The Crusade for Freedom (CFF) was an early Cold War domestic propaganda campaign aimed at arousing the “average American against the Communist threat.” (1) Intensely popular at the time, citizens contributed funds, attended rallies, marched in parades, participated in essay contests, and read the Crusade for Freedom Newsletter, which described the nature of the threat and advocated means to counter it. A principal component of the public program was Radio Free Europe (RFE), a broadcast service that sent the ‘truth about communism’ to countries behind the Iron Curtain. What was kept from the public at the time was that both CFF and RFE were covertly sponsored by the CIA. The CIA role was officially revealed in 1976, but Radio Free Europe’s “Crusade for Freedom” adds details not made public at the time.
Author and former RFE officer Richard Cummings admits that some might consider CFF and its radio operations as a fraud on Americans. But his view is that if they were a fraud at all, they were benign and probably contributed to a Cold War anti-communist consensus. His book is devoted to documenting that position.
Cummings focuses on CFF and RFE from their planning stages in 1949 until CFF was terminated in 1962. RFE continued to function under CIA sponsorship until 1967, when RFE came under independent management, an arrangement that exists to this day. Cummings first describes the program’s origin and goes on to review the bureaucratic and financial conflicts that persisted throughout its existence. Finally he looks at the program’s clandestine elements.
The book treats the public side of CFF in some detail. This includes discussion of an extensive publicity campaign involving Hollywood celebrities, the news media, and political, industrial, and military figures. Here we read about the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, Bing Crosby, Ronald Reagan, General Eisenhower, President Truman, Walter Cronkite, President Kennedy, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to name a few. Defectors from the Soviet bloc were pressed into service. Col. Joseph Swiatlo of the Polish secret service is a case in point. In RFE broadcasts he informed those behind the Iron Curtain how the KGB dominated the security services of the bloc countries. The CIA role in CFF and RFE was exposed by journalist Drew Pearson in March 1953 (95). Fulton Lewis Jr. added critical remarks in 1957, noting “Dulles doesn’t want it known.” (171) Cummings explains how these events were dealt with and how they led to the demise of CFF in 1962.
Radio Free Europe’s “Crusade for Freedom” is well documented and contains a useful chronology of major events. Cummings does not comment on the overall value of CFF, but judging from this history, it is unlikely that anything like it could be attempted successfully today.
Studies in Intelligence Vol. 55, No. 2 (Extracts, June 2011). P.88
https://www.cia.gov/static/73256583aaade1b84a8161f66ec20c72/Intel-Officers-Bookshelf-55.2.pdf
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