Soviet Cold War Operations against the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Ukrainian Service. Part Two

Case Study No. 2: Agent TARAS

August 31, 1989 Report Excerpt 

Subject: Operation "TARAS," stay of the object in the FRG – Information 

 

Secret Collaborator TS "TARAS" visited the FRG between July 15 and 28, 1989. The place of his stay in the FRG was Munich. Radio Liberty editors picked them up at the train station. Private cars took them to the premises of the Free Ukrainian University, where "TARAS" was accommodated for the entire stay. 

"TARAS" and another had the opportunity to participate in evaluating the activities of the Free Ukrainian University in 1988. According to the evaluation, the number of participants in the summer courses is decreasing, which, in turn, has resulted in a general decline in the university's activities. 

 

During a discussion, "TARAS" learned that the Ukrainian section of RFE currently has no problems obtaining information from the USSR. The Ukrainian section of RFE receives several dozens of phone calls daily from the USSR, in which the callers provide all necessary information. They also benefit from the increasing number of visitors from the USSR. 

 

As to the apparent lack of interest in this person among Ukrainian emigres, "TARAS" said that this situation was apparently caused by Peter G., who visited the FRG in May 1989 and who suspects that "TARAS" is a collaborator of the StB (State Security). "TARAS" is convinced that this is the result of operation "VEDA," in which he testified against Peter G. Since then, their relationship has been burdened with permanent conflicts. 

 

Case Study No. 3: Agent CERNY

September 25, 1989

 

Subject: The Ukrainian section of the radio station "Radio Liberty" in Munich, FRG - situation report

 

The editors of Radio Liberty receive their information from various sources, but recently the number of residents from the Ukraine who call and provide information has constantly been growing. 

 

Secret collaborators "SERGEJ" and "CERNY" obtained information about the Ukrainian section of Radio Liberty during their stay in Munich in August 1989. One Radio Liberty editor is currently responsible for a program called "radio mailbox." He reads letters- to-the-editors or parts of them to suit the Ukrainian program of Radio Liberty.

 

"CERNY" had the chance to briefly visit the "Radio Liberty" building. The two employees with him had to show their identification cards at the entrance. An American soldier opened the main gate, and they entered the yard by car. "CERNY" was not controlled at all. One employee accompanied "CERNY" to a studio where 11 to 13 employees worked. During his visit at RL, "CERNY" had the opportunity to spend several minutes in the security room where he and the soldier on duty watched all movements close to the RL building on a monitor. 

 

During their talks, "CERNY" was offered cooperation by the Radio Liberty editor; he asked him to deliver contributions for the Ukrainian or Slovak sections by mail or telephone and provide tips for other activities. He was interested in contributions that could be used for RL programs, mainly: the emigration of the periods 1918-1948-1968; the life of the Ukrainians living in the West; and the Ukrainian question in the CSSR.

 

At the same time, he invited "CERNY" to come again in the following year (1990) but cautioned him not to mention that he was to visit the specific editor in any documents. 

 

In the presence of "CERNY," the Radio Liberty Editor had a telephone conversation with the brothers who were members of the Ukrainian Helsinki group in Lviv. He asked them about the results of their group's meeting with the first secretary of the CPSU municipal committee in Lviv and commented on their remarks. The RL Editor claimed that currently, RL's relations with Moscow were excellent, that they receive only verified and timely information from Moscow, and he, therefore, did not want to publish certain things without the participation of Moscow, to avoid a deterioration of their relations. 

 

Because another Radio Liberty editor is a person of interest (zajmova osoba) in the OUN-matter, we ask our Soviet friends to send us reports on her activities in the USSR and an investigation of her sister, which would enable us to make all necessary preparations for their planned meeting in the CSSR. 

 

If you have any demands concerning this matter, let us know.

Case Study No. 4: Agent BORIS II

June 1989 Report 

Subject: Operation BORIS II—Information about his stay in West Germany On 24 April 1989, 

Secret Collaborator BORIS II traveled to West Germany. 

 

Further steps of this operation will be discussed at the coordination meeting in Moscow. In the meantime, we would like to know whether the V. Administration of the KGB could find out who has the telephone number extension 316 at Radio Free Europe and whether the Russian Service of Radio Liberty really had holidays between 1 and 4 May 1989. 

For more information: Chapter 8 in

 

Soviet Cold War Operations against the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Ukrainian Service. Part One

Introduction

 

For over 40 years, Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL) were two American-sponsored radio stations in Munich that broadcast to countries behind the Iron Curtain. The radio stations were described in a secret 1969 Central Intelligence Agency report as “the oldest, largest, most costly, and probably most successful covert action projects aimed at the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.” 

For almost twenty years, thousands of persons worked at these radio stations for almost twenty years at the cost of over 300 million dollars. Yet, for years much of their existence remained covered in a Cold War shroud of mystery and intrigue. Early records no longer exist, and many persons responsible for the radio station's development have died, leaving fragmentary records. The archives of American and Eastern intelligence services remain classified, inaccessible to the public, or destroyed in the immediate post-1989 years.

 

All of the Warsaw Pact intelligence services operated against RFE/RL for over 40 years. Sometimes this was a centrally coordinated activity, and sometimes the countries ran their own operations. In this case, hostile actions spoke louder than words in the battle of ideas fought by East and West.

 

Asymmetric responses

 

"Radio Liberation from Bolshevism" first broadcast on March 1, 1953, from transmitters in Lampertheim, Germany, to the Soviet armed forces in Germany and Austria. Within ten minutes, the Soviet Union started jamming the broadcasts, an activity that would continue for another 35 years. On August 14, 1954, the Ukrainian Service of Radio Liberation (later Radio Liberty) began its first broadcast from Munich to Ukraine with these words: “Brothers and sisters! Ukrainians! We live abroad, but our hearts and minds are always with you. No iron curtain can separate us or stand in our way.” 

 

The station's name was changed to "Radio Liberation" in 1956 and then renamed Radio Liberty in 1963.

 

Émigrés from both RFE and RL faced intimidation, blackmail, murder, threats of murder, and kidnapping. The first and only direct physical attack on RFE/RL headquarters in Munich took place on February 21, 1981.  On that date, an international team of terrorists led by the infamous "Carlos the Jackal" exploded a bomb that injured employees and caused over two million dollars in damage.

 

Numerous propaganda books about both stations were published in East Europe and the former Soviet Union whenever those regimes wanted to counter the radios' effective programming with domestic and international propaganda. The information in these books was mostly fabricated with tendentious information supplied by agents inside the stations.

 

 A review of the history of RFE/RL would not be complete without mentioning some of the intelligence service activities directed against the radios and their personnel.  

 

Agents NIKOLAJ, TARAS, CERNY, BORIS II, and others were active in Soviet KGB --Czechoslovak SNB operations against the Ukrainian Broadcast Service of RFE/RL 1988-1989. 

Case Study No. 1, Agent NIKOLAJ

 

The Ukrainian minority in Czechoslovakia (mostly in Slovakia) was of concern to both the Czechoslovak intelligence service SNB ((Sbor národní bezpečnosti or National Security Corps) and the Soviet KGB. For example, the 2nd Administration of the SNB’s 12th Division sent “secret collaborators” to contact the Ukrainian Service employees of Radio Liberty and other emigres in the West. The 2nd Administration also sent reports to a Soviet KGB officer or office "P" of the 5th Department, 2nd Division. 

 

The Soviet KGB used the “secret collaborators” from Czechoslovakia, as it was known that Radio Liberty employees would not have trusted visitors directly from Ukraine, whom they would believe were "agent provocateurs." Thus, the idea was developed to use the Ukrainian minority in Czechoslovakia, especially those considered "dissidents," for intelligence operations against Radio Liberty. 

 

The following translated excerpt shows the extent of Warsaw Pact countries’ spy agencies infiltrating these stations.

 

Operation "NIKOLAJ," October 10, 1989, Report Excerpt:

 

Subject: Object "NIKOLAJ" - report about Radio Liberty. The Object of the Operation "NIKOLAJ" traveled in July and August 1989 with his wife to capitalist countries. They left Czechoslovakia via Austria in the private car of a Radio Liberty editor, who was returning home to West Germany from a visit to her husband's parents who live in the CSSR. 

"NIKOLAJ" spent three days with the Radio Liberty couple in Munich. In several discussions, he learned that the wife is currently following the Soviet press and is preparing a press review for the Ukrainian section of "Radio Liberty." She is in a better position than her husband at RL; she is a producer, has a good relationship with the head of the Ukrainian section, Bohdan Nahajlo, and the entire management of "Radio Liberty."

With the permission of RL's director and after receiving a sticker with the word "VISITOR" printed on it, "NIKOLAJ" was allowed to enter the premises of the Ukrainian section. A security guard at the entrance asked for "NIKOLAJ's" passport and kept it. "Radio Liberty" has about 1,600 employees, of whom 21 work for the Ukrainian section. 

One editor conducted an interview with "NIKOLAJ" on the topic "Ukrainian Culture in the CSSR;" he (NIKOLAJ) requested that the interview be broadcast in full and without any changes. 

Bohdan Nahaljo, as mentioned above, who is editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian section, is about 35 to 40 years old. His parents are Ukrainians, but he was born in the United Kingdom. "NIKOLAJ" also met with the editor Ivan Kacurovsky, an ethnic Ukrainian who is about 70 years old, a member of the first wave of immigrants, and who holds strongly anti-Soviet views. Furthermore, "NIKOLAJ" personally met with the announcer of the Ukrainian section Olexa Bojarko and with the Ukrainian emigre poet Ema Avdijevska. Both are using pseudonyms.

Among the Ukrainian emigres, there is little information on the lives and activities of Ukrainians living in the CSSR. The employees of the Ukrainian section of "Radio Liberty" are only interested in the situation in Ukraine and have developed no efforts to obtain information from the CSSR. They consider the CSSR to be a conservative state in which restructuring (perestroika) has not gained ground; they believe that the CSSR does not want to introduce (reforms) similar to those in the other socialist countries. 

In general, "NIKOLAJ" learned that RL currently has very reliable and quick channels to Ukraine. They receive information on all the activities of the internal opposition, demonstrations, and the situation in Ukraine and the USSR. The Ukrainian emigres also took advantage of the lack of paper in the USSR. They provided paper for certain publishing houses in the USSR to enable them to publish rehabilitated authors according to the wishes of the Ukrainian emigres and the internal opposition. 

"NIKOLAJ" had a stopover in Munich only on his way to KZ (Kapitalisticke Zeme--capitalist countries?) and back to the CSSR. He focused his attention on his stay in the USA and Canada, where he spent most of his time. Information about "NIKOLAJ's" stay in the USA and Canada will be delivered to the Soviet friends in the following report. 

The reports ended here as the collapse of Communism in Czechoslovakia took place in November 1989, and with that, the hostile activity against RFE and RL ceased. This is but one example of what went on well into the Gorbachev era and its declared policy of glasnost and perestroika. And even after the Soviet Union stopped jamming RFE/RL in November 1988.

 

(Reprinted with permission from the Kyiv Post newspaper, December 14, 2021)

Next: Agents TARAS and CERNY

Prague, November 17, 1989: The Death that never was ©

November 17th is a national holiday in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic: the Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day. One of the more intriguing stories from the annals of Cold War history has to be the one surrounding the immediate events of November 17, 1989, that directly led to the collapse of Communism known as the Velvet Revolution and the Gentle Revolution in the respective countries.

On Friday, November 17, 1989, there was a huge, sanctioned march and demonstration in Prague in honor of International Students Day and the commemoration of Jan Opletal, who German occupiers shot during a protest demonstration in Prague that day in 1939. An estimated 15 - 20,000 students gathered near Charles University in the afternoon.  

 

Afterward, the students marched to a candlelight ceremony on Prague's famous Vysehard cemetery, where Czech national heroes are buried. The students then marched towards the center of Prague, and the crowd swelled.  Shouts were heard encouraging the group to head towards Wenceslas Square, the traditional site of demonstrations. But along the way, a barricade of riot police blocked the march.   

 

There is no accurate count of the demonstrators on November 17, 1989, but some estimated it to have been over 50 thousand. Demonstrators that night called for the ouster of the Communist regime and an end to Communism. Many students sat down on the streets in response to police requests to leave the area, but thousands did go. At about 8:30 that night, an estimated 10,000 people were still staging a sit-in and refusing to leave the site. More police or militia arrived and blocked the street at the other end. In effect, the crowd, including foreign journalists, was trapped between the police lines.

 

What had started as a peaceful demonstration ended in a brutal and bloody action, when police and other forces attacked the demonstrators and accredited Western journalists observed the activity. For example, journalist Paula Butterini of the Chicago Tribune so was severely beaten that her head wounds required 16 stitches in a local hospital. The video camera of one CNN reporter was taken from him as three plainclothes policemen continually hit him with nightsticks. A BBC reporter was knocked unconscious. Other reporters also had their cameras and video equipment taken from them under brute force. Another journalist had to be transported to Germany because of leg injuries and a concussion. The United States Embassy officially protested the police actions against the accredited American journalists.

 

Numerous persons in the crowd were injured and taken away in busses for treatment.  Others refused medical assistance for fear of giving their names and later suffering police reprisals.

Near the end of the police attacks, a "student" lay on the ground, seemingly unconscious from the police blows he had received.  He was covered with a blanket and taken away by police transport. Word soon spread that he had been beaten to death. The dead student was identified as Martin Smid, a mathematics student from Prague's Charles University.

Dissident Petr Uhl, who ran a small alternative news agency, received reports of Smid’s dead the next day from a woman who had been identified as Smid’s friend. Uhl, in turn, informed various foreign news agencies, including Reuters and Radio Free Europe.  Reports of Smid’s death were heard the next day via radio broadcasts from the BBC, Voice of America, and Radio Free Europe.  

 

The Communist regime responded by denying the reports and producing not one student publicly but two with the name Martin Smid. They were interviewed on Czechoslovak Television to prove that they were alive. A government spokesman described western news agencies that reported the death of Martin Smid as “a deliberate manipulation of people’s minds and an effort to arouse hostile emotions.” Petr Uhl was arrested for spreading false information.

 

This event did not quell the groundswell of protests against the regime that led to larger protests and threats of public strikes if the Communists did not cede power.  On November 22, 1989, for example, an estimated 200,000 people gathered in Wenceslas Square demanding the end of the Communist regime, which would peacefully come in a few days.

 

An investigation into the November 17^th events by the new democratic government showed that the "dead student" was a Czechoslovak Intelligence officer named Ludvík Zifčák who had infiltrated the student movement under the name Milan Růžička, code name “Rudy.“ Zifčák was dismissed from the new intelligence service in July 1990. In 1994 he was found guilty of “abuse of power“ and sentenced to 18 months in prison. After losing his appeal, he served 16 months.

 

In 2003, Martin Smid was interviewed on Czech Radio and said, “I can't understand how the rumor came about in the first place, and why my name was chosen. I became the center of attention for the whole nation, without knowing why or what I could do for my country. To this day, I ask myself again and again: why did it happen and why me?"

The answers most likely will never come.

Code Name "Cobra": The Plan to Bomb Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty©

The Carlos bombing of RFE(RL in Munich in February 1981 was considered a failure by the Romanian Intelligence Service and they planned another attack.  Here are some details. 

In September 1984, Constantin Constantinescu, a code clerk of the Romanian embassy in Bonn, defected to the West. To establish his bona fides, he presented a copy of a thirteen-page physical surveillance report of RFE/RL written by the Romanian foreign intelligence service (CIE) officer Ion Constantin sometime between October and December 1983. Constantinescu indicated that he could "save" a copy of this report from destruction as he saw its significance, and there was a breakdown in the normal destruction process.

 

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. One could conclude: 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/R; he had not seen any additional telex information or other written reports on RFE/RL or 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 documents for destruction. Usually, both he and Constantin should have destroyed them together. But Constantin was in a hurry and left the material with Constantinescu to destroy. When Constantinescu saw the report on RFE/RL, he immediately realized the report's importance and retained it. 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, including:

• traffic in the area,

• traffic signs and parking,

• RFE/RL and the wall surrounding it,

• the different entrances and gates,

• certain offices on the first floor,

• the presence of specific security personnel and other installations in the immediate area.

 

Constantin concluded his report by noting that he had collected different city plans, tour books, and postcards. He attached them to the report as an appendix, which also contained twenty-four photos of RFE/RL and its immediate surroundings (Hilton Hotel, Bavarian Bank, Isar River, etc.). Constantin wrote in his report that he had walked through the entire area.

 

From discussions with Constantin, the defector learned about a group at CIE Headquarters, designated C-428, which dealt 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 report had been evaluated as "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.

 

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 autopsies could not trace, and he sent the volumes to the Romanian capital."

 

The Bavarian State Counterintelligence Agency’s Annual Report for 1984 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.

October 15, 1951, Parachuting CIA Chestnuts into Albania ©

 On October 15, 1951, CIA's "Chestnut Team" of five men parachuted into Albania shortly after midnight on Mli Grab (hill 1275), approximately three kilometers away from their scheduled drop zone. The terrain was mountainous and wooded with no reasonably safe landing zone. The leader, Sal Kepi, hesitated before jumping after realizing this was not the scheduled drop zone. Still, when the number two man asked why he was delaying his jump, he responded by immediately jumping. The others followed him down.

The team landed on the side of a snow-covered mountain. Sal Kepi sprained both heels; Mitar Hagjija landed in a tree. The other three men landed without casualties. The bundles landed about a mile away; several had landed on trees and were left where they had fallen. It took the men approximately two hours to assemble. Afterward, the leader, who was the only team member familiar with the drop area, told his men that he was not altogether familiar with this present location. 

The team walked in single file, headed by Sulejman Elezi, who took over the lead because of the foot injuries suffered by Kepi. The latter was Immediately behind Elezi. At 6 a.m. October 15, while still walking in single file, the team was fired upon by the Communists. The battle lasted until 4 p.m. October 15, when they managed to escape the area. It was believed that one of the Communists was wounded. Duka's clothing' was hit by a bullet, but there were nobody injuries. At this point, the three men who managed to escape lost all contact with the other two men. What happened to them was not known 

On October 16, they went to a small isolated house to ask for food. A woman came to the door but refused to give them any help. She told them that although she was not a Communist, she and her family would be in danger if the three men remained. She asked them to leave. They only managed to rescue a little food from their bundles and were hungry. The woman refused to take any gold or dollars and did not assist them further.

On October 16, while only one kilometer from the border, they came across two sleeping soldiers. Because they did not know how far from the border they were, they proceeded quietly. A short time before this, the men waded across a small river (name unknown). Here, Ilias Jonus lost his forged identification papers as well as his gold pieces. Duka and Hagfifa managed to save their documents, although Hagfifals papers were slightly damaged by water. 

They crossed the border into Yugoslavia about three days after making their landing in Albania. 

They continued their trip to the Greek border and made their crossing on October 30, near Kastrican, Greece. The crossing took place without incident. The Greek border patrol attempted to interrogate the men (through an Albanian interpreter), but the attempt stopped when Liman Duka, the spokesman, refused to answer anything. They immediately gave themselves up to the Greek authorities by using the code password. 

A later CIA report criticized this operation:

The report indicates that almost from the time the team landed, their efforts were directed wholly at survival and evasion. Aside from the fact that three of the five members of the team were recovered, no other tangible results are indicated and the mission should probably be termed a failure in terms of men lost and time and money spent 

Khrushchev and Radio Free Europe, Part 5: "Sticking a Pinprick into an Elephant" ©

Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States for the second time in September-October 1960 for the United Nations General Assembly meetings. Reportedly, at one point, he angrily stood up with a shoe in his hand and banged the shoe on the table at which he was sitting. I use the word "reportedly" because there is no photo or film of Khrushchev banging on the table with a shoe—although photojournalists, film, and television crews packed the Assembly auditorium. The incident, in any event, has become another bit of Cold War folklore.

 

On 9 October 1960, he gave his only US interview in a WNTA television program Open Air moderated in New York by television personality David Susskind.  The program was broadcast on a delayed, syndicated basis over more than 250 TV and radio stations of the NTA network (National Telefilm Associates). Hundreds of viewers phoned the studio to protest Khrushchev's appearance. 

 

And, other viewers called to complain about spot announcements during the program, which extolled the work of Radio Free Europe: the time ordinarily given to sponsored commercials was devoted to filmed announcements about RFE. One depicted a  soldier smashing a radio set belonging to a family listening to Radio Free Europe. 

Susskind later said that Khrushchev "just got rigid with anger" when an aide passed him a note during the show telling him about the Radio Free-Europe spot announcements. 

 

Victor Sukhadrev, his interpreter, relayed Khrushchev's comment in the next station break: "How dare you!" But after a few seconds, the Soviet leader calmed down and smiled. "Well, do anything you like. We will win. We will win." Susskind later apologized to Khrushchev, saying he knew nothing of the RFE commercials.

 

According to a UPI report published on 11 October 1960, Khrushchev said his aide handed him a note during the Sunday television appearance advising him that public service announcements for Radio Free Europe were broadcast during station breaks. He added, "I spoke to my partner (moderator David Susskind) about it. I told him what you are trying to do—you are trying to stick a pinprick into an elephant—a mighty elephant, the Soviet Union."

 

On 17 October 1960, television station WNTA apologized for carrying anti-communist announcements during the interview with Khrushchev. The announcer noted that "last night that many viewers had questioned the propriety of the Radio Free Europe announcements." He added, "While we believe that the content of these announcements, an eloquent plea for free speech, is worthy of exposure on our radio and TV stations, we wish to express our regret al their unfortunate placement on the particular program on which Mr. Khrushchev was a guest."

 

October 1, 1985, Radio Free Afghanistan began broadcasting ©

 One of the forgotten chapters in the Cold War history is that the United States first broadcast shortwave radio programs to Afghanistan as Radio Free Afghanistan on October 1, 1985. RFA's broadcasts began with a reading from the Koran.

It was the height of the Cold War when the Soviet Union was fighting insurgents in that country. The Soviet Union had first sent its army to Afghanistan on Christmas eve 1979 when it intervened to support the "Communist" government against the American-supported Afghan Islamic fighters: the mujahedeen.

 

RFE/RL, the American financed station RFE/RL in Munich, Germany, expanded, for the first time in over 30 years, its broadcasting services outside the target areas of East Europe and the USSR. RFE/RL broadcast to Afghanistan extensive war coverage in Dari--one of the significant languages in Afghanistan as an adjunct of the Radio Liberty Division. Radio Free Afghanistan broadcast twice weekly Dari 30-minute programs and expanded its broadcasting to one hour daily, five days a week in 1986.  

 

  A second language, Pashto, was added in September 1987. RFE/RL's mandate was "to provide uncensored news and information about the war in Afghanistan and to serve as a free surrogate radio for the Afghan resistance."  

 

  Then RFE/RL President Gene Pell said, "The people of Afghanistan continue to wage a gallant resistance to the Soviet occupation.  These broadcasts are an important measure of the U.S. government's commitment to that struggle and the principle of political self-determination ... Although it is difficult to broadcast to a war-torn country, RFA maintains a proper journalistic tone and approach, favoring a free, united, independent, and Muslim Afghanistan." 

 

As part of RFE/RL's "phase down" and Congressional budget cutting after the Cold War ended with the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union in 1991, Radio Free Afghanistan broadcast its last program on October 19, 1993, with, "It was proud to be part of the struggle against the Soviet occupation and that the Service always endeavored to bring freedom, peace, and democracy to Afghanistan."

 

RFE/RL Renews Broadcasting To Afghanistan

 

The United States Congress in December 2001 approved funding to resume broadcasts to Afghanistan as part of the post-September 11, 2001, "war on terrorism."

 

On January 30, 2002, RFE/RL, now located in Prague, Czech Republic, launched broadcasting to Afghanistan in the Dari and Pashto languages. At a brief opening ceremony in Prague, RFE/RL President Thomas A. Dine said, "we are proud to be given this opportunity to help build a peaceful and democratic Afghanistan through the medium of news and information."