September 4, 1950, Eisenhower’s Nationwide Radio Appeal for the First Crusade for Freedom ©

U.S. Army General and future U.S. President 
Dwight D. Eisenhower passionately called for an American Crusade for Freedom, in a nationwide radio broadcast, covered by the four major radio networks, from Denver, Colorado, on September 4, 1950: 

I speak tonight about the Crusade For Freedom. 

This Crusade is a campaign sponsored by private American citizens to fight the big lie with the big truth. It is a program that has been hailed by President Truman, and others, as an essential step in getting the case for freedom heard by the world's multitudes. 

Powerful Communist radio stations incessantly tell the world that we Americans are physically soft and morally corrupt; that we are disunited and confused; that we are selfish and cowardly; that we have nothing to offer the world but imperialism and exploitation. 

To combat these evil broadcasts the government has established a radio program called the Voice of America, which has brilliantly served the cause of freedom, but the Communist stations overpower it and outflank it with daily coverage that neglects no wavelength or dialect, no prejudice or local aspiration. Weaving a fantastic pattern of lies and twisted fact, they confound the listener into believing that we are warmongers, that America invaded North Korea, that Russia invented the airplane, that the Soviets, unaided won World War II; and that the secret police and slave camps of Communism offer humanity brighter hope than do self-government and free enterprise. 

We need powerful radio stations abroad, operated without government restrictions, to tell in a vivid and convincing form about the decency and essential fairness of democracy These stations must tell of our aspirations for peace, our hatred of war, our support of the United Nations and our constant readiness to cooperate with any and all who have these same desires 

One such private station Radio Free Europe —is now in operation in Western Germany. It daily brings a message of hope and encouragement to a small part of the European masses. 

Freedom Scroll 

In this broadcast, Eisenhower called on all Americans to sign the “Freedom Scroll,” with a “Declaration of Freedom,” which read: 

I believe in the sacredness and dignity of the individual.

I believe that all men derive the right to freedom equally from God.

I pledge to resist aggression and tyranny wherever they appear on earth.

I am proud to enlist in the Crusade for Freedom.

I am proud to help make the freedom Bell possible, to be a signer of this Declaration of Freedom, to have my name included as a permanent part of the Freedom Shrine in Berlin, and to join with the millions of men and women throughout the world who hold the cause of freedom sacred. 

Ike's September 4, 1950, address is an archetypal example of Cold War discourse inasmuch as it features: 

·      stark polarizations (truth vs. lies, peace vs. war, democracy vs. communism, liberty vs. slavery, death vs. life); 

·      fear appeals (secret police, slave camps, blackout, executed, blank page in history, cold-blooded betrayal); 

·      biblical allusions (birthright, venom, hissing, faith, God, devilish, bondage, sacrifice, doctrine); 

·      images of death (dying, poison, mastery of life and soul, lose American birthright, mortal fear); 

·      use of ultimate terms (freedom, God, democracy, progress, liberty, truth); 

·      savagery of the enemy (hissing, hating tirade, godless depravity, aggression and tyranny, predatory military force, ruthless men); 

·      righteousness of America (freedom, readiness to cooperate, opportunity, human happiness, hope, encouragement, peaceful intent, decent motives, decency and essential fairness); 

·      fragility of liberty (take up arms in defense of liberty, defense of freedom, destroy free government, destroy our system, destroy human liberty, overpower it and outflank it, defense of our way of life, guard it with vigilance and defend it with fortitude and faith).

Source: Martin J. Medhurst, “Eisenhower and the Crusade for Freedom: the rhetorical Origins of a Cold War Campaign,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 4, 1997.

For more information about the Crusade for Freedom, Freedom Scrolls, and Eisenhower's support, see:

Operation STONE (Akce Kámen): The Tragic Theater of Communism ©

On August 31, 1951, Radio Free Europe's Czechoslovak broadcast service, the "Voice of Free Czechoslovakia," aired a radio drama in the hard-hitting series entitled "All This We Know." This program series identified secret police officers, agents, agent-provocateurs, blackmailers, informers, and “quislings" in countries behind the Iron Curtain. This particular program identified a "Dr. Evzen" and went into details of a Czechoslovak intelligence service (StB -- Státní bezpečnost) scheme known as Operation STONE (Akce Kámen). It used agent provocateurs to arrest, try, imprison, or execute potential escapees from Czechoslovakia and steal anything of "wealth" from the victims. STONE referred to the border markers used to identify the German-Czech border.

The criminal scheme involved a false German-Czechoslovak border, according to an official U.S. State Department protest note on June 15, 1948, to Czechoslovakia:  

 

For approximately four weeks, representatives of the Czechoslovak State Security Police (S.N.B.), dressed in full uniform with insignia of officers of the United States Army, have been conducting an office in a house on Czechoslovak territory in the western outskirts of the village of Vseruby. In the conduct of their business, these representatives are seated behind a desk on which there is conspicuously displayed a bottle of American whiskey, packages of American cigarettes, and a small American flag. On the wall behind their desk is a large American flag and pictures of Presidents Truman and Roosevelt. 

 

These S.N.B. representatives, dressed in uniforms of the United States Army, are assisted by other S.N.B. representatives who are dressed in uniforms of the German border police. According to factual evidence in possession of the Government of the United States, the purpose of this office, as well as of the fraudulent misuse of the uniform of the Army of the United States and of the German border police, as well as the display of the American flag and pictures of the former and present presidents of the United States, is to supplement other measures taken by the Czechoslovak Government to prevent illegal departures from Czechoslovakia.  

            

The Czechoslovak government not only denied the allegations but also "hinted that the Americans were somewhat paranoid." Moreover, “Most minute investigation in Vseruby has failed to find the smallest trace or suspicion of misuse of American insignia or portraits of US statesmen. We maintain that the protest is based on a report of an unreliable informer.“  

 

Researchers into Communist Czechoslovakia crimes have proved that the Americans were not paranoid, and scores of Czechoslovak citizens were victimized.  

 

One variation of how the scheme worked in general: previously identified wealthy persons were approached by agent provocateurs and told they were about to be arrested by the secret police. To avoid this, they should leave Czechoslovakia immediately and take only cash and jewelry. They were driven at night to a "border" with border markings. Believing they were at the German border, the victims would then cross on foot, when they would be met by StB agents acting as smugglers or bribed German border police. From there, the victims would be brought to the house described in the 1948 U.S. protest note. They believed they were then in the care of the American military. 

 

For more information, see Chapter 2 in:

 

 

In English, Dr. Igor Lukes, "KAMEN: A Cold War Dangle Operation with an American Dimension, 1948-1952," Studies in Intelligence Vol. 55, No. 1. 

 

In the Czech language, military historian Dr. Prokop Tomek wrote a detailed article about KAMEN– Adventurer in the Service of Communists (Amon Tomašoff – dobrodruh ve službách komunistů) in SECURITAS IMPERII 12, Sbornik k promlematice, pp. 5 -28,  

 

The most detailed study of the subject can be found in  two books in Czech by Václava Jandečková Václava Jandečková: Kámen: Svědectví hlavního aktéra akce "Falešné hranice" u Všerub na Domažlicku,  Nakladatelství Českého lesa 2014 and Falešné hranice: Akce „Kámen“. Oběti a strůjci nejutajovanějších zločinů StB 1948–1951, 2018. In additions she wrote a detailed article in E English:: “OPERATION “Kámen” – VŠERUBY 1948. New revelations in the case of the fake Czech border to Germany”, Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies (JIPPS) VOL.7, NR.1/2013, 49-68. The photograph above taken from her book Kámen.