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.
