Soft Diplomacy The Harlem Globetrotters Basketball Team and Nikita Khrushchev ©

 Harlem Globetrotters and Nikita Khrushchev

 

The 1959 Crusade for Freedom fund-raising campaign for Radio Free Europe in Ogden, Utah,

represented a true grass-roots rallying effort. The goal in Utah was $15,000. Hal Harmon,

a "Tripper" in 1954, was Crusade regional chairman of Utah, Montana and Idaho. For the third

year, C.D. Micholson of the Kennecot Copper Company, Salt Lake City was state chairman and

Sid Weese, Ogden-Utah Knitting Company, was the Weber County chairman.

 

The Ogden campaign featured a "Freedom bowling joust," newspaperboy door-to-door campaign, a White Elephant sale sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary, a "Crusade for Freedom Ball," Truth Broadcast contest and a basketball exhibition game between the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals on March 19, 1959, in the Ben Lomond high school gymnasium.

 

One of America's iconic sport-entertainers is the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, which was founded in 1926. Abe Sapperstein, whose parents were Polish immigrants, founded the team. Since 1926, the Harlem Globetrotters have played over 25,000 games in 120 countries and

perhaps 200 million spectators.

 

On February 18, 1959, the Ogden Standard-Examiner newspaper quoted Sid Weese as saying

“The Trotters have been turning them away everywhere and my advice is to get your tickets

early.” The newspaper proudly reported on that forty newspaperboys would be guests of the Crusade for Freedom at the basketball game because “of their fine work in making their quota in the Crusade drive.”

 

In the "Women's Section" of the newspaper on February 23, 1959, there was a full-page overview of how the "Crusade for Freedom campaign helps get the Truth behind the Iron Curtain" and "Pierce the Iron Curtain with the Truth" with Radio Free Europe broadcasts.

For the evening with the Harlem Globetrotters, six international vaudeville acts as "an added floor show," were part of the evening’s entertainment program

 

The Harlem Globetrotter also played nine sold-out games in Moscow in the summer

1959, as part of the US-Soviet cultural exchange program. Seven vaudeville acts were part of the

program, including bicyclist Kim Yohoi, who reportedly received louder applause than the

Globetrotters. The other acts included, “A Scottish mono cyclist who balanced cups and saucers, a German brother and sister act in which she twirls head down on her brother’s head, an Argentine youth doing flamenco dancing on roller skates, and a table tennis match.”173

 

Their opponents were the San Francisco Chinese Basketeers. Reportedly, the Globetrotters were

out walking on a sight-seeing tour of Moscow, when “a big Russian car whizzed by, quickly

stopped and out stepped Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev,” who shouted in English, “Ah,

basketball.” He shook hands with the Globetrotters and then chatted with the team for five

minutes, while posing for photographers. He was quoted as saying through a translator,

“Basketball is very interesting, very interesting.”

 

Prior to the opening game at Moscow's Lenin Central Stadium on July 6, 1959, they were again

greeted by Nikita Khrushchev. An estimated 135,000 spectators attended the games in Moscow.

The Globetrotters were paid the equivalent of $4,000 dollars in Rubles for each game. But they

had to spend the money in Moscow as it was illegal to export the money.

 

On the final night of the tour, the Globetrotters were guests of a sports dinner in the Sport Palace.

Vaselli Napastnikov, director of the Sports Palace, said, “Your team has done more to help

Russian-American relations than any other sports organization that has come to Moscow. We

invite you to return as soon as possible.” The Globetrotters were awarded the “Athletic Order of

Lenin Medal” for their tour.

 

Project "Troy: A Cold War Government-Academic Partnership ©

 Project Troy

 

            Project “Troy” began in October 1950 as a government-academic partnership in the early days of the Cold War.  As in most partnerships, there was disagreement as to how the partners perceived their roles:

 

The Government View was that:

 

Under this project, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology assembled 30 of the nation’s top scientists and other experts to explore all means—conventional and unconventional—for penetrating the Iron Curtain. The report endorses the large-scale expansion of radio facilities, already initiated, and calls for even further expansion along lines, which should facilitate further piercing the curtain by means, which will not interfere with other telecommunications channels (military).   

            

The Academic View was in contrast:

 

In 1950, as war raged in Korea and the U.S.S.R. tested its atomic bomb, the Soviets were jamming Voice of America (VOA) radio propaganda broadcasts. Undersecretary of State James Webb asked MIT President James Killian to assemble a team to solve the jamming problem.

 

Killian and Humanities and Social Studies Dean John Burchard assembled a diverse group (including professors from Harvard and other universities) to address not only the technical issues but also matters of political warfare: what the VOA should broadcast, to whom, and to what effect, once the jamming was circumvented … [P]roject Troy resulted in the establishment of a research center at MIT funded by the CIA … [P]roject Troy had not only led to a solution of the jamming problem, but also to the creation of an inter-disciplinary center where scholarly expertise would be applied to foreign policy issues.  

 

            A committee report entitled “Project Troy, Perforating the Iron Curtain,” dated February 1, 1951, was submitted to the US Secretary of State.  Chapter 1, Part II of that report, Communication into Shielded Areas, dealt with:

 

Means of communication for piercing the Iron Curtain, mentioning, besides radio and balloons, and other existing ways, the use of direct mail to send professional journals and industrial and commercial publications and questions “Impulsive emotional blockades of this kind of communication, such as the recent ban on shipments of The Iron Age”. It also mentions sending of objects, typical of American life, drugs, flashlights, fountain pens, small radio receivers, etc.  

 

Chapter III of the Troy Report dealt with the “urgent” use of balloons to send information over the iron curtain:

 

                        An area of a million square miles could be saturated with a billion 

propaganda sheets in a single balloon operation costing a few million dollars.... If the area of dispersal in such an operation were restricted to 30,000 square miles, which may be practicable, there would be a leaflet laid down, on the average, for each area of 30 by 30 feet. The dispersion of balloons in flight and the dispersion of leaflets in falling from altitude both lend themselves to saturation operations. 

 

The operational testing and production program should be undertaken now. It may cost about one million dollars.... In order to coordinate balloon use with other political warfare operations, organizational planning for the final operations should start now.... A stockpile sufficient for an actual operation should be created now, and the questions of size and type of stock should be reviewed periodically as the program develops. 

 

Code Name "Cobra" -- Book Extract ©

 Code Name Cobra (Book Extract)

In September 1984, Constantin Constantinescu, a code clerk of the Romanian embassy in Bonn, defected to the West. To establish his credentials, he presented a copy of a thirteen-page physical surveillance report that was written by Romanian intelligence service (CIE) officer Ion Constantin sometime between October and December 1983. Constantinescu indicated that he was able to “save” a copy of this report from destruction as he saw its significance, and there was a breakdown in the normal destruction process thus allowing him to retain it. A summary of the subsequent debriefing of Constantinescu about his knowledge of this surveillance report was made available to the RFE/RL Security Department.

Of extreme interest was the physical description of the wall of RFE/RL along the main street Oettingengtrasse and analysis of the working of the entrance and exit gates of RFE/RL. This report was not necessarily accurate in this regard. Nor was it regarding the location and use of the CCTV cameras on the building, thus leading one to the conclusion that the surveillance conducted at the front of the building was limited due to fear of detection.

The summary of the debriefing also mentioned that the surveillance report contained references to “certain offices on the first floor.” Presumably these “certain offices on the first floor” referred to the Romanian Service of RFE/RL.

Constantinescu said he believed that the headquarters in Bucharest “was collecting information on the radio station to carry out intimidating acts against the personnel in the station’s Romanian section.” And he did not believe that there was interest “in having the facility seriously damaged.”

Also of interest in the debriefing summary, was the mention of the headquarters group in Bucharest responsible for organizing “physical attacks on anti–Romanian personnel abroad” and the words “usually hires foreigners to carry out the operations themselves.” Constantinescu lacked other knowledge of contemplated action against RFE/RL other than the surveillance report and conversations with Ion Constantin. In other words, he had not seen any other telex information or other written reports on RFE/RL or on individual Romanian Service members of RFE/RL.

In December 1983, one or two days before leaving for temporary duty to Bucharest, Ion Constantin handed Constantinescu a package of material for destruction. Normally, the destruction of the material should have been carried out by both him and Constantin, but Constantin was in a hurry and left the material for Constantinescu to destroy. When Constantinescu saw the report on RFE/RL, he immediately realized the report’s importance and retained it. He did not see any other materials on the topic, whether cables or operational letters. He did not hear anyone besides Constantin discuss this topic at the Romanian missions in Cologne and Bonn.

Constantin’s thirteen-page report and sketch, which the defector brought out, was a physical surveillance report on the RFE/RL target. It described the

• traffic in the area,

• traffic signs and parking,

• the facility and wall surrounding it,

• the different entrances/gates,

• certain offices on the first floor,

• ‑the presence of certain security personnel, and other installations in the immediate vicinity.

Constantin concluded his report by noting that he had collected a number of different city plans, tour books, and postcards which covered the target and its immediate surroundings, which items he was to attach to the report in an appendix which would also contain twenty-four photos of the target and its immediate surroundings (the Hilton Hotel, Bavarian Bank, Isar River, etc.). Constantin stated in his report that he personally had walked through the entire area.

From discussions with Constantin, the defector learned about a group at CIE Headquarters, designated C-428, which deals with such “diversionary” acts as physical attacks on anti–Romanian personnel abroad. C-428 depended on CIE residencies abroad to collect information in support of its plans, but usually hired foreigners to carry out the operations themselves. Constantin had received instructions, presumably originally from C-428, to collect detailed information on the RFE/RL facility in Munich, referred to by the code name “Cobra.” Constantinescu recalled that Constantin remarked: “They want to place bombs at the Radio Station.”

Constantinescu learned that similar surveillance reports on the RFE/RL facility had also been submitted to C-428 by Constantin Ciobanu, the CIE resident, and Dan Mihoc, a CIE officer, both at the Romanian embassy in Bonn. In December 1983, while in Bucharest, Constantin was given two days of briefing by C-428 and was shown the reports from Ciobanu and Mihoc. Even though his own report had been evaluated “good,” Constantin was asked to obtain additional information of interest (Constantin did not elaborate on this) In 1984, Constantin made two more trips to Munich, where he asked one of his collaborators to help him in this project.

Constantinescu’s personal opinion was that the CIE was collecting information on the radio stations in order to carry out intimidating acts against the personnel in the stations’ Romanian Section. He did not believe, however, that the CIE was interested in having the facility seriously damaged.²⁶

In November 1984, the German government ordered the expulsion of the above-named “diplomats.” Media coverage was intense. For example, the German newspaper Die Welt’s detailed article on the expulsion contained this ominous reference to Dan Mihoc: “His superiors in Bucharest ordered Mihoc in January this year to buy a set of specialist medical works about poisons that could not be traced by autopsies and he sent the volumes to the Romanian capital.”²⁷

The Bavarian State Counterintelligence Agency’s 1984 Annual Report contained this remark:

When an intelligence officer of the Romanian Embassy in Bonn defected to the West in 1984 important information was obtained on the activities of the Romanian Intelligence Service on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany. The defector presented evidence of the preparation and the actual carrying out of criminal activities with a political background by the Intelligence Service, represented by officers of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service CIE who had diplomatic status with the Romanian Embassy in Bonn.²⁸