Radio Free Europe's "Voice of Free Albania" ©

 

It is not generally known that Radio Free Europe (RFE) broadcast to Albania, as the "Voice of Free Albania," from June 1, 1951, to September 30, 1953. If at all mentioned in the histories of RFE, Albanian broadcasts are usually mentioned in the footnotes. Below is a short look into RFE and Albania in the 1950s.

At the regular monthly meeting of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE) board of directors on July 20, 1950, it was resolved to increase the 1950-1951 budget of the National Councils Division by $60,000 for "support of the National Committee for Free Albania."

 

In announcing the inaugural broadcast on June 1, 1953, RFE's press release said, "It will warn Albanians of new 'security' measures planned by the Kremlin's MVD police and further advise: 'Be cautious, my friends, be patient.'"

 

By 1953, Radio Free Europe had 20 short-wave transmitters and one medium-wave transmitter. Three transmitters were used to broadcast to Romania (3 hours per day), Bulgaria (3 hours), and Albania (1 1/2 hours).

 

Albania was included in Crusade for Freedom campaigns for Radio Free Europe. For example, the 1952 Crusade opened on November 11, 1952, with a national goal of $4,000,000 and signatures of millions of Americans on "Freedom-Grams" in the shape of a normal telegram that would be sent over the Iron Curtain. On the backside of the "Freedom-Gram," this message was translated into Albanian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, and Bulgarian:

 

Do you listen to Radio Free Europe?  I hope you do, for I am one of the millions of American citizens who have voluntarily contributed to building these stations, which bring Truth to you who are deprived of it.

 

In America, millions voluntarily pray for an understanding between our peoples. Please add your prayers to ours. Surely our common faith in God is the place where hope for freedom begins.

 

I am a (occupation)

Name

Address

 

Note to Contributors: Replies to this Freedom-Gram may be

received in a foreign language. If you should be unable to

translate them, free translations may be obtained by forwarding the 

letters to Crusade for Freedom c/o your local Postmaster

 

Eventually, six million Americans signed the "Freedom-Grams," which were then sent to West Germany for inclusion in the balloons provided by the Free European Press.

RFE's Albanian language broadcasts ceased on September 30, 1953, primarily because it was not cost-effective broadcasting to a country that reportedly only had an estimated nine-thousand radio in a population of one-and-a-half million. 

Book of Interest: A Frontline of Espionage. Studies in Hungarian Cold War Intelligence in Austria

The book featured below makes a valuable contribution to Cold War histography and is highly recommended:

Magdolna Barath, Dieter Bacher (eds.) A Frontline of Espionage. Studies in Hungarian Cold War Intelligence in Austria, Budapest – Pecs 2021.

“After World War II it was widely known in Europe that the redefined and democratic Austria became a crossroad of the intelligence services of the previously allied forces, now gradually confronting each other, a meeting point for intelligence and counterintelligence networks and a continuous source of recruitment of new agents. The vast number of Hungarian refugees and their political composition provided excellent opportunities to build intelligence network on both sides. In this volume Austrian, Danish and Hungarian outstanding researchers of Cold War espionage present their findings on the activity of the Hungarian communist state security intelligence officers in Austria, Germany and Denmark, the actions of Soviet counterintelligence against Hungarians in Austria, and many more topical issues. On the whole the volume gives an insight into a world, which still has numerous blurred details.”

 

From the introduction:

 

The contributions to the present volume focus on the many diverse aspects of Hungarian Intelligence in Austria, which shows how diverse how this research field really is, for this reason, we have divided the studies into three major categories

 

·      The first major category centers on the structural and organizational issues of the secret services and their agent network, as this forms the basis for all further research, and relevant resources are usually available in abundance.

 

·      The second major category pertains to certain intelligence operations and their goals…these studies give insight into the planning, preparation, and implementation of intelligence practices and also enable us to draw general conclusions on intelligence strategies.

 

·      The third and last category attempts to reconstruct the structures and activities of certain bodies of intelligence. During the early phase of the Cold War, “human intelligence” (HUMINT) or information collected by agents was one of the most important sources of information, and the present volume contains a variety of contributions on this operative method.

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