exactly happened? What were the material and human consequences of the attack?

Police later found the bomb was 15 kilograms of nitropenta, set off electronically. The building suffered about 4 million DM in damage, and part of the roof was blown away. Many RFE windows shattered, as did those in the nearby apartment complex. Four RFE employees were seriously injured, and four other people had minor injuries.

3 / What was the reaction of the employees? At the time, did you know who ordered the attack?

Employees and management reacted with disbelief, outrage, and fear. Some feared it could happen again. I did not know who was responsible, but I thought it could be the KGB or an Eastern European service.

4 / When did you learn the truth? What did you know about Carlos at the time? Were you surprised when you heard it was Carlos and his band?

I first learned that Carlos was behind the attack in the summer of 1990, when the chief prosecutor in Budapest issued a press release to the Hungarian news agency identifying Carlos as the attacker. A few days later, Hungarian state television broadcast a film showing Carlos and Weinrich in Budapest, meeting with Hungarian intelligence officers. In September 1990, a Czech magazine published an article claiming Carlos received one million dollars to bomb RFE and carry out attacks on RFE emigres in Paris and Cologne, Germany. These attacks involved book bombs concealed in the Khrushchev memoirs and mailed from Spain. 

In 1991, a former Stasi officer offered to provide a 50-page report about Carlos, which proved he was behind the attack.  The Stasi officer wanted 4,000DM for the copy. I negotiated the figure down to 1,500 DM and received the report, which included photographs and drawings of the RFE and the RFE transmitter sites in Germany. Included in the package was a copy of the plan used to bomb RFE, along with a drawing of the building showing the exact location from which the photographs were taken.

5 / Who prepared the attack, provided the weapons? The vehicles ?

Carlos and Weinrich planned and prepared the attack in Budapest. The Romanian intelligence service supplied explosives and weapons. ETA members stole the vehicles in France and drove them to Munich.

In Munich, Johannes Weinrich (code name Steve) from Revolutionary Cells; Bruno Breguet (code name Luca) from Swiss group Primea Linea; Jose Maria Larretxea (code name Schep) from ETA; and an unidentified woman (code name Secretary) from ETA, were present..

6 / What was the interest of Carlos in carrying out this attack? Was it a militant or purely financial act? Was Carlos paid for this attack?

Reportedly, Carlos was paid $1 million. Otherwise, he had no interest in Radio Free Europe out of ideological or political reasons. In November 1998, Prosecutor Dan Voinea stated that a Romanian bank account existed for Carlos and Kopp under the names Michael Mallios and Anna Louise Toto-Kramer. Later that month, in an interview with Deutsche Welle, he said Carlos received one million dollars for the attack. 

Voinea also announced that Carlos's Romanian contacts were former Securitate chief General Iulian Vlad, ex-foreign intelligence chief General Nicolae Plesita, and former Interior Minister Tudor Postelnicu. 

7 / Who was targeted? What represented Radio Free Europe for Ceaușescu?

RFE and its staff were targeted. Before the bombing, three prominent Romanian freelancers for RFE received book bombs—one in Cologne, two in Paris. In 1991, TV reported Carlos was invited to Ceaușescu's bedroom to listen to Radio Free Europe. Ceaușescu then allegedly asked Carlos to deal with RFE and the emigres.

8 / Did the attack proceed as planned?

Probably not. The actual bombing itself was successful as planned by Carlos and Weinrich, but the Romanians had expected more, perhaps destroying the capability to broadcast programs to Romania. According to Carlos's girlfriend/wife, Magdalena Kopp, after the bombing on 6 March 1981, Carlos flew to Bucharest, where Colonel Sergiu Nica and others of the Romanian intelligence service reluctantly toasted him with champagne for his performance, even though, according to their wishes, he was not successful. Nica was visibly upset, but Carlos did not seem to notice it.  Nica raised a glass of champagne and ironically toasted Carlos, “Usually I kill for money, but this time I kill for nothing. Narok!” (Cheers!)”  

9 / Why did Ceaușescu decide to use Carlos? What was the opinion of the Romanian authorities about Carlos and his group?

A top-secret summary report dated October 3, 1980, by Department III/II-8 of the Hungarian Interior Ministry, based on monitored phone calls between "Carlos the Jackal" in Budapest and his Romanian contact Sergiu Nica in Bucharest, identified RFE/RL Romanian Service employee Emil Georgescu, King-in-Exile Michael, Paul Goma, and other émigrés as Carlos's targets. The planned attack on Georgescu was to happen during an assault on the Romanian Section of RFE, after which the terrorists planned to seize secret documents. Georgescu was stabbed 28 times as he left his apartment for RFE. Although two minor French criminals committed the attack, there was no direct link to Carlos or his group.

In addition to the bombing of RFE headquarters, Carlos received the task of breaking into or destroying the monitoring station outside Munich in Schleissheim and obtaining “secret” documents that were stored there.

10 / Was Carlos in contact with government officials, relatives of Ceaușescu, or only with some people from the security services?

In 1992, the then-Czech Republic Minister of Interior, Jan Ruml, confirmed that a meeting had taken place between two Romanian Intelligence Officers and Carlos in  Prague in August 1979.  They had traveled with Romanian diplomatic passports in the names Andrej Nitescu and Ive Dobascu. Their real names were Sergiu Nica and Ion Deaconescu, respectively. Their goal was to request that Carlos kill former Romanian Intelligence General Ion Pacepa, who had defected to the West the previous year.

Sergiu Nica, for yet unexplained reasons, wrote a handwritten report in February 1990 detailing his contact with Carlos. He wrote: 

In 1978, when PACEPA betrayed us, I was working in Bucharest in military unit U.M 0620. I was in charge of the intelligence service and, among other duties, was personally focused on the action against the international terrorist “CARLOS.” Thanks to a foreign source (Arafat’s brother), I learned in 1979 that “Carlos” was living in socialist countries. "Carlos" was interested in contacting the Romanian authorities. In August 1979, I went to Prague with Lieutenant Colonel DEACONESCU, Ion, and had my first meeting with “Carlos” and his organization. In 1980, after General PLESITA, Nicolae took over leadership of the external service, he asked me to re-establish contact with "Carlos" to set up a meeting between them. Between 1981 and June 1982, General PLESITA, N. met “Carlos” and his group several times. With these meetings, he intended to:

·      have “Carlos” refrain from taking terrorist actions against Romania

·      support him in a certain way (meetings in Bucharest with his mother, as well as with terrorist elements active in South America), get “Carlos” to support us with the neutralization of the traitor PACEPA.

Nica died in August 1995.

Plesita died in September 2009

11 / When did you start investigating Carlos and keeping records and documents?

Only after the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe was I able to investigate the circumstances around the bombing of RFE and obtain documents and othe rinformation. I wrote letters to the General Prosecutors in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Romania – all of whom denied my request. I even traveled to Romania in 1992 to meet with intelligence officers there concerning not only the bombing of RFE but also other hostile acts against emigres associated with RFE.

12 / In your opinion, why has this case never been tried?

In March 2003, the trial of Johannes Weinrich for his role in the bombing of RFE/RL began in Berlin. Magdalena Kopp, called as a state witness refused to testify. However, in her various sworn statements to German prosecutors before the trial, she clearly identified Romanian intelligence involvement in the bombing of RFE/RL and confirmed that Carlos was praised in Bucharest after the bombing. She said she was tasked with going to Bucharest in January 1980 to establish relations between the Romanian “secret police” and Carlos. She added that the Group received weapons and explosives, part of which went to the ETA. Because of her apparent cooperation with the German Prosecutor's Office, her legal status changed from "suspect" to "witness" in the bombing of RFE/RL. The presiding judge decided not to continue the trial for the bombing, as Weinrich was already serving a life sentence. 

President Truman’s Campaign of Truth and the Crusade for Freedom ©

 Truman’s Campaign of Truth and the Crusade for Freedom

 

On April 20, 1950, President Truman spoke at a luncheon of the American Society of Newspaper Editors on American foreign policy. He called for a “campaign of truth” in the United States information programs:

 

The cause of freedom is being challenged throughout the world today by the forces of imperialistic communism. This is a struggle, above all else, for the minds of men. Propaganda is one of the most powerful weapons the Communists have in this struggle. Deceit, distortion and lies are systematically used by them as a matter of deliberate policy.

 

This propaganda can be overcome by the truth--plain, simple, unvarnished truth-presented by the newspapers, radio, newsreels, and other sources that the people trust. If the people are not told the truth, or if they do not have confidence in the accuracy and fairness of the press, they have no defense against falsehoods. But if they are given the true facts, these falsehoods become laughable instead of dangerous.

 

We must make ourselves known as we really are--not as Communist propaganda pictures us. We must pool our efforts with those of other free peoples in a sustained, intensified program to promote the cause of freedom against the propaganda of slavery. We must make ourselves heard round the world in a great campaign of truth. 

 

Crusade for Freedom Announcement

 

Also on April 26, 1950, DeWitt C. Poole announced that Retired General Clay accepted the position of Chairman of the Crusade for Freedom. In Clay’s name, an emotional statement of purpose of the Crusade was issued to the press, which, in part, read:

 

The soul of the world is sick, and the peoples of the world are looking to the United States for leadership and hope…They are looking to us for leadership in a great moral crusade—a crusade for freedom, friendship and faith throughout the earth…If we to prove equal to this desperate need, each U.S. citizen must feel a personal responsibility.  We cannot leave the job to government alone. 

 

We have suffered serious setbacks in the contest of ideas between our way of life and totalitarianism.  

 

It is with a great deal of humility that I have accepted responsibility as national chairman of this Crusade, for I am convinced that upon its success could very well depend the prevention of World War III. 

 

On the same day, the National Committee for a Free Europe sent a telegram, under the names of General Clay and Joseph Grew, NCFE Board Chairman, to President Truman advising him of the new Crusade for Freedom and it’s future plans:

 

In your speech of April 20, you urged private initiative in expressing the voice of freedom. The National Committee for a Free Europe was organized for this purpose, and particularly to help those who love freedom and, as a result, have been exiled to continue to fight for the restoration of freedom in their countries. We believe that the American people are ready for a crusade for freedom which will not only support the voices of those from behind the Iron Curtain who have lost freedom and home but will augment their voices with an overwhelming expression from free people in this country and everywhere of their faith and confidence that there will yet be a free world. 

 

We recognize the additional responsibility which has been thrust upon us by your challenging words, and we want to assure you that we are proceeding immediately with every resource at our disposal to organize in this country a crusade for freedom which will be a genuine expression of the will of the American people and which, through Radio Free Europe and other facilities, will be carried throughout the world. We have every confidence that the American people will join enthusiastically in this crusade to preserve their heritage, and thus respond fully and promptly to your expression of faith. 

 

President Truman responded with letters to General Clay and Joseph Grew:

 

Your telegram of April twenty-sixth, advising me that the National Committee for a Free Europe is launching a nationwide crusade for freedom, meets with my heartiest approval. I hope that all Americans will join with you in dedicating themselves to this critical struggle for men's minds. I am deeply gratified by your prompt response to my appeal of April twentieth, in which I emphasized the important role of private groups and organizations in this great endeavor. 

 

The Tail Wagging the Dog ©

 The Tail Wagging the Dog

 

The success of the Crusade for Freedom upset the foreign policy bureaucracy in

Washington, which saw the Crusade as a threat to the funding of the official government

international broadcasting service, the Voice of America. An extraordinary meeting of CIA and

the U.S. State Department leadership took place in the private residence of State Department

official Edward W. Barrett, assistant secretary of state for public affairs, on the evening of

November 21, 1951. Representing the CIA were Messrs. Dulles, Wisner, Lloyd (deputy chief,

Psychological Staff Division), and Braden (chief, International Branch, Psychological Division,

OPC). 

 

During the meeting, Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, asked questions about the

future of the Crusade for Freedom. Edward Barrett gave the State Department position; saying

that the present type of campaign was harming the total United States effort and making people ask the question whether the Voice of America is really needed. He did not say that to his surprise no serious questions came up in the last Congress concerning the apparent duplication between Radio Free Europe and VOA. 

 

Mr. Barrett suggested that instead of the present type of Crusade for Freedom, a low-pressure program should be conducted. He said that something along the line of the tuberculosis seal campaign in magazines, with coupons, and so on, ought to be tried out.48

 

The assembled group agreed on Barrett’s proposal. On January 17, 1952, there was another

top-level meeting with the CIA, the State Department, NCFE’s C. D. Jackson, and Abbot

Washburn executive vice chairman of the Crusade for Freedom, to discuss of the Crusade’s

future.

 

Mr. Barrett reminded the group that NCFE had started as an organization to look after and make

use of the various Eastern European refugee groups. He recalled that giving these groups a radio

voice was something of a later development. He also recalled that the Crusade was established

primarily as a cover for the governmental support of the enterprise. Mr. Barrett raised the question of whether or not the Crusade had grown to such proportions that it was now a case of the tail wagging the dog. He also raised the question of whether the two or three million dollars that might be raised in the Crusade might be endangering the $85,000,000 involved in the appropriations for the USIE [United States Information and Educational Exchange] operations. 

 

He thought it was important to get back to the idea of just enough of a Crusade to give the minimum necessary cover to NCFE.

 

The Crusade for Freedom continued until 1960, when its functions were taken over by the

Radio Free Europe Fund. Eastern European Fund and Radio Free Europe Fund

George Kennan’s 1948 vision of “liberation committees” reached fruition when, in March

1951, the Eastern European Fund (EEF) was established by the Ford Foundation, with Kennan

selected as the first president and Frank Altschul, director of the NCFE, on the board of

directors. The purpose of this organization was to “increase the usefulness to free society of

exiles from Soviet Power by improving their morale, their mutual welfare, the suitability of their

occupation, and their facilities for association and mutual aid, and by helping them to contribute

to the general fund of knowledge in this country about Russia and the Union of the Soviet

Socialist Republics.”

 

One of the major achievements of the EEF was in 1951 with the creation of the Russian-

language Chekhov Publishing House, which published over sixty books in the first year,

including novels, short stories, plays and poetry, memoirs, and studies in history and criticism.

Publishing continued until 1956. By then over 150 books had been published.

The Eastern European Fund’s name was later changed to Radio Free Europe Fund. In 1960

it took over the functions of Crusade for Freedom. The combined organization accepted private

contributions and also engaged in public fundraising in the United States. 

 

By 1975, the Radio Free Europe Fund had raised a total of fifty million dollars, only a fraction of the true operating costs borne by the CIA in over twenty years of secret funding. 

 

When the Boston Symphony Orchestra Won a Cold-War Cultural Battle ©

When the Boston Symphony Orchestra Won a Cold-War Cultural Battle

 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), one of America’s prestigious orchestras, was scheduled, for the first time in its history outside the United States, to tour Europe April-May 1952, including performing at the Paris cultural festival “Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century.” 

 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor was Charles Munch born in France (September 26, 1891 – November 6, 1968). Concerts were scheduled for Paris, The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin, Strasbourg, Metz, Lyon, Bordeaux, and London.  

 

The National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE) board of directors held a meeting on October 2, 1951. The directors were told that the costs of the BSO tour were expensive and full financial support was not readily forthcoming for the planned budget of $200,000. The NCFE directors were told that the Congress for Cultural Freedom (a CIA covert project) pledged $30,000 of support, $40,000 was expected from the European Tour, and $100,000 would come from the United States tour before traveling to Europe. Thus, $30,000 was lacking.

 

C. D. Jackson, Fortune magazine publisher and NCFE president, was also on the board of directors of the BSO. He told the other NCFE directors that he “was very enthusiastic” about the participation of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Paris festival and “felt that the NCFE through Radio Free Europe could make a major contribution to its success,” if “NCFE would give the necessary pledge of approximately $30,000, for which in turn, Radio Free Europe would receive the rights for broadcasting the entire festival program and the recording rights of the orchestra’s European concert tour.”

 

The NCFE board of directors unanimously endorsed the support of the BSO project but would not approve the financial support without more information about the exact amount required, and if NCFE had the funds to do so.

 

At a special meeting held on January 16, 1952, the NCFE board of directors passed a resolution “that the sum of $30,000 is appropriated as a donation to the American Committee of Cultural Freedom, Inc, in return for which NCFE is secured the rights to broadcast and record the ‘Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century Exposition’ program in Europe, including all the performances of the BSO during its tour of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, Inc.

 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra left its mark in Paris when it performed in May 1952, under Charles Munch and associate conductor Pierre Monteux, also born in France (April 4, 1875 – July 1, 1964. Life magazine, for example, wrote in its May 19, 1952, issue,

 

Since 1493 Europeans have had few kind words for American ventures into the arts, and since 1945 few kind words on any score. Last week, however, they had a great many. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, in Paris for an arts festival, gave two performances, which left listeners dazed with awe. Critics unanimously used the word “extraordinary,” and phrases like, “Is there another orchestra which could interpret modern music with such brilliance?” “Performance unparalleled in finesse and dynamism.”

 

Time magazine wrote on May 19, 1952,

 

In their first appearance at Paris' international Festival of the Arts ... they left the audience (including President Auriol) shouting itself hoarse. In courtly appreciation, the orchestra and Conductor Munch broke a long-standing symphonic rule and played an encore. Two nights later came the success of Monteux, Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring.

 

Paris' critics came out gasping superlatives. Said Le Figaro: "An extraordinary ensemble, playing with an assurance and ardor that bordered on fanaticism." L'Aurore's critic said, "Never before have we heard anything comparable to the sumptuous sonority of the strings and mordant quality of the trumpets." Said one Boston musician: "We did our best because we realized what it meant to Munch and Monteux to play in Paris."

 

John Roderick of the Associated Press (AP) wrote in his article on June 1, 1952, “America has Achieved Cultural Maturity...By the time the 110-piece orchestra had finished playing Ravel’s ‘Daphnis and Chloe, the diamond-studded audience was on its feet, shouting, yelling and applauding as never before.” The Los Angeles Times proclaimed “Free World Shows Europe She Has Come of Age, Culturally Speaking.”

 

(In 1956, the Boston Symphony Orchestra was the first American orchestra to perform in the Soviet Union.)

 

For more information on the Congress of Cultural Freedom, see

 

Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cutural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. New York: The New Press, 1999.

 

Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America. London, England: Harvard University Press, 2008.

 

John Steinbeck and Radio Free Europe ©

 

 

The September 2016 National Steinbeck Center newsletter contained a short article about famed writer John Steinbeck and Radio Free Europe.

 

Below we will look at the time that literary giant John Ernst Steinbeck (1902 - 1968), who won both the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize for his works, visited Radio Free Europe in the first week of July 1954. Steinbeck had received a request from RFE in June to visit the radio station. He and his wife then visited Munich for a week, during which time Steinbeck read this stirring, personal letter to RFE's listeners:

 

To my friends,

 

There was a time when I could visit you and you were free to visit me. My books were in your stores and you were free to write to me on any subject. Now your borders are closed with barbed wire and guarded by armed men and fierce dogs, not to keep me out but to keep you in. And now your minds are also imprisoned. You are told that I am a bad writer but you are not permitted to judge for yourselves. You are told we are bad people but you are forbidden to see and to compare. You are treated like untrustworthy animals, subjected to conditioning as cold and ruthless as though you were rats in a laboratory. You cannot travel, you cannot read freely and you cannot work at the profession of your choice. Your writers are the conditioned servants of a regime. All of this is designed to destroy your ability to think.

 

I beg you to keep alive the integrity of the individual in his ability to judge and compare and create. May your writers write secretly and hold their writing for the time when this grey anesthetic has passed as pass it must. The free world outside your prison still lives. You will join it again and it will welcome you. Everything around you is cynically designed to destroy you as individuals. You must remember and teach your children that they are precious, not as dull cogs in the wheel of party existence, but as units complete and shining in themselves.

 

Steinbeck had hoped to read his message on the air to RFE’s listeners in their own languages. He diligently practiced from phonetically written texts of his message and tapes prepared for him by RFE's broadcasters. Steinbeck eventually gave up on Hungarian, Romanian, and Polish, and decided to concentrate on Czech. His wife Elaine finally convinced him to read his statement in English, telling him "Your English is so beautiful."  

 

Newspapers in the USA covered his visit to RFE. The Pittsburgh Press article published on September 4, 1954, began with: “Novelist Predicts Collapse of Soviet: Radio Free Europe airs Steinbeck.” He was quoted as saying; The Soviet Union is the most reactionary country in the world. Hindering creative work, the Soviet will eventually destroy their own system…By destroying criticism the Communists have made any culture impossible.”

 

In November 1958, John Steinbeck send a letter concerning the Nobel Prize award to Boris Pasternak to Radio Free Europe in which he wrote:

 

The Award of the Nobel Prize to Paskernak and the Soviet outcry against it makes me sad but not for Pasternak. He has fulfilled his obligation as a writer, has seen his world, described and made his comment…[M]y sadness is for the poor official writers sitting in judgment on a book on a book they are not allowed to read. They are the ground vultures of art who having helped to clip their own wings are righteously outraged at Flight and contemptuous of Eagles.

 

 

For more information about the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California, visit http://www.steinbeck.org

 

The Fighting Group against Inhumanity (Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit; KgU) ©

The Fighting Group against Inhumanity (KgU)

The Fighting Group against Inhumanity (Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit; KgU) began in Berlin in 1948 and was at first a U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) operation. It was initially conceived to expose to the residents of both East and West Germany the conditions existent in prisoner-of-war and concentration camps in the Soviet Zone. A secondary purpose was to provide a source of helpful information concerning the psychological situation within East Germany.

The covert section (for which support the majority of the CIA subsidy was used) had a staff of 15, five in the central office in Berlin and two in each of the five field divisions. To these field divisions (one for each of the East German States), a total of 125 East German co-workers regularly reported giving positive intelligence and receiving administrative harassment and propaganda material for infiltration and distribution. 

The 1954 objectives were: “Harras and weaken the Soviet administration of East Germany ( including East Berlin) and itsGerman collaborators, to help retard East German economic

development, to help promote and sustain popular anti-Communist resistance within East Germany, and too help exposeconditions within the Soviet Zone to the Western world. This project supports an effective CIA-guide d administrativeharassment and propaganda organization engaged in helping further rthese objectives 1n East Germany.”

During an average month in 1954, in addition to twenty administrative harassment operations, the KgU distributed 700,000 propaganda items in the Soviet Zone, mainly by balloon launchings. The KgU, under CIA guidance, distributedRussian-language propaganda material aimed at inducing defection among Soviet military personnel. KgU distribution costs due to this activity were reimbursed by the CIA project CATIDAL. 

In January 1955, for example, the Frankfurt Chief of Mission reported to CIA headquarters, “Over the past 12 months, the KgU carried out 157 major administrative harassment operations, including: 

·      False instructions and invitations (70)

·      Countermanding of East German governmental and party instructions (16)

·      False information (41)

·      Warnings to governmental and party functionaries (6)

·      True anti-communist information under false letterheads (16)

·      Demands for payment of notional accounts (6)

·      Falsified orders for materials (8)

·      Forged postage stamps and documents (4)”

Time, The New Yorker, The New York Herald Tribune, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and other leading American and European newspapers and periodicals carried positive articles on the KgU. 

The KgU activites ceaaed in 1959.

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