Operation PROSPERO: Combining Spoken and Written Words ©

 

Operation PROSPERO

 

PROSPERO was the code name for the balloon program in the summer 1953, when over four days, 6,500 balloons with over 12,000,000 Free Europe Press leaflets were launched into Czechoslovakia.  16 The balloon launching started approximately at midnight July 13, 1953, in the Bavarian town of Tirschenreuth. This was the first time balloons were launched in conjunction with specific Radio Free Europe programs. RFE attacked the regime's new currency reforms and dropped a leaflet in the form of a banknote and an aluminum replica of a newly introduced Czechoslovak coin bearing the Freedom Bell and the inscription, "All Czechs and Slovaks for Freedom--all the Free World for Czechs and Slovaks."

 

At the July 14, 1953, NCFE Meeting, Spencer Phenix showed the other directors samples of the leaflets and read translations of the message texts.  Reportedly, the NCFE “expressed great interest in the operation and pleasure at the dynamic content of the printed message.” 

 

There was coverage of the balloon launchings throughout the United States.  For example, on July 22, 1953, the Reno Evening Gazette newspaper published a photo of a balloon launching with this caption:

 

            ON THE WINDS OF FREEDOM—A German student prepares to

            launch a huge balloon filled with messages to residents of Soviet controlled

from a secluded farm close to the Czech border in project sponsored by Radio Free Europe and known as "Winds of Freedom." Man in             foreground is using counting device to tally the balloon, one of 8000, which were released carrying news of the June 17 riots in East Berlin and the ouster   of  Laventy P. Beria.

 

The regime responded to PROSPERO by using military aircraft and anti-aircraft weapons

along the border to shoot down the balloons the day after the first launching. In fact, on July 15,

the FEP staff saw the military aircraft shooting down the balloons as they first crossed the border

into Czechoslovakia. Police cars in Prague and elsewhere used loudspeakers ordering citizens to

turn in all the leaflets. 

 

Both the Czechoslovak and Soviet media attacked this balloon program.

Because of the violent reaction and the media attacks, RFE inadvertently discovered that the

balloon program was more successful than first planned. It paved the ground work for even

greater balloon efforts with specific programming in the following years. For the first time,

PROSPERO proved the value of combining the spoken word of RFE and written word of FEP

for effective propaganda.