Using Satire to Identify Quislings and Informers ©

Quisling: a term originating in Norway, which is used in Scandinavian languages and in English for a person who collaborates with an enemy occupying force – or more generally as a synonym for traitor. The word originates from the surname of the Norwegian war-time leader Vidkun Quisling, who headed a domestic Nazi collaborationist regime during World War II. – Wikipedia

Below we will look at how Radio Free Europe in one way identified Communist  “Quislings” and informers behind the Iron Curtain.

In May 1951 the Advertising Council (Ad Council) sent out this press announcement, which read in part:

News Feature FOR HOUSE MAGAZINE EDITORS

NEW YORK - HOLLYWOOD - CHICAGO - WASHINGTON

Voice of Freedom…Day in and day out, Radio Free Europe carries on a slugging, no-holds-barred war of Truth against the propaganda lies of the Kremlin. It undermines the morale of the Red puppet regimes; exposes quislings and informers by name, sends messages from escapees; and keeps alive the hope of freedom…

Note: This editorial may be reprinted in your House Magazine in full or in part.

Through information, exposure, and ridicule, RFE sows disintegration and confusion among the 
enemy. It identifies quislings and informers for its listeners. It reports on disappeared persons. It sends 
messages from escapees. It spikes Red propaganda and spreads news the Soviets would rather not have 
known. The men in the Kremlin have reacted to these broadcasts with angry attempts at refutation.
revealing their fear, their vulnerability to the truth. They can be hit still harder and still oftener as this 
voice of freedom increases in strength.

Syndicated newspaper columnist Bob Considine used this announcement in his column “On the Line” in May 1951, when he wrote:

These are heavy guns in the greatest war of words in history… They will expose Communist Quislings behind the iron curtain, undermine the authority of Moscow's puppet government, and, insofar as is possible, help the prisoner peoples prepare for their day of liberation.

in A stream of doughty letters smuggled out at risk of life or limb has moved steadily into Radio Free Europe offices in Western Germany. There is no question about the stations getting under the skin of the Communists. The Communist radio in East Germany announced not long ago, in violent terms, that all German employees of Radio Free Europe would be executed as war criminals when the Communist “liberate” Western Germany

Hollywood actor and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the 1951 movie “The Great Truth” and later television spot announcement is seen telling the audience: “Grateful letters from listeners smuggled past the secret police express thanks to Radio Free Europe for identifying Communist Quislings and informers by name.“

The American entertainment trade magazine Variety, August 15, 1961, Vo. 183, No. 10, contained an article by David Sureck starting on page 2, with the headline: “Radio Free Europe’s Crack Job of Bolstering Red-Trapped Citizenry”.

That something new which has been added to American propaganda abroad is showmanship.  Stuff beamed from Radio Free Europe in Munich and Frankfurt hyped with realism and U.S. know-how, hued with localized satire and humor, is scoring repeatedly behind the Iron Curtain and starting red ears to burn.

Object of all broadcasts is to undermine the authority of the Red puppet rulers, expose Communist quislings, spike the Communist lies with the truth, and encourage hope behind the Iron Curtain…

[O]ne of the popular performers, for example, is Jan Snizek, Czech refugee.  Before fleeing the Commies in 1948 he operated his own Rozmarne (comedy) Theatre. He staged so many plays needling the Kremlin stooges that they jotted him down on their purge list.

Heat was too much for him after he refused to remove a satirical notice from his show windows and he fled to the free world. Now he continues to needle Reds with skits and dramatic bits over Munich’s RFE. He’s assisted by Josef Stelibsky, a well-known Czech composer of light music. Best known of his 14 operettas is “Osterov Milovani” (The Island of Love). Stelibsky also has written music for 58 films abroad.

Who were Jan Snizek and Josef Stelibisky?

Jan Snizek was the subject of many public service advertisements 1951 – 53 in support of the Crusade for Freedom and Radio Free Europe. Here is one example from a 1951 Ad Council newspaper advertisement, which compared him to one of America's greatest stars of radio, television, and Hollywood, Bob Hope:

Czechoslovakia’s “Bob Hope” tells how You can help Truth fight Communism 

PAPA SNIZEK, famous Czech comedian, broadcasts the truth about Communism to his captive countrymen over Radio Free Europe’s Holtzkirchen Station, near Munich...built and supported by the contributions of free American citizens. Says Papa Snizek: ‘Contribute your dollars to the Crusade for Freedom...help us stop world Communism. Today, I am an exile from my own country… fighting for its freedom. And it is you who make this possible. You, the free American people who have contributed your dollars to the Crusade for Freedom…the money that built the free world’s most powerful radio station—Radio Free Europe’s Holtzkirchen station near Munich.’

My broadcasts today are not comedy. Rather, they are the deadly serious business of identifying Communist informers and quislings by name, sowing fear and confusion among the Red overlords, sending the truth about the Communists to my countrymen. With your help, we’re doing a good job. But we need more stations of the Munich type to give the facts about Communism to the truth-starved people in other Iron Curtain countries. Please help continue this marvelous work. Give to the Crusade for Freedom…help win the cold war and prevent a global hot war that would destroy the world. Give to the CRUSADE FOR FREEDOM. 

Jan Snizek

Jan Snizek was born December 28, 1904 in Prague. His very first play was "Pro Kazdeho Neco", (Something For Everyone), written in 1921. between 1922 and 1925 he had written seven plays and revues. In 1933, he co-authored a script for the movie "Reka", (The River). His first success was the play "Priklady Tahnou", (Examples Are Catching), in 1939. The play was produced in the National Theater, and also made into a movie and became very popular among amateur and professional groups. He opened his own theater on Prague's Vaclavske Namesti, (Wenceslaus Square), where he produced and directed his satires, "Rozmarne Zrcadlo", (Capricious Mirror), and "Nekonecny Trojuhelnik", (Eternal triangle), both very successful. In 1948 he left Czechoslovakia, worked at Radio Free Europe in Munich for approximately three years and then settled in Paris as a political refugee. There he wrote "Certovo Kolo", (Devil's Wheel), his first book. In 1955 he emigrated to the United States, where he established a theater group, called "Krajanske Divadlo", (Patriot's theater).

His wife Bozena Helclova-Snizkova, a former member of the national Theater in Prague, a screen actress (Mikolas Ales), and a member of Jan Snizek's cast in his Prague theater, was active in this effort as well. The group performed not only in New York City, but toured North America with performances in Washington, D.C., Boston, Toronto, and Montreal.  She worked for Radio Free Europe in the New York office until 1970. Jan Snizek died following a lengthy illness on October 26, 1971.

Josef Stelibsky

Josef Stelibsky was born 5 December 1909 and died 28 April 1962 in Hollywood. Stelibský was acknowledged as the master of romantic tangos. A tango from Stelibský’s first operetta, "Stretch Out Your Hand to Happiness," from 1936 is a celebration of the beauty of Prague and can be heard here:

http://www.radio.cz/en/section/hit-of-century/1936-19th-segment-evening-above-prague-vecer-nad-prahou

April 26, 1950, General Lucius D. Clay is announced as National Chairman of Crusade for Freedom

Lucius Dubignon Clay (1897-1978) retired from the Army as a four-star general in May 1949 and became Executive Director of the Continental Can Company. He was under consideration to head National Committee for Free Europe (parent organization of Radio Free Europe) fund-raising arm, but he had not yet accepted the offer

On April 26, 1950, DeWitt C. Poole, president of the National Committee for Free Europe announced that General Lucius D. Clay accepted the chairmanship of Crusade for Freedom. He would remain in this postion until April 1952, when he resigned. Below are excerpts from the press (news) release of the Clay acceptance, with the text of the Clay statement of purpose.

The Crusade, in which every American citizen will be invited to participate, will carry our message of freedom and friendship to the oppressed and threatened people overseas and give the lie to Kremlin propaganda that our goal is world domination and war.

In accepting the chairmanship of the Crusade for Freedom…[G]eneral Clay issued the following statement of purpose:

“The soul of the world is sick, and the peoples of the world are looking to the United States for leadership and hope.

“They are looking to us for leadership in a great moral crusade – a crusade for freedom, friendship and faith throughout the earth.

“If we are to prove equal to this desperate need, each U.S. citizen must feel a personal responsibility. We cannot leave the job to government alone.

“Our nation is the symbol of these fundamental principles to liberty loving men and women everywhere. Today these principles are being denounced and reviled. We have been fighting a holding action in the cold war—in the contest of ideas between our way of life and totalitarianism – and we have suffered serious setbacks.

“In the five years since the United Nations Charter proclaimed the determination of all nations to ‘reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person,’ we have seen the most highly organized and widespread campaign against human right and fundamental freedom that the world has ever known.

“What an inspiration of hope and encouragement it would be to oppressed peoples everywhere if millions of Americans would voluntarily join in a great moral crusade, would accept the challenge of personal leadership and pledge themselves to work steadfastly and firmly until the tide of the cold war is turned and world peace with individual freedom again becomes a possibility.

“Such a ‘spiritual airlift’, originating in the heart-country of liberty, would be the first step in putting freedom on the offensive.

“In the conviction that countless citizens throughout our country would welcome the opportunity to participate in such an effort, representatives of all the major groups of American life are joining forces to initiate the Crusade for Freedom … a movement of United States citizens resolved to strengthen the free peoples of the earth in the struggle of world peace based on individual freedom and human decency—and resolved to carry our message of American friendship and goodwill to men and women everywhere.  The National Committee for a Free Europe is acting as sponsoring agency to bring this movement into being.

“It is with a great deal of humility that I have accepted responsibility as national chairman of the Crusade, for I am convinced that upon its success could well depend the prevention of World War III.

“I am convinced there is nothing that American citizens, so united cannot accomplish in such an effort. We are the greatest, most enthusiastic nation of salesmen in the world. In the cause of freedom and friendship we have the greatest product in the world to sell. With characteristic energy, resourcefulness and imagination our people will somehow get the message of truth through the Iron Curtain.

“The Crusade committee will actively seek from citizens and groups of citizens throughout the country new ideas and new ways of getting the facts of freedom and friendship across to the peoples overseas.  It will mobilize and coordinate all effective methods for doing this job, and undertake to find the resources to translate them into action.

“The Crusade will give all of us an opportunity to help counteract the constant claims that our aim is world domination and war… and, at the same time, assure the victims of tyranny that we, to whom liberty has meant more than to any other people, will not forsake them.

“Ours will be a Crusade of the people. We will depend largely for financial support upon small contributions from many hundreds of thousands of individual citizens. By their broad support, the American people will demonstrate their united determination that freedom shall not die.”

Empowering Women to join the Crusade for Freedom and help support Radio Free Europe

The second annual Crusade for Freedom in support of Radio Free Europe began in September 1951 and ended in February 1952.  Below is a quick look at some of the developments empowering women to contribute to the national effort to support both the Crusade for Freedom and RFE.

Former First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) wrote a syndicated column for American newspapers entitled “My Day” that appeared six days a week from 1936 to 1962. This is her September 1, 1951, “My Day” column:

HYDE PARK, Friday—In the last few weeks I have had a number of letters from women who want to reach all the women of the world and pledge them to do whatever is necessary to preserve peace in the world.

I have to answer that it is practically impossible to reach the women behind the Iron Curtain and that to reach women in other countries would have little value unless one could also get the acceptance of women in the Soviet Union and its satellite countries.

The fact that there is a sincere desire among the women of the United States for peace would be accepted anywhere, I'm sure, and I think the same would be believed of women in any other country. However, to accomplish anything really constructive one would have to have unrestricted discussion and a binding agreement among all the women of the world as to what steps should be taken to try to keep the peace of the world.

From my own point of view one of the most important steps is freedom of communication among the nations, a freedom which allows the use of every means of communication—television, radio, movies, the written and spoken word—and which allows free access to people. At present, citizens of Russia and the satellite countries cannot leave their homelands and visitors from other countries cannot get into these countries except after very careful scrutiny and the granting of visas, which are exceptionally hard to obtain.

Whatever is done in the field of communication is just a drop in the bucket. But drops in the bucket are important, and therefore we must support the Voice of America, for one thing. As private citizens, I think we also must support the Crusade for Freedom, which is carried on not by the government but by private funds and individuals.

The Crusade for Freedom sponsors Radio Free Europe, which has just opened a station powerful enough to reach over into the satellite countries. The opening date of the campaign is September 3 and the Crusade for Freedom will be appealing to all of us in this country for funds. Plans are in the making to expand their radio work and really bombard the Iron Curtain countries with as much truthful information as they can get across. It is felt that the truth will shake the Kremlin and the satellite nations. The Freedom Crusade also launches balloons that carry messages to the satellite nations.

There is hope that Russia will hesitate to risk war if her people are being bombarded with information that shows the mother country to be undependable. The truth from abroad is aimed to convince the Russian people that they are being handed a lot of propaganda by their masters, and this may make them and the peoples of the satellite countries more friendly to us.

The theme of Radio Free Europe in the satellite countries assures captive peoples that they have not been forgotten by the outside world, which sustains the hopes of those who are not Communist and tells them to believe that someday they may be free again.

Eleanor Roosevelt also had allowed her photograph and words to be used in the 1950 Ad Council newspaper campaign: “The Big Truth is the best Answer to the Big Lie of Communism” that included a copy of a coupon to be filled out with the name and address of the Crusade supporter, who was contributing money to the Crusade for Freedom.

Crusade for Freedom National Chairman General Lucius D. Clay gave a nation-wide radio address that was broadcast by radio station WNBC at 10:15 P.M., September 8, 1951. The New York Times headlined the speech on September 9, 1951: “CLAY OPENS APPEAL TO AID RED ‘SLAVES.’” There was also a newspaper appeal, in the best Cold-war rhetoric, to the women of the United States to support the Crusade:

This struggle (against Communism) reaches into every American home. It involves you and me. It affects the way of life of our children and our grandchildren.

The Crusade for Freedom and Radio Free Europe are one of the means, one of the powerful weapons that can be brought into play against the forces of tyranny— powerful because through them American citizens can dispel the chill blackness of evil ideas with the clear warmth and light of truth.

That is the primary reason why it is urgent for every woman to enroll in the Crusade for Freedom.

If we truly want a free world, then each and every one of us must be willing to play a part in bringing it about. It is not our way to leave our problems entirely resolved by government. It is our way as a people to join together in doing those things, which we believe worthwhile. The Crusade for Freedom presents the opportunity to each American to take a personal part in the struggle for freedom.

Sally Victor (1905-1972) was born Sally Josephs in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She started working in Macy’s department store in New York as a “saleswoman“ in 1923, moved into millinery and finally successfully created her own millinery shop. This is fromTime magazine, March 30, 1959:

Sally Victor, 54, is not only the biggest fashion hat maker (more than $500,000 a year) in the multimillion-dollar millinery business (1958 sales: $300 million), but she is a trend setter ... the only milliner to win the Coty award, fashion world "Oscar."

She designed hats for First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower, Jacqueline Kennedy and Lady Bird Johnson. Queen Elisabeth II also wore hats designed by Sally Victor.

For the second Crusade for Freedom campaign she was asked by Crusade organizers to design, a “Freedom Hat” “to make their cause – and their need for money to carry it on – felt by the women of America.”  Reportedly, Sally Victor was told to, “Make a hat so distinctive and so smart that neither women nor girls could resist it. And at a price that would not collapse the average wardrobe budget.”

Sally Victor reportedly was delighted and was quoted as saying, “It’s about time we did something to make people talk. And there’s nothing that makes a woman much more talkative than a new hat, whether it’s hers or her worst enemy”

The “Freedom Hat” was described in American newspapers as:

The Hat is a tricorne, patterned after the famous jaunty cap of Paul Revere.

It is made of softest velour, in the same color of red we find in the American flag.

It is trimmed with gold braid and gold mesh Liberty bells.

It can be worn straight atop the head or tilted to the right, in the fashionable side-swept mode of 1952.

The “Freedom Hat” is as wearable as an old pair of slippers, as chic as a Dior suit, but is more than that. It’s official as a U.N. document.

The photograph of the “Freedom Hat” showed the 1951 Crusade for Freedom Poster behind a fashion model and had this caption: “Patterned after the chapeau worn by Paul Revere, this hat seems destined to be the most talked about hat in the world.”  The article concluded, “The Crusade for Freedom hopes to make plenty of talk and maybe a little money from the hat.”

Libuse (Lela) Cloud and "Project Sliver Lining": The Iron Curtain could not stop Love ©

Libuse Hrdonkova was born on September 14, 1922, in Stod, Czechoslovakia. She met Leonard Cloud, an American soldier in a small town near Pilzen, following the end of World War Two, when he was stationed there. He then returned to the United States only to return to Czechoslovakia in 1949, when they married at the 13th century Cathedral in Pilzen on November 26th.

His visa expired, and he was forced to leave Czechoslovakia without her in January 1950. She tried six times to get a passport, but each application was refused. She was later quoted as saying; “We often were despondent over the refusals, but the hope that I would get across persisted.”

Freedom Tank

She was also quoted as saying she had two previously unsuccessful attempts to escape by foot. The full story of how she and others broke through the Iron Curtain in a home-made "Tank" built by Vaclav Uhlik was the subject of a previous blog post and can be read here. 

As an "escapee", she described at a news conference (broadcast by Radio Free Europe and Voice of America) her joy as the “tank” crossed the Iron Curtain on July 24, 1953: "I saw the barbed wires approaching and all at once we slipped down and went under the tracks. It was beautiful. We made it. Beautiful like a dream. Too beautiful to be true."  She is also quoted as saying, “I knew the bad life was behind me. I was free. I was no longer a slave. I was a human being again.” She added, “I want to get to the United States as fast as possible for a reunion with my husband.” 

A Paramount Pictures newsreel shown in movie theaters throughout the United States shows the tank in motion and the escapees, including Libuse Cloud next to the tank and also at the news conference:

She departed Germany in September 1953 to be re-united with her husband in Iowa. She was reported as saying, “I still can’t believe it’s real … I’ve often dreamed of this:” She flew from Germany, to New York but bad weather delayed her arrival in New York and she had to overnight there on Thursday, September 17, 1953. Dr. Jan Papanek, founder and president of the American Fund for Czechoslovakian Refugees (AFCR) met her at New York's Idlewild Airport. He was accompanied by Roger Williams of the U.S. State Department, who would also fly to Iowa with her. 

She gave a television interview and made a recording for the Voice of America, to be broadcast to Czechoslovakia. Libuse Cloud also went to the United Nations building and met the U.S. delegate Henry Cabot Lodge.

In Chicago

She then flew to Chicago the next day, where she was photographed at the airport driving a small cart and explaining to the airline's “First Officer Guy Douglas” how she escaped from Czechoslovakia. 

Libuse then flew on to Sioux City, Iowa for the reunion with Leonard Cloud.

Her arrival in Iowa on Friday, September 18, 1953, was a “red carpet” affair, named “Project Silver Lining,“ with welcoming speeches and a welcoming telegram from the Governor, a marching band, motorcade and parade through Sioux City, Iowa. One newspaper article began with, “A Silver Lining for the Clouds: Courageous Czech to Arrive in Iowa.” Another read, “Czech War Bride arrives in Iowa.” She reportedly ran down the stairs from the plane into her husband’s arms.”  She later said, “I am so happy to be in a free country. It’s wonderful”

The Sioux City Junior Chamber of Commerce sponsored her flight and festivities. Iowa Governor William S. Beardsley” sent her a telegram, which read: “All Iowa is happy to welcome you to our state.”

For years, she spoke at various civic functions throughout the United States about the virtues of freedom. For example, at the September meeting of the Women's Federated Club in Lake View, Iowa, she gave a talk on "Escape to Freedom." 

In November 1953, she explained to an enraptured audience in Hawarden, Iowa, that there were two previous attempts to escape: the first one failed when the height of the Iron Curtain "fence" was increased; the second failed because the tank engine proved not powerful enough. The local newspaper reported that it was "one of the most interesting and unusual programs held in this community for some time..."  

At a “kickoff” banquet for the Crusade for Freedom in Des Moines, Iowa, in January 1954, Libuse Cloud said that her mother and family did not know of her escape plans and only “learned immediately of her escape over Radio Free Europe…I was able to send greetings to my parents.”  She told her parents that she had to leave home to help Mrs. Ulrich, who was ill.  She added, “Radio Free Europe seems like a voice from heaven … is giving our people hope and courage at a time, when life is very hard and difficult for them.”

In August 1969, she was quoted in the Des Moines Register on the theme of "moment of heroism" as saying, "If we had been caught we would have been happy to get only prison because we expected to be put to death. It's so good to breathe the air of freedom."

She became a U.S. citizen in 1957 and eventually gave birth to three children: Dennis, Leola, and Stuart.

        

Leonard Cloud died in 1983, and was buried on his 60th birthday. Libuse (Lela) Cloud died on December 1, 2012; she was 90 years old.

Slums Attack: Rapping with "Radio Wolna Europa" (Radio Free Europe) ©

Below is a look at the nine-minute song / video by the Polish rap group Slums Attack that juxtaposes a 1964 film, “This is Radio Free Europe” and rap music and text. According to historian Yulia Komska's analysis:

‘Radio Wolna Europa,’ performed in as many as eight languages: Polish, Czech, German, Russian, Italian (including Neapolitan), French, Swedish, and English. Each rapper gets a near-minute-long part, recited against his native urban backdrop 

Known for its focus on current issues, rap and hip-hop may come across as unlikely conduits for nostalgia. Indeed, Slums Attack, one of Poland’s oldest and best-known rap collectives, is famous precisely for spotlighting the bread and butter of European and Eastern European rap: life in the projects, unemployment, corruption, neoliberal delusions, and youth without a future 

Within its framework, RFE is not just a community-building agent, a sensorial pastime, or an aggregation of quaint broadcasting technologies. Instead, the station’s prominent role in the song is a symptom of nostalgia for the beginnings – and the unfulfilled promise – of rap itself. 

Participants in ‘Radio Wolna Europa’ interpret RFE precisely as a recognisable icon of freedom and protest to script a hip-hop manifesto of sorts. From this vantage point, it makes sense that the performers’ native city names flash on the radio set’s station scale to indicate that hip-hop, too, can and should broadcast. 

With the camera lingering on Poznań’s memorial to the ‘black Thursday’ (June 28, 1956), when the town’s populace took to the streets to demand better working condition, ‘Radio Wolna Europa’ affirms this young, ‘rogue,’ uncontrolled RFE, coming to its audiences ‘always uncensored, live, directly,’ as Azyl announces. Just like rap ought to do. 

Here is a short outtake from the video:

The full video can be viewed on youtube here:

For the full text of the song review and of two films about Radio Free Europe ("Cold Waves" in Romania and "Listen" in Bulgaria), see Yuliya Komska essay, “The Blurred Object of Communist Nostalgia: Radio Free Europe”, Twentieth Century Communism: A Journal of International History, Issue 11, Autumn 2016

NCFE's "Document on Terror" -- Fake News? ©

Newspaper Illustration for Document on Terror

 

 

The National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), the parent organization of Radio Free Europe (RFE), began publishing the monthly journal News from Behind the Iron Curtain in January 1952. The description of the journal read:

 

News from Behind the Iron Curtain, published monthly by the Research and Publication Service of the National Committee for a Free Europe, is distributed in a limited mailing list of those who have expressed in the events and developments in Communist-dominated Europe. This bulletin is a compilation of material collected by the Committee for the use of Radio Free Europe and its other divisions. It is being made available to representatives of the press and other media, universities, churches, libraries, research centers, and other groups who want to know more about "Communism in practice." The publication is not an organ of editorial policy; wherever possible direct questions have been used with a minimum of connective commentary. However, the Committee believes that accurate information contributes to an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the Communist system and, hence, to the ability of the free nations to combat this system.

 

A “Document on Terror” was published in the March 1952 issue of the News from Behind the Iron Curtain. For the next two months, this “document” was excerpted in nationwide newspapers in an article by Associated Press journalist Sigrid Arne. One headline read, “Document Reveals: How Wily Reds Set Foe on Foe.” Another read, “Paper Found on NKVD Man Tells Red Fear Tricks.”

 

Here are some excerpts from the News from Behind the Iron Curtain Introduction:

 

The Origin of the Document


 

The Document on Terror reproduced on the following pages came to the National Committee for a Free Europe from a former Baltic cabinet minister, favorably known to us. This man received the document in 1948 from a Ukrainian refugee in Germany. According to the Ukrainian, the document, printed in Polish, had been found on the body of a dead NKVD officer in Poland in 1948. It was smuggled into Germany, where it was lent to the Ukrainians for 24 hours. During this period, Ukrainians made a shorthand copy of the document, which was later translated into German. The man who lent the document to the Ukrainian has disappeared. All subsequent efforts to find him have failed. The Baltic minister describes the Ukrainian (with whom he had spent several years in a Nazi concentration camp) as “wholly reliable."

 

The Question of Authenticity


 

No means of conclusively establishing the authenticity of the Document on Terror is known to us. The NKVD officer is dead, and no irrefutable link between him and the document can "be proved. Specific facts, however, support the belief that the document is a genuine product of Communist theory. First, the trend of thought and method of presentation are typical samples of dialectic materialism. Second, the application of a pattern of terror methods similar to or identical to those described in the monograph did, in fact, occur in widely separated countries in Eastern Europe as well as in China. The theory has been put into practice by the Communists. Third, the integrity of the man who gave it to us is of the highest order.

 

Translation

 

The German translation given to the former Baltic minister is all that now remains. Unfortunately, it is incomplete, lacking a title page and ending so abruptly that it seems almost sure that several pages are missing. In addition, the German translation itself is poor. However, it does have the advantage of being a literal translation, even to the extent of following the Polish syntax. The English translation has retained the style of the German except where this would promote misunderstanding. A few apparent inaccuracies have been corrected.

 

The Reason for Printing

 

It is not without misgivings that this manuscript is being made available to our readers, since the question of authenticity is by no means resolved. It is our feeling, however, that the document is of such interest and potential importance that it warrants publication. Therefore, we proceed in the hope that the professional scholars and journalists whom this magazine reaches will give it their thoughtful evaluation and draw their own conclusions.

 

There was a significant problem with this document as some scholars and journalists point to the CIA as the possible originator of the document. For example, Christopher Simpson wrote in his 1998 book Blowback:

 

The NCFE often distributed the highly publicized-but fraudulent-"Document on Terror," for example, as a means of crystallizing public anger in the West against communism during Radio Free Europe fund-raising campaigns. The "Document" purported to be a translation of a captured Soviet secret police directive encouraging the use of terror against civilian populations. The CIA aggressively promoted the text of the "Document" both directly through RFE and indirectly through coverage planted in a wide variety of sympathetic newspapers, magazines, and television broadcasts to audiences around the world.

 

The "Document" became a staple of anti-Communist propaganda and continues to show up occasionally in extreme-right-wing publications to this day. Recycled extensively through congressional hearings, Reader's Digest articles, and newspaper accounts, this "captured report" emerged as one of the frequently cited sources of "documentary evidence" of Communist terror during the cold war. It was not until 1956, with the publication of Khrushchev's extraordinary report detailing Stalin's crimes that the "Document" began to fade from view.

 

Journalist Evan Thomas wrote in The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA:

 

In the early days, the radios were blunt instruments. RFE repeatedly broadcast the "Document on Terror" … There were sections on "general terror"(murders, hangings, etc.), "enlightened terror" (use of agents provocateurs), and "creating the psychosis of white fear." The "captured document" was widely distributed (to the Congressional Record and Reader's Digest, among other places) as proof of what the West was up against. The charges rang true, but the document itself later turned out to be a forgery

 

Thomas was referring to psychological warfare specialist Paul W. Blackstock’s conclusion in his 1966 book Agents of Deceit: Frauds, forgeries and political intrigue among nations:

 

Indeed, in addition to the evidence already given, the substantive content of the alleged Document on Terror points to a Western rather than a Soviet or communist origin. Specifically, there are clues to indicate that the author may have been active in one of the Nazi secret police or related terrorist organizations (such as the Sicherheitsdienst or one of the notorious SD or SS "action groups").

 

The kind of rough ‘content analysis illustrated above should be adequate to indicate that the so-called Document on Terror is probably “fraudulent,” i.e., clearly not what it is represented to be, and is presumably German rather than communist in its inspiration and origin.

 

Psychiatrist Joost A. M. Meerloo believed the "Document on Terror" to be authentic when he wrote in his book The Rape of the Mind: The Psychiatry of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing:

 

Indeed, in addition to the evidence already given, the substantive content of the alleged Document on Terror points to a Western rather than a Soviet or communist origin. Specifically, there are clues to indicate that the author may have been active in one of the Nazi secret police or related terrorist organizations (such as the Sicherheitsdienst, or one of the notorious SD or SS “action groups”) … The kind of rough ‘content analysis illustrated above should be adequate to indicate that the so-called Document on Terror is probably “fraudulent,” i.e., clearly not what it is represented to be, and is presumably German rather than communist in its inspiration and origin.

 

Terrorism expert David C. Rapoport wrote in the 1982 book The Morality of Terrorism: Religious and Secular Justifications:

 

The "Document on Terror" is a chilling discussion of two fundamental kinds of terror - "general" and "enlightened" - their organizational bases, particular manifestations, political, psychological, and moral consequences. The author is unknown. Initially, it was described as a manuscript found in 1948 on the body of a dead Soviet official. That account was not entirely persuasive, even to the original publisher, which is probably why the "Document" never attracted much attention.

 

For the purposes of this volume the precise question of its origin (it may have been written by a Western intelligence officer) is not critical, because the text is a theoretical discussion and should be judged by standards normally applied to such works.

 

Chapter 9 of the book reproduces the full text of the “Document on Terror”.

 

Fake News? It needs to be clarified from the record. To repeat the NCFE's reason for printing the document: “We therefore proceed in the hope that the professional scholars and journalists whom this magazine reaches will themselves give it their thoughtful evaluation and draw their own conclusions.” 

 

The illustration above is from the Detroit Free Press newspaper, Sunday, April 20, 1952.

Top Ten Most Viewed Posts

From the beginning of the blog in May 2010 through December 2017, here are the ten most-viewed posts and the "audience" countries.

The top ten have remained in the blog, the rest have been deleted. I plan on putting out
a selection of the top ten and deleted posts since 2010 in a future ebook.

The blog is not dead as I will continue to post new vignettes.

Thank you to all who have taken the time and effort to read the blog posts and leave comments.