CIA Clandestine Radio Broadcasting over Radio Nacional de Espańa to Latvia in the Early Cold War ©

Radio Nacional de España began broadcasting to Latvia on February 1, 1955, as the "Voice of Free Latvians" (Brīvā Latviešu Balss) with 20-minute programs, three times a week. On March 1, 1955, the time was reduced to ten minutes, six days a week.

On April 7, 1955, CIA’s Chief SR/2 submitted a memorandum in which he wrote:  “Project AEFLAG is being formulated and will be submitted for approval upon its completion. This project as presently envisaged will provide for all phases of conducting agency-controlled broadcasts from Madrid.”  

CIA’s operational plan dated July 18, 1955, for Project AEFLAG had this purpose: “Activation of a Latvian language short-wave program directed at the Latvia SSR under cover of a Latvian émigré organization.” The daily scripts and tape recordings were prepared at CIA headquarters by “covert associates” and pouched to Madrid.  The objectives of the RNE radio programs were listed as:  

1.     To preserve the national identity of the Latvian people. 


2.     To promote an attitude of irreconcilability among the Latvian people toward Communism. 

3.     To foster pro-Western orientation of the Latvian people. 

The fundamental themes of the broadcasts included: 

·      Condemn and discredit the Soviet regime, leaders, personalities, and policies inimical to the Latvian people and the free world. 

·      Discredit Soviet foreign and domestic propaganda inimical to US interests.

·      Inform listeners that the peoples of the western world are aware of, and hold deep sympathies for the suffering of the Latvian people as the result of cruelties and atrocities, oppression, and exploitation visited upon them by the Soviet regime. 

·      Nourish the listeners' hope for ultimate liberation from the Soviet yoke without arousing undue expectations of early action.

Operational control of the radio programs was ensured by the fact CIA financially supported the scriptwriters in Madrid: “All financial transactions and expenditures in connection with these broadcasts will be under Agency supervision. The content of individual programs and the policy line will be examined and evaluated periodically.”  

The format of the initial ten-minute daily broadcasts was: 

·      Introduction (1 minute) – opening of the program, Musical signal: several bars from the Latvian Anthem "Dievs, Sveti Latvlju" and the frequency and time of day.

·      News and Comments (3 minutes) 
-- Factual coverage of principal news events within the Soviet orbit and the free world, ignored by the Soviet press and radio. These news items are to be supplemented by comments to make them better understandable to listeners behind the Iron Curtain.

·      Guiding Thoughts of the Day (4-5 minutes) – Commentary based on ideological or instructive themes.


·      Entertainment (music, anecdotes, etc. (1-2 minutes).

In December 1959, an appeal to listeners was broadcast requesting those individuals in the Latvian SSR, who listened to the broadcasts, to inform the station by writing a letter to one of two addresses in the West. Ten replies were received in response to this request. All of the replies commented favorably on the broadcasts."

CIA clandestine broadcasts to Latvia over Radio Nacional de España ceased on October 31, 1963.

For more information:

CIA Clandestine Radio Broadcasting over Radio Nacional de Espaňa to Estonia in the Early Cold War ©

CIA wanted to have Radio Free Europe (RFE) broadcast to the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) in 1951. It was first approved by the U.S. State Department in May 1951 and again in August 1951. RFE started to plan for the broadcasts, including the selection of personnel for the broadcasts, but then the U.S. Department of State vetoed the idea in November 1951: "There is nothing that needs to be said to the Baltics that cannot be said quite adequately by Voice of America."  

An attempt was made in August 1953 to secure independent radio facilities from the Pan-American Broadcasting Company, but the arrangement fell through because: 

 

Estonian émigrés in the U.S. have been negotiating with radio stations in Madrid and Hamburg. Radio Hamburg is handicapped by Allied restrictions, while Madrid is prepared to make daily radio time available as of October 1954, when additional transmitter facilities will be ready. 

 

A September 1954, CIA internal memorandum included these comments.

 

The question of RFE undertaking broadcasts to the Baltic area was reviewed several months ago, and the arguments against such an undertaking seem pertinent to the present proposal. At that time, the joint decision of the Agency and the Department of State restated that it is preferable to have broadcasting to that area handled by VOA.

 

The objectives of CIA Project AEBASIN for Fiscal Year 1955 included:


 


Radio Estonian émigré groups as such have no radio facilities of their own for broadcasts to Estonia. (Note: The VOA broadcasts, of course, are not included in this statement. They consist of three 10-minute spots daily from Munich and Algiers and are used occasionally by AEBASIN personnel on specific and limited topics acceptable to VOA.) Radio Free Europe, likewise, has no Estonian facilities at the present time. 

 

On October 16, 1955, CIA sponsored broadcasts to Estonia began on Radio Nacional de España. In January 1956, there was an internal CIA SR/PP staff evaluation of the broadcasts, which included this comment: 

 

The undersigned has read in translation a large number of AEBASIN
scripts dating from the inauguration of the broadcasts to October 16. In general, they are more than adequate for the audience. It is believed that if they get through the jamming networks, the programs would fulfill an important function in maintaining the morale of whatever individuals and groups in Estonia are favorably disposed towards the West and which harbor anti-Communist resentments.

 

Scripts refute Soviet propaganda regarding the peaceful motivation of Soviet policies and point up matters like the exploitation of individuals in the concentration camps, factories, and on the collective farms. The scripts are singularly entirely free from anti-Russianism, as distinguished from anti-Soviet sentiments, and the theme of eventual liberation is mentioned, but is sensibly not overstressed.

 

This comment appeared in the S.R. Division October 1958 Request for P.P. Project Renewal: "The AEBASIN operations have been conducted through the Estonian section at Radio Nacional, Madrid. Contact with Radio Regional is maintained through the Voice of Estonian Freedom, a cover organization located in New York City."  

 

Original broadcasts to Estonia were 15 minutes per day in the evening. In May 1958, programs were rebroadcast for another 15 minutes in the morning, for a total of 30 minutes per day. As to the continuing cover of the operation: “The cover organization for contact With Radio Nacional, the Voice of Estonian Freedom, has no popular membership. It claims to receive its funds from an “anonymous” donor. These points are not considered to be significant weaknesses and sound sufficiently plausible. In addition, this arrangement permits much greater control than would be possible if this organization bad a popular base with selected leadership.”

 

In 1963, a CIA memorandum concluded with

 

It is not believed that radio broadcasting has been highly effective … [T]he quality of the scripts used has been on the order to fair to good. What the actual effect has been within the Baltic states cannot be adequately measured. Although the principle of broadcasting to the Baltic States in the Baltic languages is subscribed to, it is not felt that the program which we have been subsidizing for this purpose has been performing satisfactorily.

 

Broadcasting to Estonia from Radio Nacional de España was terminated on October 31, 1963, effective December 31, 1963. Staff and families in Madrid returned to the United States or Germany.

 

More details are found in:

PYREX: CIA Clandestine Radio Broadcasting from Greece to Bulgaria in the early Cold War ©

 In September 1945, the Red Army invaded Bulgaria, and a reign of terror began under "Sovietization" of the country. Bulgarians, who took up armed resistance to the imposition of Communism, were known as the Goryani (Горяни -- also transliterated as Goriani), or “Man of the Forests" or "Ones of the Forest.” 

In January 1950, CIA’s Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) “Plan of Operation for Bulgaria” was approved by the Assistant Director Policy Coordination (Frank Wisner), Director of Central Intelligence, and by the U.S. Department of State in February 1950. One of the approved lines of action was, “This will necessitate the immediate establishment of covert broadcasting facilities as near as possible to Bulgaria and simultaneous preparation for the distribution of printed material with the target area.” 

 

“Radio Goryanin” shortwave programs over the two mobile transmitters began April 1, 1951, with 30-minute broadcasts. The exact frequency was changed every few minutes to avoid jamming the transmissions. The programs opened with the militaristic, nationalist anthem "One Covenant" and ended similarly with the anthem "Shumi Maritsa." 

 

The Bulgarian Directorate of State Security (DS) reacted to “Radio Goryanin” by trying to locate the station. For example, on May 5, 1951, a DS report contained this passage: "There is still no accurate data on her whereabouts, and who has created and manages it. Intelligence suggests that it is located somewhere in the country, near the Greek border, or on a ship in the waters of the Mediterranean."   

 

1953 was an important year for “Radio Goryanin” broadcasts as the mobile stations were changed out to a recently installed high-powered transmitter near Athens. In June 1953, in addition to the standard broadcasts, CIA headquarters suggested that broadcasts make use of the recent disturbance in East Germany and Czechoslovakia - with emphasis on the spontaneity of the outbreaks, the defections of East German police, and the brutality of the reprisals -- but with warnings against premature action.  

 

In October 1953, a new program format was inaugurated to broadcast "nationalist-communist propaganda: “Hristo Botev.”. The new program eliminated the old recorded introductions and made references to the "Brotherhood for the Freedom of Bulgaria." 

 

In May 1954, the Bulgarian Intelligence Service DS created a special directorate, "Radiooko" (radiokontrarazuznavane) to clarify and work on signals for available illegal hostile radio stations." In one report, there was this comment: "The broadcasts of the radio station "Goryanin" in their goals and purpose are divided into two types. The first addressed the couriers of the radio station and the second - the population. Of course,, the ones addressed to the couriers have coded form." The following representative sample program attributed to “Radio Goryanin or “Hristo Botev” is taken from one DS Report. 

 

October 1, 1951: “The whip will deliver a message to one of the messengers of the Free Brotherhood. Warning! Speaking to the courier Stone. Stone, the sun rose. You have a new backpack. Watermill No 3. At 4, 8, 3, 4, 1. Cut branches up to 4, 2, 8, 6, 5. The pine trees. End.” 

 

 “Hristo Botev" last known broadcast was on July 30, 1962; on August 9, 1962, "Radio Goryanin" terminated its broadcasts. The scripts and tapes of both “Radio Goryanin” and “Hristo Botev” are presumably lost or not available publicly to research.

 

Details of both “Radio Goryanin” and “Hristo Botev” are included in:

PYREX: CIA Clandestine Station Nasha Rossiya (Our Russia) broadcast from Greece in the early Cold War ©

 In the 1950s, CIA's Soviet Russia (SR) Division project for clandestine radio broadcasting in Russian from Greece had CIA cryptonyms AECROAK and AEHANGOVER; the name of the radio station was Nasha Rossiya (Our Russia), which probably began shortwave broadcasting in 1954 – the exact date is not known. The 1955 book Broadcasting Stations of the World listed Nasha Rossiya as a clandestine station using the Russian language; the 1953 edition did not list it. 

The programs at first were tape recordings prepared by a CIA "panel" in the United States, air pouched to CIA station in Athens, Greece, and then sent directly to the PYREX transmitting site for broadcasting. The procedure was then changed in 1957, with the tapes sent to a local contact, who processed the tapes and then sent them to PYREX for airing. 

 

In September 1957, shortwave broadcasts from PYREX to the USSR aired from 07:00 to 07:30 AM and Berlin from 9:30 to 10:00 PM. The total number of broadcast hours for the month was 784, with a total number of tape runs 1, 918.  Soviet jamming of the Nasha Rossiya broadcasts that had begun in 1954 was so reduced that in some cases, jamming started between 5 and 20 minutes after the broadcasts began or went off the air before the broadcasts ended. Many broadcasts were jammed by only one transmitter that meant the programs were audible in the target areas. The total jamming free broadcast time was 57 hours, 34 minutes.  

 

On September 12, 1957,  Nasha Rossiya began broadcasting "latest news and comments" programs locally prepared in Athens. The tapes were then sent to the CIA transmitting site for broadcasting Monday through Thursday. Locally prepared tapes were then sent on Friday for weekend broadcasts, as there were no delivery of tapes on Saturdays and Sundays.  

 

In February 1958, the broadcast scripts prepared in Athens included: 

 

·      U.S Sputnik “Alpha 58.” 
(5 ½ minutes)

·      Appeal to Soviet troops stationed in Romania in connection with peasants’ uprisings. 
(4 ½ minutes)

·      Opposition to Ulbricht in East Germany’s Communist Party. (3 ½ minutes) 


·      Khrushchev’s speech in Minsk. 
(10 ½ minutes)

·      Khrushchev’s grandiose plans covering the next 15 years. (3 minutes)


·      Soviet Army Day. (8 minutes) 10

 

By February 1958, Nasha Rossiya  broadcast an average of 760 times per month because "Headquarters post-Hungarian Revolution policy call for greater emphasis on Russian language propaganda directed to Great-Russian elements in the USSR."

 

According to a KGB May 1959 report, for April, "Programs of the radio station 'Nasha Rossiya'(Our Russia) were listened to primarily at night time from 22:35 - 04:45 ... in the suburbs of Kiev, Tbilisi and such cities as Kamensk-Uralsk, Serpukhov, Minsk, Borisov, Smolensk, Mozhaysk, Klin and others.”  

 

It is presumed that all broadcasts of Nasha Rossiya ceased in October 1959, or shortly after that, because Broadcast Stations of the World listed Nasha Rossiya as a clandestine station in Russian in the 1959 edition, but not in the 1960 edition. 

 

More details on Nasha Rossiya can be found here:

PYREX: Greece-based CIA clandestine radio broadcasts to Ukraine in the early Cold War ©

The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) clandestine broadcasts from Greece were initially via two or three mobile units close to the Bulgarian border. In Spring 1950, the Greek government gave CIA approval for the construction of a permanent communications installation near Athens for psychological warfare broadcasting -- the installation for transmitting and monitoring gained the cryptonym WEMCA, with a broadcasting operation of up to nine language units known as PYREX.  In addition to clandestine radio broadcasts, the PYREX site would also be used in balloon/propaganda leaflet operations against Albania and Bulgaria.

 

One example of the clandestine broadcasts from PYREX is that for Ukraine: Novaya Ukraina(New Ukraine). The objective of the clandestine radio project with the cryptonym RANTER were listed in a July 21, 1953 project outline: utilization of broadcast time available on the KUBARK (CIA) radio installation PYREX at Athens, Greece, for the broadcast of a series of programs to be directed to: 

 

·      Soviet officialdom, 


·      Soviet military forces stationed in the Ukraine, 


·      The indigenous civilian population of the Ukraine, 


·      Underground movement, 


·      Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). 

 

   The tasks of the project were to: 


 

·      Furnish evidence of outside sympathy and understanding for the Ukrainian peoples. 


·      Intensify anti-regime disaffection by encouraging resentment, bitterness, and distrust of the Soviet regime and its personalities. 


·      Maintain national consciousness among the Ukrainians and urge them to maintain pride in the individuality and heritage of their culture. 


·      Create dissatisfaction among Ukrainian military personnel within the Soviet armed forces stationed in Ukraine. 


·      Create and intensify dissatisfaction among the Ukrainian civil authorities to the Soviet regime. The submitting division gave the following as why the black broadcasts were necessary: This project is based upon the need to make a more significant propaganda impact on this strategic target audience. At present, the only PBPRIME (United States, i.e., Voice of America) and KUBARK (CIA) propaganda efforts directed to the target area consist of Voice of America broadcasts and the Radio Liberation effort to the Kiev area in the Russian language.

 

The July 1953 project outline also listed the method of preparing the broadcasts: 

·      Scripts and tapes to be prepared by a CIA covert operation in New York City: Prolog Research and Publishing Association, Inc (CIA Cryptonyms QRTENURE and AETENURE)

 

·      It is proposed that programs in the Ukrainian language be produced and recorded on magnetic tape in New York and flown to Athens for broadcast by personnel attached to PYREX. It is realized that programming from this distance is not as efficient and timely as it would be if located nearer the transmitter. However, this is the only means at present whereby immediate advantage can be taken of the PYREX facility. When future operation conditions permit the programming to be prepared closer to the transmitter site, this project's program activities will be transferred accordingly. At first three tapes a week for fifteen minutes each broadcast time will be prepared. With the increase in script output and availability of air time, the broadcasts can be expanded.

 

There were many difficulties in getting programs on the air. The first broadcast of radio Novaya Ukraina was made on September 25, 1955, with one 15-minute transmission daily. This later was increased to two scheduled broadcasts daily, which used two transmitter hours per day or 60 hours per month.  

 

Full details of CIA’s clandestine broadcasting to Ukraine and other countries from Greece can be found here:

 

 

·      Bulgaria (Chapter 4), 

·      Romania (Chapter 4), 

·      Albania (Chapter 5),

·      Ukraine (Chapter 7), and 

·      The Soviet Union, in Russian and some Caucasus languages (Chapter 8). 

Origins of early Cold War CIA clandestine or “black” radio broadcasts over Radio Nacional de España in Madrid, Spain, in Belarusian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Russian ©

The first psychological warfare project of CIA's Special Procedures Group (SPG) was UMPIRE, which provided for the production and dissemination of covert propaganda against the Soviet Union and East European countries behind the Iron Curtain using radio broadcasts and printed material. The Special Procedures Group became the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) in August 1948, taking over the SPG projects, including UMPIRE. The project designation was later changed on December 1, 1948, to EDUCATOR and then QKDEMON. 

In 1949, officers of the  Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) began discussing the use of Radio Nacional de España (RNE) as a tool in the psychological warfare campaign against the USSR. An “official dispatch” OPC message dated May 30, 1949, on the subject Radio Nacional Propaganda Broadcasts contained the outline of how to use RNE:

[W]e have studied the matter not only in regard to the immediate problem of applying background material but also relative to the larger, long range possibility of utilizing Radio Nacional as a channel for operational broadcasts, to which EDUCATOR creative personnel in Germany might contribute both program material as well as programs themselves, including possibly special recordings. 

Information here indicates that Madrid is heard reasonably well in satellite areas. If the Spanish Government, through proper covert arrangements, is willing to place the facilities and broadcast time of the station as the disposal of (redacted), this would clearly open up the possibility of using Madrid as an operational outlet for broadcasts, whether sponsored by or accordingly produced by the U.S. Government. 

Assuming the broadcasts can be heard satisfactorily in the target areas and time and facilities could be made available to (redacted), it would seem there are four problems to be met: 

a.     Cover for the operation. 


b.     Policy control. 


c.     Type of broadcasts in relation to audience reaction. 


d.     A competent production organization. 

In regard to (a) above, through negotiations with the proper Spanish Government levels, I should think a suitable operational cover could be arranged--as, for example, the Spanish Government, in its desire to oppose religious persecutions in satellite countries, has accorded broadcasting time to refugee Catholic groups in Spain in order to permit them to talk to their fellow countrymen. 

In regard to (b) above, periodic policy guidance from the home office, together with a close monitoring watch over the broadcasts, should provide adequate policy control, especially if the cover and security of the operation are well maintained and the U.S. Government is not linked in any way with the broadcasts.

CIA eventually supported and financed RNE broadcasts in Belarusian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Russian. More information and full details of CIA clandestine broadcasting over Radio Nacional de España can be found here:

 

 

 

 

Radio Free Europe began broadcasting from Munich on May 1, 1951©

The new Radio Free Europe medium-wave transmitter was dedicated to Munich's Bayerische Hof Hotel on May 1, 1951, at 10 a.m. Ferdinand Peroutka, a Czech journalist, who had been imprisoned in the Nazi prison camps Dachau and Buchenwald, fled Czechoslovakia in 1948 to the United States. Peroutka, who helped found the Council of Free Czechoslovakia. He read the following message to those in attendance:

The Communist government in our country is the biggest attempt that has ever been undertaken to turn things upside down to deprive words of their meaning. Jailers sing songs of freedom, and officials of the secret police lecture on humanity. The loss of freedom is officially called independence in our country, aggression is called peace action, plunder of the country 'benefits', forced exports to Russia 'building up of Czechoslovakia', and enslavement of women in heavy industry is called their liberation.

 

We know how much effort the Communists stake on reforming your souls .., But we also know that in the evening, when you return home from the daily drudgery ... between your four walls, you say to yourself: They are telling lies. 

Radio Free Europe began broadcasting to Czechoslovakia, as the Voice of Free Czechoslovakia, on medium wave (am band) frequencies on that day, from the newly constructed transmitter station, nicknamed “Carola” at Holzkirchen – less than 20 miles south of Munich, Germany. Before this, programs were prepared in RFE's New York studios and flown to Germany for broadcasting. 

The new transmitter station had four antenna towers, which reached a height of 400 feet, and, at that time with 135,000 watts of power, was almost three times more powerful than any commercial radio transmitter in the United States. The broadcast schedule was then increased to 12 hours a day to Czechoslovakia. After Holzkirchen, transmitter stations were constructed in Biblis, Germany, and in the town of Gloria, Portugal.

            

The first broadcast from Munich actually began at 5 a.m. on May 1, 1951, and was just music until the first program, read by Czech exile Pavel Tigrid, aired at 11 a.m. from a studio in the RFE building. He said, in part, 

 

Dear Listeners:

 

Today, a terrible enemy rises against all communist informers, agents provocateurs, and stool pigeons, all inhuman guards in prisons and work-camps, all judges and members of communist jurisdiction, all propagandists of communist ideology: Radio Free Europe, who will reveal their names, one by one; all of them will be blacklisted by the democratic world and will be dumped on the rubbish heap of contempt by the Czech and Slovak people.

 

Pavel Tigrid would become the Czech Republic’s first Minister of Culture, after the 1989 Velvet Revolution.  

C.D. Jackson, publisher of Fortune magazine,  as president of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), gave a speech in front of the new RFE headquarters building under construction. A plaque was unveiled to the invited guests: