The 1954 Murder of Radio Liberation's Chief Editor Abdulrachmann (Abo) Fatalibey ©

One of the first major acts of violence against the radios was the yet unsolved and controversial murder of the Radio Liberation Azerbaijan Service Director in 1954, presumably a KGB-directed murder.

On Monday, November 22, 1954, an eighty-year-old Munich landlady was cleaning a small kitchen she rented in her apartment. She moved a couch and noticed something large lying underneath. Something she had not noticed before. She called a neighbor to help move the couch. As they moved the couch out from the wall, they saw a horrifying sight: a man's body lying face down with his hands tied behind his back.  They immediately ran out of the apartment building and asked a neighbor to return with them. He picked up a flashlight, and they all returned to look at the body. Then, they called the Munich police.

            The landlady identified the body to the police as Soviet émigré Michael Ismailow to whom she rented the kitchen.  Only Ismailow had the key, and he used the kitchen infrequently, she told the police.  She could not see the face of the man because his coat was pulled up over his head as the police removed the body.  She assumed it was Ismailov, and the police accepted her assumption as fact without further investigating the identification of the body.

            The next day, the Munich newspapers reported the murder of Michael Ismailow. The initial medical report was that he had died of strangulation after being struck on the head with a hammer. The murderer remained unknown. Two days later, he was buried in a Munich cemetery.

            Meanwhile, Radio Liberation (as Radio Liberty was then called) Chief Editor Abdulrachmann (Abo) Fatalibey failed to show up for work and did not call to say he was sick. This was highly unusual; his colleagues knew him to be punctual and conscientious. Colleagues went to his apartment, but it was empty, with no sign of what had happened to him. They declared him missing to the Munich police and RL Management.  The Munich press speculated that Fatalibey was the prime suspect in the murder and had disappeared and committed the act.

            Somehow, a rumor started at Radio Liberation that the person buried as Michael Ismailow was actually Fatalibey. The police were notified and exhumed the body. After a full examination, the coroner said that the body was the missing RL employee Fatalibey, not Ismailow.

            Police later reconstructed his last night: 

November 20, 1954,  Fatalibey worked at the station "Radio Liberation" until 4PM,  then went to the US Military Post Exchange at Prinzregentenstrasse and from there to "Cafe Freilinger" at Leopoldstr. There he drank until 7:45 PM. He then took streetcar No. 22 to Nordbad, where he probably changed into No. 7 (direction Ostfriedhof-Alpenplatz). From around 8 PM to 9 PM, Fatalibey was with Ismailov at the latter's place at No. 6, Alpenplatz, together with Mrs. Ruhland, a tenant on the 2nd floor in the same building. Mrs. Ruhland left at 9 PM. Around 1 AM, Ismailov was seen alone, and for the last time, in the restaurant "Alpenhof."

            Ismailow became the suspected murderer of Fatalibey.

            This is probably the first "political murder affecting RFE/RL. I write probably because Belorussian Service employee Leonid Karas failed to show up for work at Radio Liberation two months earlier and was reported missing. A week later, his body was found floating in the Isar River. How the body got there was never discovered, but lacking any evidence of wrongdoing, his death was officially ruled a suicide or an accident.  

            Radio Liberation became a subject of Munich newspaper attention for the first time since the first broadcast in March 1953. This caused as much stir within the RL American management as did the murder of Fatalibey. The life and death of Abo Fatalibey could be taken as the metaphor for all émigrés who worked at RFE and RL. It is necessary to review the details of his life to fully understand the reasons why he was murdered. 

            The following is extracted from his "autobiography" for employment with Radio Liberation. Abdulrachmann (Abo) Fatalibey was born in 1908 of a Turkic Father and Azerbaijan mother. His grandfather had been a colonel in the Tsar's army. He attended various public and military schools in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. With the help of local military officer sponsorship, he moved to Leningrad in 1926 to attend the Military Engineering School for the next three years. He joined the Communist Party then as a peasant origin member.

            He returned to Azerbaijan as a Soviet military officer. He completed some more military schools and returned to the headquarters of the Leningrad Military District. He continued to be active in the Communist Party and Soviet army in both Moscow and Leningrad before being assigned to Kalinin in 1936.  Three years later, he was finally interviewed in-depth about his "social origins." He was then expelled from the Communist Party for concealment of his "social origins."

            When the war with Finland broke out, he was sent to the front and awarded the military order "The Red Star" as a Red Army soldier. Fatalibey was accepted back into the Communist Party. When the war with Germany broke out in July 1941, Fatalibey was Deputy Chief of Staff for the Soviet 27th Army.  He was captured by the German army in September 1941 and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.  

            Fatalibey was approached by the German military to work on their behalf. He accepted and eventually was sent to Berlin. The Germans formed battalions of nationality groups to fight against the Soviet Army.  Fatalibey volunteered for the Azerbaijan Legion, rumored to number about 20,000, and in August 1942, he was sent to the front with the First Battalion, later renamed the Lion Battalion. He was decorated for his action against the Soviet Army and returned to Berlin, where in 1943, he was elected to a high office in the Azerbaijan Congress.

            The Lion Battalion was then sent to aid the German war effort in Italy. In 1945, Fatalibey was captured by American forces marching through Italy and put in a prisoner-of-war camp. He wrote political letters and pamphlets to American and British political leaders and sent them out of the camp. The American military released him, but he had to move to various refugee camps before settling in Rome in 1948.  

            Fatalibey continued to write anti-Soviet and pro-Moslem pamphlets and drew the attention of the Palestinian Religious Leaders. He was invited to Egypt, where he became a military advisor for the Palestinian cause--he might even have fought against Israel, according to unconfirmed information. He wrote that he made the necessary battle plans, but they were never implemented. He moved to Jordan with some Palestinian leaders.  Later, he crossed the border into Turkey and settled in Istanbul.

            While in Cairo, Egypt, he claimed he maintained close contact with American and British officials and continued writing anti-Soviet political pamphlets sent to Washington and London. He was invited to Munich for a successful interview with Radio Liberation officials and returned to Turkey to await a job offer.

            In 1950, he returned to  Munich to become part of the American Committee for the Liberation of Bolshevism. He was called "The Major" in Munich's émigré community.  

           Almost a year before the date of Fatalibey's death, on November 30, 1953, at approximately 5 PM, two officials of the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), Munich, went to the Munich police and declared that émigré Michael Ismailov was strongly suspected of espionage. He intended that night to remove important information directly or indirectly from Germany. 

            Three Munich policemen followed Ismailov that night. At 8.40 PM, a person who was unknown and accompanied by another person, also unknown at that time, gave Ismailov a briefcase, which he took and continued on his way. At the next intersection, Ismailov was arrested.  The papers in the briefcase that Ismailov received were submitted to CIC and the Bavarian Land Office for the protection of the Constitution since they were written in a foreign language (probably Russian language RL scripts). Both agencies returned the document with the notation "no interest". 

            Thus, Ismailov's agent activities could not be proved. He was, therefore, only sentenced to two months imprisonment for violation of passport regulations.

            After the murder of Fatalibey, two employees of Radio Liberation declared to the police that they had known all along that Ismailov was an agent for the East and had instructions to do away with Fatalibey and to obtain material concerning "Radio Liberation. In agreement with CIC, and presumably Fatalibey, they had tried to establish Ismailov's guilt. They were the ones who handed the documents to Ismailov in November 1953.

            After being criticized for a poor investigation, the Munich police responded with, “Had CIC at that time properly informed the German police, it might have been possible to convict him not only for violation of passport regulations to two months imprisonment, but also for espionage activities or traitorous connections in violation of other German or Allied High Commission laws add thus prevent him from doing any further harm.

            The Radio Liberation New York Programming Center sent a draft program on December 2, 1954, about the Fatalibey murder to Munich. “We have reservations re any mention. Treating it as act Soviet agents would certainly tend increase feeling Soviet omnipotence and hopelessness resistance. Would discourage potential defectors to know how MVD can reach abroad. Also see possibility some aspects case vulnerable to Soviet counterattacks. Leave it to you to decide whether possible positive gains outweigh these negative considerations.” 

At Fatalibey’s burial in Neu-Ulm on 5 December 1954, a Radio Liberation statement was read to inspire other émigrés to keep up the struggle: "It is of paramount importance that the Bolshevik leaders know that the anti-communist liberating struggle of the peoples of the Soviet Union--of which Radio Liberation is the voice--are not to be intimidated nor checked by the assassination of its front-line fighters.  Let us see to it that Fatalibey has not died in vain." 

            The RL program on the death of Fatalibey was addressed to "Comrade Soldiers, Sailors, and Officers" of the Soviet Union and broadcast on December 7, 1954. The program ended with this thought: “His murder shows that his recent activities, like the activities of Radio Liberation as a whole, had begun to hurt the dictatorship in a vital spot.“

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hungary 1956: Radio Free Europe as a Transmission Belt

One area that led to the allegations that Radio Free Europe (RFE) was inciting Hungarian freedom fighters was the re-transmitting of information and appeals, sometimes without comments, from the various independent radio stations broadcasting in the medium and short waves that sprang up in Hungary after October 23, 1956, and lasted to November 9, 1956.

RFE had one of the world’s largest radio monitoring stations in Schleissheim, outside Munich. It was here that the freedom fighters’ radio stations were heard, recorded, and sent to the headquarters building in Munch. However, the freedom fighter’s radio stations in Hungary did not have a fixed time or frequency on which to broadcast. RFE sent engineers to the Austrian-Hungarian border to search for transmissions and sent their results to Munich and Vienna. 

 

There were at least 14 and possibly as many as 50 local freedom stations on the air. The chief ones were Free Radio Gyor, Miskolc, Pees, Debrecen, Dunapentele, Free Radio Rakoczi (Kaposvar), Szombathely, Nyiregyhaza, Radio Damjanich (Szolnok), Free Radio Eger, Free Radio Szechenyi (Szeged), Radio Vorosmarty (Szekesfehervar) and the Radio of the Workers' Council of the County of Szabolcs-Szatmar. RFE set up a special radio monitoring unit in Vienna to augment the monitoring in Schleissheim. In this way many, if not most, of the small radio station appeals were recorded and re-broadcast by RFE, not in the original voices, mostly due to poor quality, but with RFE staffers. 

 

Every evening at 5 p.m., the directional antenna at Holzkirchen (outside Munich,) used to broadcast to Czechoslovakia on the medium wave was turned to broadcast to Hungary.

 

Cord Meyer, former CIA staffer responsible for Radio Free Europe and other projects, wrote:

 

In the period immediately following the outbreak of fighting in Budapest, RFE became the best source of information available to the United States on what was actually happening throughout Hungary. 

 

As local revolutionary councils to announce their demands seized the low-powered provincial radio stations, the sensitive monitoring equipment of RFE in West Germany was able to pick up these weak signals and get translations promptly back to the Washington analysts and policymakers. 

 

From these broadcasts, it became quickly apparent that the revolution was on a national scale and not simply confined to street fighting in Budapest. 

 

Since these local radio stations, fourteen in all, could be heard only in their immediate provincial areas, they soon began making direct requests to RFE to replay their revolutionary demands on its powerful transmitters so that the whole country could be informed of the speed and depth of the revolt. 

 

The American management of RFE recognized immediately that the decision to rebroadcast back into Hungary such far-reaching demands involved policy considerations beyond their competence and they asked me for guidance on how to react. I took the problem up with Allen Dulles. He asked me to discuss it with Robert Murphy, then the number three men in the State Department. By the end of the day, we had our policy guidance from the top level of the Eisenhower administration. 

 

RFE was given authority to rebroadcast local programs when specifically requested as a communication service, but with attribution to the local station making the request and with identification of the program as a verbatim repeat of the original broadcast. To the extent that RFE then served as a transmission belt for communications between provincial revolutionary councils it played a significant role in spreading throughout Hungary the news of what was happening not only in Budapest but also in the outlying towns. In so doing, the radio did not act irresponsibly but as the disciplined instrument of a conscious policy decision by the Eisenhower administration. 

 

This rebroadcasting by RFE did serve to identify the radio with the fundamental goals of the revolution, and in the wisdom of hindsight RFE was later blamed for what was in fact a high-level policy decision of the administration. 

 

Interestingly, some radio stations also broadcast in Morse code.  Here is one example, on November 4, 1956, this message was sent from an unidentified radio station: 

 

Special appeal to Radio Free Europe. Early this morning Soviet troops launched a general attack on Hungary. We are requesting you to send immediate military aid in the form of parachute troops over the Trans-Danubian provinces. S.O.S. Save our Souls.

 

Reportedly, the last heard broadcast was on November 9, 10:15 p.m., from an unidentified station: "Send news. in general and in detail. We look forward to news. Say something."

 

Famed author James Michener included a quotation from a 1956 refugee in his book The Bridge at Andau, that I believe, succinctly captures the reaction of those who listen to the live broadcasts of Radio Free Europe: 

 

 

No Hungarian is angry at Radio Free Europe. We wanted to keep our hopes alive. Probably we believed too deeply what was not intended by the broadcasters to be taken seriously. The wrong was not with Radio Free Europe. It was partly our fault for trusting in the words. It was partly America’s fault for thinking that words can be used loosely. Words like ‘freedom,’ ‘struggle for national honor,’ ‘rollback,’ and ‘liberation’ have meanings. They stand for something. Believe me when I say that you cannot tell Hungarians or Bulgarians or Poles every day for six years to love liberty and then sit back philosophically and say, ‘But the Hungarians and Bulgarians and Poles mustn’t do anything about liberty. They must remember that we’re only using words.’ Such words, to a man in chains, are not merely words. They are weapons whereby he can break his chains.

 

For more information about the role of Radio Free Europe and examples of what the freedom stations were transmitting, see Allan A. Michie, Voices through the Iron Curtain: The Radio Free Europe Story.

 

Cold War Frequencies, Book Review Extracts

 

Book Review Extracts

Those who wish to appreciate the totality of the East-West conflict from the end of World War II to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, must also include a study of the Cold War’s hidden dimension, to wit, intelligence. This book provides a great opportunity to do so.

Cummings’s book introduces many of the major American players involved in the broadcasting endeavor during the Cold War—for instance, Allen Dulles, Frank Wisner, DeWitt Poole, William E. Griffith, and others. It is gratifying that it does not omit several lesser-known personalities, such as Ferdinand Peroutka and Pavel Tigrid. Readers will appreciate learning about Operation WINDS OF FREEDOM during which from 1951 to 1956 some 500,000 balloons carried about 300 million leaflets from West Germany across the Iron Curtain to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. 

The book brings up the devilish Operation KAMEN, a stratagem whereby the Czech secret police (StB) lured victims into a trap involving false border markers and the misuse of U.S. Army uniforms and insignia. Cummings also writes about the role of RFE broadcasts during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. 

Much of this has been known. But many readers are unlikely to have heard of other topics the book brings up, including, for instance, Russian-language broadcasts from Taiwan that targeted Siberia. Starting in 1950, they continued for almost twenty years. Cummings brings even the well-informed reader onto a new territory with his chapters on clandestine broadcasts from Greece to Bulgaria and Romania, the Voice of Free Albania, and “black” stations broadcasting to the Baltic States and to Ukraine, Belarus, and Slovakia. Regarding Slovakia, the focus is on the White Legion and the kidnapping of Josef Vincen, one of its founders. 

Igor Lukes, University Professor, Professor of History & International Relations, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. The Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies  Volume 27 • Number 1 • Winter-Spring 2022.

New Book of Interest: Under the Radar: Tracking Western Radio Listeners in the Soviet Union

Under the Radar: Tracking Western Radio Listeners in the Soviet Union has been published by the Central European University Press and they have included it in their "Opening the Future Program" so that it can be made available free to a wide distribution. Here is the CEU Press's description of the unique program:

Opening the Future at CEU Press is a cost-effective way for libraries to increase their digital collections on the history, politics and culture of Central and Eastern Europe and the former communist countries. Subscribing libraries get unlimited multi-user access to curated packages of backlist books, with perpetual access after three years. The Press uses membership funds solely to produce new frontlist titles like these in OA format. All OA titles are available via Project MUSE, OAPEN, and the ORL (titles 6-9 above are still in the upload process with some of those platforms but will beavailable very soon).

The full list of OA titles funded by our generous member library subscribers can be found at ceup.openingthefuture.net/forthcoming, and the backlist packages to which libraries may subscribe can be found here:ceup.openingthefuture.net/packages."
  
The book can also be downloaded free at the CEU website using the following link: https://ceupress.com/book/under-radar. 

The hard copy will be available for purchase later this month at the usual sites.

From the Publisher,

Western democracy is currently under attack by a resurgent Russia, weaponizing new technologies and social media. How to respond? During the Cold War, the West fought off similar Soviet propaganda assaults with shortwave radio broadcasts. Founded in 1949, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcast uncensored information to the Soviet republics in their own languages. About one-third of Soviet urban adults listened to Western radio. The broadcasts played a key role in ending the Cold War and eroding the communist empire.

R. Eugene Parta was for many years the director of Soviet Area Audience Research at RFE/RL, charged among others with gathering listener feedback. In this book he relates a remarkable Cold War operation to assess the impact of Western radio broadcasts on Soviet listeners by using a novel survey research approach. Given the impossibility of interviewing Soviet citizens in their own country, it pioneered audacious interview methods in order to fly under the radar and talk to Soviets traveling abroad, ultimately creating a database of 51,000 interviews which offered unparalleled insights into the media habits and mindset of the Soviet public. By recounting how the “impossible” mission was carried out, Under the Radar also shows how the lessons of the past can help counter the threat from a once and current adversary.  

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 

Introduction: Why a History of Audience Research at Radio Liberty?

Prelude: My Road to Radio Liberty (amabile)

First Movement (1965–1970): Early Years of Audience Research at Radio Liberty (andante)

Second Movement (1970–1980): First Steps in Audience Interviewing (accelerato)

 

Third Movement (1981–1985): Audience Research Breaks New Ground (sforzando)

 

Fourth Movement (1986–1990): Perestroika Changes the Game (fuocoso) 

 

Fifth Movement (1991–1994): The Post-Soviet Transition (vittorioso, capriccioso, lamentoso)

 

Postlude: The Road Ahead (coda)

 

Appendix 1: Charts and Graphs referenced in text

 

Appendix 2: Vignettes: Max Ralis, Ross Johnson, James Critchlow, Morrill Cody, James Buckley, Ralph Walter, Helmut Aigner, Christopher Geleklidis, Steen Sauerberg, Copenhagen interviewer, Viktor Nekrasov, Andrei Sinyavsky, Victor Grayevsky, Irina Alberti

 

Appendix 3: Methodologies. MIT Simulation. Contribution of Ithiel de Sola Pool

 

Appendix 4: Excerpts from BALEs (Broadcast Area Listener Reports), Agorametrie conflict themes, an example of a mark-sense questionaire

 

Appendix 5: Thumbnail sketches of SAAOR/MOR Staffers

 

Bibliography

  

Olga Kopecká, former Director of Radio Free Europe's Czech Service, RIP

 

Olga Kopecká, the last Director of Radio Free Euope's Czech Service in Munich, died yesterday at age 81 in Prague.

Here is an interview she gave to RFE/RL on the anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion into Czechoslovakia in August 1968: "Radio as a Refuge in Difficult Times" (August 2018)

Czech RFE broadcaster remembers the Prague Spring and Soviet invasion.

Born in 1941 in Pelhrimov, Czechoslovakia, Olga Kopecka was an avid listener of Radio Free Europe (RFE) as a child. Deprived of university education under communism because of her family’s political beliefs, RFE broadcasters were her teachers, she says. She emigrated from Czechoslovakia in 1963 and two years later began working for RFE as a broadcaster with the Czechoslovak Service at its Munich headquarters, translating international news reports and producing programs for young people behind the Iron Curtain.

Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968, RFE/RL Pressroom spoke with Ms. Kopecka about the role of RFE broadcasting during that turbulent time.

RFE/RL Pressroom: Do you remember what drew you to RFE as a young girl?

Olga Kopecka: I started listening when I was ten years old. That was around the time of the first RFE broadcasts to Czechoslovakia. I listened to programs for young people, and I especially liked “Radio University.” I wasn’t allowed to go to university under communism because my family members were known democrats in our small town. They never went to the communist parades with the flags, and they refused to participate in all that shouting and chanting. So we suffered the consequences. Plus, my mother wanted to marry a Dutchman, and marrying a Western foreigner was almost a crime then. My mother and brother, and I emigrated in 1963 and moved to the Netherlands. I studied Slavic languages at university there. It was thanks to RFE that I was prepared for university studies even though I hadn’t been allowed to attend university in Czechoslovakia.

RFE/RL Pressroom: As an RFE broadcaster, you chose the pseudonym “Valeska,” your grandmother’s surname, in order to conceal your identity and protect your family…

Kopecka: Yes, if anyone found out who I was, my family still in Czechoslovakia would have been persecuted. There was so much harassment; it was unbelievable.

RFE/RL Pressroom: What was the mood like in RFE’s Czechoslovak Service when the Prague Spring reforms and the easing of censorship began in 1968? What did you expect, and how did it influence your broadcasts?

Kopecka: We were glad but we were worried. There were signs that not everything was as rosy as it seemed. There were Warsaw Pact military exercises staged around Czechoslovakia that summer, but they “forgot” to withdraw their armies completely when the exercises finished. The end of censorship wasn’t all it seemed either. At the height of the Prague Spring, we had a visit in Munich from a group of journalists from Czechoslovakia from a magazine called Student. They wanted to write a series of articles about RFE based on their conversations with us, but they were only allowed to publish the first parts of the series.

RFE/RL Pressroom: It must have been a very emotional time for Czechs and Slovaks. You woke up on the morning of August 21, and your country had been invaded. How did you feel?

Kopecka: I was absolutely furious but not very surprised. Something like that was to be expected. We were afraid Moscow would not allow the total parting of communist countries. We saw their reaction to the Hungarian uprising in 1956, which was put down by force, so we weren’t so surprised.

RFE/RL Pressroom: RFE wanted to prevent additional violence, so the Czechoslovak Service adopted a very strict editorial policy during the invasion. How did that affect your reporting?

Kopecka: It was a wise policy. Some people were really angry, and we couldn’t publish what they wrote. But we also had to be especially careful for years after the invasion for other reasons. We began receiving phone calls from Soviet agents and state security from other communist countries pretending to be dissidents. They would feed us fake news in the hopes we would report it and lose credibility. We had a strict system of vetting these phone calls and verifying the information. We even had a reporter who was a recent exile who knew all of the prominent dissidents and could recognize their voices.

RFE/RL Pressroom: During the so-called ‘normalization’ period that followed, when all of the liberal reforms of the Prague Spring were scrapped, how did you and your colleagues at RFE keep hope alive for people back home?

Kopecka: We reported as much as possible about what was going on in the West, and steps Western governments were taking to try to force communist governments to honor the promises they made regarding human rights, specifically the Helsinki promises. We reported about the Solidarity Movement in Poland and the rise of religion. Knowing about these events and efforts gave people hope. It let them know they had not been abandoned.

--Emily Thompson

Courtesy of RFE/RL

The first Radio Liberation broadcast to Ukraine, on August 16, 1954

The first Radio Liberation broadcast to Ukraine on August 16, 1954:

Dear brothers and sisters! Ukrainians!

Today, for the first time, we address you over Radio Liberation. We live abroad, but our hearts and thoughts are with you always. No iron curtain can separate us or obstruct that. Today is a day of joy for us, for, over the air, our vibrant word of greeting, joy, and hope will reach you.

Over one million of us Ukrainians are living abroad. For a long time, we have been telling people in the free world the truth about life in our country. The beginning Ukrainian broadcasts over Radio Liberation entrust us with a new task. We shall speak to you and for you, fellow countrymen, because there in our homeland, you have neither freedom, nor democratic press, nor a free radio.

Wherever we may be … our paths all converge toward Kiev and the towns and views of Ukraine … Kiev Rus, which became the cradle of our Ukrainian nation's existence was an important cultural center, the focus of ancient democratic freedoms in Eastern Europe. Through Kyiv, the "mother of Russian cities," our culture spread to all corners of Eastern Europe. Later, in Khmelnytsky's time [the seventeenth century), the Cossacks gave the Ukraine glamour and might.

In the fire and storm of the Revolution of 1917, Ukraine was re-established as an independent state. Our people, longing to be masters of their own destiny in their own country, proclaimed the Ukrainian Democratic Republic. That was done in a democratic way-the manifestation of the sovereign will of the Ukrainian nation. It took place in accordance with the principles of self-determination of peoples. But the Ukrainian Democratic Republic fell victim to Bolshevist aggression. To deceive the Ukrainian people, to persuade them that nothing had happened, the aggressors converted the Ukrainian Democratic Republic into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which the Communist dictatorship made an instrument of oppression of the Ukrainian people.

In the struggle against Communism, our native land has made great sacrifices on the altar of liberation. But we have faith in God's justice. We are convinced that those sacrifices were not made in vain and that God will reward Ukraine for all her sufferings. The struggle of the Ukrainian people will achieve their purpose.

And you, the Ukrainian people, "master in your house," will take your seat in the "circle of free peoples" The words of Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko, the beloved Ukrainian national poet of the nineteenth century, will come true: “And there will be a son, and there will be a mother, and there will be justice on earth. Because "in our house there is truth, and strength, and the will for freedom."

 

 

August 10, 1951, Press Release: Radio Free Europe Expands Services to Bulgaria

National Committee for a Free Europe 

350 Fifth Avenue, New York 1, N. Y.

August 10, 1951

 

FOR RELEASE AUGUST 11, 1951, or thereafter

 

RADIO FREE EUROPE EXPANDS SERVICES

 

Radio Free Europe will add Bulgaria to its list of "target countries" behind the Iron Curtain tomorrow (Aug. 11) as the first of a special series of programs, written, produced, and broadcast by Bulgarian exiles, goes on air from the station's transmitters at an undisclosed location in Europe.

 

Owned and operated by the National Committee for a Free Europe, Radio Free Europe began broadcasting to Czechoslovakia and Romania on July 14, and to Poland and Hungary on August 4. Hard-hitting commentaries by distinguished political and intellectual exiles, folk and national music "forbidden" behind the iron curtain, and broadcasts of Eastern European news otherwise denied the 80,000,000 enslaved peoples between Germany and Russia, make up its programs broadcast on regular schedules to the five target countries.

 

Tomorrow's program to Bulgaria will feature an address by Dr. G.M. Dimitrov, President of the Bulgarian National Committee and. editor of its newspaper. Dr. Dimitrov has known persecution from the time Hitler's henchmen sentenced him to death for collaborating with the allies until 1946, when he escaped from the communists. He is the former secretary-general of the Bulgarian Agrarian Union.

 

In his address tomorrow, he will emphasize to his fellow Bulgarians the fact that the United States is maintaining its contacts with the Bulgarian people, notwithstanding severance of diplomatic relations, and is actively supporting the victims of Communist tyranny until the day they once again are free.

 

Recalling the birth of the French Republic on Bastille Day, 1789, he will issue a ringing call to his people to remain firm in the face of communist terrorism. "No earthly power has been able to halt the fight of the people against tyranny, injustice, and terror," he will say tomorrow. "The bloodiest terrorists of the past -- Nero, Robespierre and Marat, could not foil it. Hitler failed to stop it. Stalin will not be able to stop it either."

 

The National Committee for a Free Europe, which owns and operates Radio Free Europe, is a private corporation formed by a group of leading American citizens last year to "halt communism and save freedom for the world." Among its membership of leading Americans are labor leaders, businessmen, scholars, statesmen, and church leaders. Its main offices are located at 350 Fifth Avenue: New York City.

 

Intensified activities of the National Committee for a Free Europe and of Radio Free Europe will be made possible by funds raised in the forthcoming Crusade For Freedom, headed by General Lucius D. Clay. The campaign will be inaugurated on September 4th by General Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

The Original Radio Free Asia, 1951-1953, Part Three

Excerpts from a 1951 Radio Free Asia advertisement

 

SLASH THE RED TENTACLES SMOTHERING ASIA

 

Give your dollars to the Crusade for Freedom...Broadcast the Truth behind Asia's Iron Curtain

 

Unless the Kremlin Gang is stopped in Asia and stopped fast, the free world will be facing the largest, most powerful, and best geographically integrated fortress the world has ever known.

 

China is already Communist controlled.  But we have millions of friends in China... freedom-loving men who hate their Red Masters, men who hunger for the TRUTH and the knowledge that the free world is concerned for them.  To these men, we must send words of hope and encouragement so they will rise again and wrest their native lands from the hands of the foreign dictator.

 

We're doing a good job in Europe right now. Over Radio Free Europe's two powerful transmitters built and supported by the American people...we are blasting the Soviet propaganda being fed the truth-starved peoples of the Satellite nations. Daily, exiled patriots speak to their countrymen in their native tongue, exposing Moscow lies...identifying Red informers...bringing to these prisoner peoples new hope and a will to fight.

 

THE SAME JOB MUST BE DONE IN ASIA. Must be done now...and can be done with the dollars you contribute to the CRUSADE FOR FREEDOM.

 

If we can stop the Communists in Asia...and we can by exposing them...we can win the cold war, and prevent a global hot war. No matter what you contribute to the CRUSADE FOR FREEDOM, the cost will be small...for you can't put a price on freedom, your freedom, and the peace of the world.

 

Doubts about Radio Free Asia

 

The Advertising Council leadership was doubtful about continuing an advertising campaign for Committee for a Free Asia and Radio Free Asia:

 

Consideration must be given to our relationship, if any, in 1952 to Committee for Free Asia. In 1951, when CFA got organized (with funds supplied by NCFE, as recited in CFA's prospectus, Crusade raised its stated goal from $3 to $3 ½ million to get Radio Free Asia started. This was done largely in deference to the attitude on the West Coast, which tends still to be oriented more towards Asia than Europe. This association with RFA doubtless was advantageous to Crusade on the Coast, even though we could speak of RFA in only the vaguest terms (it did not begin its broadcasts until September, and when it did do so the explosion was inaudible).

 

The advantage to the Crusade of having RFA on its team to round out the feeling of a world fight against Communism presumably remains the same. Over against this is the possible danger of the Crusade being associated in the public mind with an organization with no close association. There is no discoverable body of opinion in CFF/RFE/NCFE, which holds that RFA or it corporate parent, CFA knows what it's doing or is going about it wisely or adeptly. 

 

The problem of Communism (and combating it) in Asia is considerably different from that in Europe, strategically and philosophically –let alone tactically.  It solves no problem to recite this fact to our West Coast friends as a reason why “we” (RFE) don’t add a transmitter aimed at China. Committee for Free Asia is an established fact. It has prestige on the Coast by reason of its membership. But so far, no word of its doings has come to our attention, which spells a large accomplishment. 

 

Radio Free Asia Ceases Broadcasting

 

On March 31, 1953, Harold Miller, president of the Crusade for Freedom, sent a letter to the American Heritage Foundation, including information about Radio Free Asia.  In particular, “The Committee for Free Asia is a different operation. It works with and for Asia groups and individuals in free countries. Because of the delicate nature of any Western relations with Asian groups and individuals, particularly in those countries which have only recently become independent, CFA’s operations must necessarily be less militantly anti-Communist.” 

 

Also, in March 1953, The Central Intelligence Agency reviewed Radio Free Asia’s operation and decided to stop broadcasting. The CIA then sent its findings in a report dated April 1, 1953, to W. H. Jackson, chairman of The President’s Committee on International Information Activities:

 

         Programs Are Not Heard

 

Present broadcasts are on a week (10 k.w.) signal, which cannot regularly be heard anywhere in Asia. Although the broadcasts are not heard, they have served a real purpose in that their production has enabled RFA to build an especially efficient staff, about half of it Chinese. However, CFA has proposed for some time that it be equipped with facilities, which provide a stronger signal, and is now urging that this be done of the broadcasts be terminated. Further expenditures for programs that are not heard can no longer be justified simply in terms of training.

 

RFA’s international broadcasts to Mainland China and the Chinese in

        Southeast Asia are not now reaching the target areas. Either sufficiently powerful transmitting facilities should be provided, or the broadcasts should cease.

 

The decision was made to cancel Radio Free Asia: on April 15, Brayon Wilbur told the press that on April 30, 1953, Radio Free Asia broadcasts were to be replaced with “other means of communicating with Asian peoples. The committee feels that short-wave broadcasting is no longer as effective as other committee activities have been developed. The Committee planned to concentrate on assisting national radio stations in Far East Countries rather than doing the broadcasting from San Francisco.” Wilbur added, “The committee’s operations in the Far East include opening anti-Communist bookstores, producing films, books and magazines, establishing youth centers and helping Oriental youths to get education.”

 

The Committee for Free Asia held a special meeting on August 6, 1954, in San Francisco and resolved to,  

Amend the articles of incorporation, and change the name from the Committee for a Free Asia, Inc., to the Asia Foundation.

Through trial and error, we began discarding some of our original concepts that did not fully satisfy American objectives in meeting the aspirations of the peoples of Asia. For example, "We found that our initial and heavy reliance on some types of' informational programs did little to foster constructive work in Asia and were unfavorably regarded by many Asians. As a specific instance, we terminated the activities of Radio Free Asia in 1953.

The amended articles of incorporation, including importantly the change of' name to The Asia Foundation, should dispel some Asian suspicions that we direct primarily a propaganda or cold war agency. Furthermore, the changes should soothe the sensibilities of many individual Asians and some Asian governments who have been disturbed by the phrase "Free Asia" and who felt the word "committee" had the connotation of being some­thing temporary, a stop-gap organization with short-term policies that would likely fade away.

 

 

 

 

The Original Radio Free Asia, 1951-1953, Part Two

 

In preparing the American public for the second Annual Crusade for Freedom, in August 1951, the Advertising Council used the services of actor, and future U.S. President, Ronald Reagan in a Hearst Corporation movie newsreel and a televised public service appeal for contributions. Reagan was also the star and narrator of the short film The Big Truth, written by Otis Carney and directed by Seymour Friedman. Carney would receive a Freedom Foundation award in 1952 for his screenplay. Excerpts of the film, including Lucius Clay speaking in Berlin on October 24, 1950, were then used for a television film appeal for the 1951 Crusade campaign:

 

My name is Ronald Reagan. Last year the contributions of 16 million Americans to the Crusade For Freedom made possible the World Freedom Bell -- a symbol of hope and freedom to the communist-dominated peoples of Eastern Europe. And built this powerful 135,000 Watt Radio Free Europe transmitter in Western Germany. 

 

This station daily pierces the iron curtain with the truth, answering the lies of the Kremlin and bringing a message of hope to millions trapped behind the iron curtain. Grateful letters from listeners smuggled past the secret police express thanks to Radio Free Europe for identifying Communist Quislings and informers by name.

 

General Lucius D. Clay now asks you to join him in a second great Crusade for Freedom to build two more powerful Freedom Stations that will send more messages of truth and hope through the Iron Curtain. And to establish Radio Free Asia to stop the spread of Communism in the Far East. 

 

Crusade for Freedom Motorcade 

The Ford Motor Company donated 1951 model trucks for the Crusade campaign in the 48 states and the District of Columbia. The Chevrolet Division of General Motors donated the same number of 1951 model station wagon cars. The trucks and cars were identical in every state, and each truck was clearly marked Crusade for Freedom and numbered as part of the fleet around the nation. The station wagon had a sign, Crusade for Freedom, in the shape of a flag and two loudspeakers on the roof. Advance publicity, times, and locations where the vehicles would be parked were shared in each state. 

 

The Ford truck carried a replica of the Freedom Bell in Berlin, a Radio Free Europe transmitter tower, with the words Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia. An arrow of Truth pierced the symbolic Iron Curtain. Transcripts of RFE programs were also available to those interested in reading them, and spectators could hear recordings of the programs coming from the Chevrolet's sound system. Helium-filled Replicas of the Winds of Freedom balloon were often launched from the side of the Ford Truck parked in strategic locations. The Freedom Motorcade is an excellent backdrop for publicity photos for the Crusade campaign.

 

November 1951 Extraordinary Meeting

 

There was an extraordinary meeting of the CIA and the U.S. State Department leadership on November 21, 1951, in the home of State Department official Edward W. Barrett, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and an early member of the National Committee for Free Europe. Representing the CIA were Allen Dulles, Frank Wisner, Lloyd, Deputy Chief, Psychological Staff Division, and Tom Braden, Chief, International Branch, Psychological Division, OPC.

 

One of the items which the attendees agreed that "Radio Free Asia would undergo no further expansion until the future course of the Committee for Free Asia had been settled in a manner satisfactory to both CIA and State."  The CIA's Tom Braden said, "RFA is staying right there where it is until they are given further orders." Barrett said, "In regard to the radio audience in China, it was his understanding that there is a small and decreasing audience as the result of Communist repressive measures. He felt that it was better for OPC to put its RFA money into local, non-U.S.-labeled operations in the Far East. He said that we did not need another American voice in the area." CIA Director Dulles suggested “RFA be kept going on its present basis along with CFA for next few weeks until the new head of the organization is selected. He should then be brought in for a discussion of this whole operation.” 

 

Alan Valentine became president of the Committee for Free Asia in December 1951. He previously had been the president of the University of Rochester, ECA Chief in the Netherlands from 1948-1949 and Director of the Economic Stabilization Agency from 1950-1951. He participated in the May 10-11, 1952 state-private strategy meeting on political or psychological warfare at Princeton University. C.D. Jackson chaired the meeting with CIA Director Allen Dulles, Charles Chip Bohlen of the State Department, leading officials from Radio Free Europe, the National Security Council, etc. At one point, Valentine is quoted as saying,

 

            I think we have to bring to Asians more of a sense of moral conviction on

            our part – and I underline moral – if we are to convince them that we mean

            more than just support for our program. Following that, we must be very

            careful to get maximum participation by the Asians maximum control of

            individual activities on a partnership basis with the Asian, and emphasize

            as little as possible our part in the activities.

 

            Our radio program, though important will bulk less large in our over-seas

            operations than RFE because of its limited effectiveness due to a more

            limited number of receiving sets, and because there are other devices                    which may be used more effectively for our area than the spoken word.

 

            We charge ourselves with the mission of bringing back and maintaining 

            freedom and peace from the Kuriles to Korea to about two billion Asians,

            with a.staff most of whom like myself, are amateurs. 

 

The Original Radio Free Asia, 1951-1953, Part One

The original Radio Free Asia (RFA) was a short-lived and unsuccessful CIA “covert action project,” Its fate was directly connected to Radio Free Europe and the Crusade for Freedom. A 1990 secret CIA Report gave some insight into RFA’s establishment as a “private body”:

 

The Committee for a Free Asia” in 1951, sanctioned by the National Security Council and with the knowledge of Congressional Oversight Committees, supported by covert indirect CIA funding, the Committee had been created to help find ways to contain and expand private U.S. contact and communication with people of Asia following the establishment of Communist regimes in China and North Korea. The emphasis was on a private instrumentality that would be privately governed and would have the freedom and flexibility to do things the government would like to see done but which it chose not to do or could not do directly as well.

 

On March 12, 1951, the articles of incorporation of the Committee for a Free Asia Inc. (CFA) were filed with the California Office of the Secretary of State. Brayton Wilbur, an import-export executive, was the first chairman of the Committee for a Free Asia.  In announcing the creation of the Committee for a Free Asia, Wilbur said, “The people of Asia must have more of the facts about the suffering that follows Communist aggression. They must also be shown an alternative to communism.”

            

In the forward to CFA’s “Prospectus” issued in May 1951, Brayton Wilbur wrote, “The purpose of this Committee is to establish channels of direct communication between the people of Asia and the people of the free world everywhere. Through those channels an exchange of thoughts, the hopes and the inspirations of the people of Asia with the people of America and Europe can weld a union of free men which will roll back the dark forces of Soviet imperialism.”  The Statement of Purposes in the “Prospectus” included the following:

 

To promote, aid, and assist the cause of individual and national freedom in Asia, as opposed to Communist and other totalitarian doctrines. 

 

To initiate, assist and conduct, directly or indirectly, investigations and studies relating to such cause; and to obtain, collect, analyze, publish, broadcast, disseminate and distribute information relating thereto through any and all media of communication. 

 

To assist non-Communist and nontotalitarian elements in the countries of Asia in realizing and maintaining the ideals of individual and national freedom. 

 

To assist non-Communist and nontotalitarian travelers, refugees, and exiles from the countries of Asia in maintaining contact with their fellow citizens for the purpose of keeping alive and promoting the ideals of individual and national freedom; and to make available facilities whereby these travelers, refugees, and exiles can contribute to the cause of the maintenance of freedom under law. 

 

Similar to the original incorporation articles of the National Committee for a Free Europe, the Committee for a Free Asia would not “engage in carrying or propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation.” Committee for a Free Asia offices were set up in San Francisco and New York. 

 

1951 Crusade Campaign

 

Radio Free Asia (RFA) was included with Radio Free Europe in the fund solicitation activities of the 1951 Crusade for Freedom campaign. The Advertising Council put out a Crusade for Freedom fact sheet for the American media, in which Radio Free Asia was mentioned in some detail: “Although it is patterned generally after the National Committee for a Free Europe, there are substantial differences because of the more complex pattern of national viewpoints across the Pacific, and because of the different pattern of Red Aggression in Asia. For one thing, CFA is not only engaged in fighting Communism where it has already seized control, but is also waging a preventive battle to keep Kremlin doctrine from spreading to other Eastern nations.” 

 

On May 2, 1951, General Lucius D. Clay, National Chairman of the Crusade for Freedom, announced two goals for the second annual Crusade campaign: enrollment of 25 million Americans and public contributions of $3,500,00 to build two more “freedom” stations in Europe and begin the construction of Radio Free Asia.

            

A goal of 1,000,000 signatures of Californians in support of Radio Free Asia, to be enshrined in a future RFA transmitter site, was announced by California Southern Chapter chairman C.B. Tibbets: “Like the scrolls set in place last year with the opening of Radio Free Europe, the 1951 freedom pledges —signed, sealed and delivered – will serve as propaganda springboards from which American truths will hurdle the Communist curtain.” 

 

Radio Free Asia Begins Broadcasting

            

On September 4, 1951, at 6:30 a.m. local time, Radio Free Asia began live broadcasting on a test basis from a rented studio in the commercial radio station KNBC, downtown San Francisco (it was 10:30 p.m. in China). After the sound of a bronze gong being struck three times and music from Mahler’s “Song of the Earth,” the first broadcast began with these words in Mandarin Chinese, “This is Radio Free Asia...the voice of free men speaking to the people of Asia.” 

            

The initial programs of news and commentary were at first 90 minutes long and divided into three segments in Mandarin, Cantonese and English languages. The programs were broadcast via a leased wire RCA short-wave transmitter to Manila, Philippines, and from there to China via a directional short wave antenna. 

 

John W. Elwood, the first director of Radio Free Asia, told the press, “Asians in those areas dominated by Communists had had no access to the truth even about occurrences in their own homelands, let alone truthful reports of world news events.” Elwood was quoted by Time magazine on September 17, 1951, as saying, “Because we have no government ties, we can say anything we damn please.” Time told its readers, “Like its sister organization, Radio Free Europe, R.F.A. was founded by a group of private U.S. citizens who feel that the Voice of America, though effective in its way, is sometimes hampered because of "good & sufficient reasons of national policy."

 

Committee for a Free Asia chairman, Brayton Wilbur, told the press, “The fundamental purpose of the broadcasting efforts of Radio Free Asia will be to pierce the Iron Curtain of Communism in Asia with factual, accurate and truthful news.” He added, 

 

    Eventually, Radio Free Asia will beam towards the various parts of Asia programs             on agriculture, health and other topics designed to assist the people of Asia and to maintain their courage and will to resist Communism. 

 

The symbol chosen for Radio Free Asia was a replica of a wooden Asian bell with the slogan “Let Freedom Ring.” Radio Free Asia broadcasts were expanded to three hours in December 1951, and a third Chinese dialect, Hakka, was added to the broadcast languages.