Prague, 1951, the Show Trial of American Journalist William N. Oatis, a Victim of Menticide, Part Two ©

Part Two

At 8 o'clock in the morning on July 2, 1951, Oatis was led from a prison cell in Prague's Pankrac prison to the prison's central courtroom. He was placed on a defendant's stand ringed by six microphones and a semicircular rail, so that the prosecutor was on his left, the defense lawyer on his right, and he faced the five Communist judges occupying a raised dais. Behind him were several hundred "shock workers" who, as a reward for their toil, had been given tickets to the trial, and who filled the spectators' galleries. The arrangement was the same as it had been at the earlier show trials of priests, anti-Communists, and of underground leaders.

Two American Embassy observers, Vice-Consul Richard Johnson and Mary Horak, an American interpreter, were given seats in the last row. They were about one hundred feet from Oatis wearing a blue suit, but they could see that he was pale and even thinner than usual. 

No Western correspondents were in the courtroom. The Agence France Presse correspondent, Gaston Fournier, having discovered that his entire Czech staff had been arrested while he was on leave in Paris, had not returned to his post. Russell Jones of the United Press had been transferred to another post, and Bobby Bigio of Reuters, learning that the police were looking for him, had departed in haste only twelve days before the trial.

But luckily, United Press had a Czechoslovak national present, Ivo Berousnsky at the trial and his reports were used by UP for articles in the United States and elsewhere. Berounsky sometimes afterward escaped Czechoslovakia by illegally crossing into the Soviet Zone of Germany and then to Berlin. Ivo Berounsky eventually joined the Czechoslovak Broadcast Service (Voice of Free Czechoslovakia) of Radio Free Europe.

During the trial he was not allowed to wear his glasses while being cross-examined and could not see his questioners. 

After the indictment had been read, the president of the court, Jaroslav Novak, asked Oatis, "Did you carry on espionage?” The question was relayed to Oatis through earphones in an English translation provided by a young girl translator. 

Oatis answered, "Yes."

Oatis confessed falsely to espionage after four straight days of interrogation by the communist secret police. 'On the first day I admitted that I had done unofficial reporting, which I had,'' he wrote later. ''Within three days I confessed that this was espionage, which by any Western standard it was not; and within seven days I confessed that I had spied for the U.S. Government, which was a lie.'' 

Then Bill Oatis, broken by months of questioning, made his final speech. "I am sorry I went in for espionage in this country," he said. "I did it only because I listened to the wrong kind of orders from abroad ... I am sorry for all this. Your security organ caught me and now you know all about me." 

In summing up, the prosecutor inadvertently praised Oatis by saying he was "particularly dangerous because of his discretion and his insistence on obtaining only accurate, correct and verified information." The U.S. State Department described the confession as nothing more than "the admission of an American reporter that in the high traditions of his profession was attempting under the most unfavorable conditions to report a true picture of conditions and events in Czechoslovakia as he saw them." 

In 2012, two reel-to-reel tape recordings of the trial were unearthed in a plain brown paper package that had lain in the Czech national archives for 60 years The story in English and trial excerpts, including Oatis voice,  can be heard here:www.radio.cz/mp3/podcast/en/curraffrs/tapes-of- infamous-communist-show-trial-with-ap-correspondent-william-oatis-unearthed-in-czech-national-archives.mp3

He was sentenced to 10 years, 5 years with good behavior on July 4, 1951—exactly one year after RFE’s first broadcast to Czechoslovakia. His Czech staff received harsher terms: 16, 18 and 20-year sentences. The judge said that Oatis had been spared the death penalty because he had admitted his guilt and had helped in "exposing the espionage activities of Western diplomats and Western news agencies."

President Harry Truman denounced the trial as an attempt to intimidate the Western press. Time magazine, July 16, 1951, carried this comment on the conviction: “What ransom do the Czechs want? Among the guesses is that they want the U.S. to shut up Radio Free Europe, a private organization, which broadcasts the names of Czech spies and government informants and needles the Czech regime unmercifully.”

"We played chess on squares drawn on toilet paper, maneuvering pieces kneaded out of rye bread that had dried to become hard as rock," Bill also recalled.  "I was in prison in Czechoslovakia for over two years, and I can tell you this," Oatis reported later. "Living inthat prison is like being buried alive. A cell there is like a tomb. And the inmate is like a man in purgatory. He is waiting, and his problem is to get through time." 

There was extensive press coverage of the trial in American newspapers, including thesis cartoons: 

On January 2, 1952, Ambassodor Briggs sent a message to Washington, wherein he said: “Recent developments have admittedly been disheartening…Our hopes for early Oatis release have not been realized. Impatience over situation..is not only understandable but is abudantly shared by all of us in Embassy Prague where for past eight months welfare this unfortunate fellow citizen has been our constant worry and distress.”

On June 8,1953, Ambassador Briggs met with President Harry Truman, who told him that, “As long as Oatis remains in prison it will be impossible to have satisfactory relations with Czechoslovakia.

Oatis was finally released May 16, 1953 after his wife, Laurabelle, appealed personally to the Czech Presiden Zapotocky:  “In use rights given to me by Constitution, I grant pardon to William Oatis born January 1, 1914 in Marion, Indiana, USA, citizen of USA for the still uncompleted part of his sentence of deprivation of liberty imposed on him by Prague Court 4 July 1951, this decision being taken on basis petition Mrs. Laurabel Oatis November 1952.” At first glance it seemed to be act of compassion, but the Czechs were under heavy economic pressure, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower had held open the possibility of more normal relations if Oatis were freed.

After his release, Oatis was driven across the border to West Germany and gave a press conference in Nüremberg. Ivo Berounsky was there representing Radio Free Europe and reported, ""Bill's manner now is very much as it was during the trial".

He and his wife flew to New York, where he was met with a large group of photographers and journalists. Oatis did not answer many questions from the journalists. Life magazine published this comment on June 1, 1953:

Back in America after his release from a Czech prison, Associated Press Correspondent Willian Oatis puzzled and surprised his countrymen by the answers he did not give to reporters. Obviously puzzled and shaken himself after his two-year imprisonment, he refused to answer most of the questions even though he said he realized that his refusal to answer might create a bad impression. He did admit that under Czech law there was “some justification” for his arrest as a spy but denied that he had been an espionage agent “in the sense that this term is understood in Western countries. Oatis said he needed a long rest and would have to study the written record of his trial before he could repudiate his courtroom confession.

In an exclusive article for Life magazine, September 21, 1953, Oatis explained why he confessed to being a spy even though he was not:

Why did I confess to doing things I had not done?  Was I drugged? Hypnotized?  I will tell you why, but the reasons are not so simple as many in the West believe. Much of the answer lies in the 42-hours of interrogation that began at 4 a.m. on the sixth day of my imprisonment…The room was whirling. I could not seem to make my eyes – or my brain – focus. I wanted time to think. I knew that his was a great and perhaps fatal step: if I signed, I would be confessing to something I had not done. I wanted to consider what I might be doing to myself by signing this document—and what I might be doing by refusing to sign it. But there was something else I wanted more. 

That was sleep. I had been awake 42 hours. Through the time, almost without let up, I had been questioned, browbeaten and berated. I was limp with fatigue. My eyes kept falling shut, my mind kept blanking out. My future might lie in the balance, but the future must take care of itself. Tomorrow was another day. Tonight was what bore me done. I must end it somehow. There seemed only one way to do that, and that was to sign the confession.

So I signed it…I had not chosen to thus abandon the truth—the choice had been made for me. But once abandoned, truth could not be reclaimed. 

After recuperating from tuberculosis, apparently contracted while he was in prison, Oatis eventually was reassigned to the UN bureau in New York, where he specialized in reporting about developing countries. He remained in that position until his retirement in 1984. 

William N. Otis died after a long illness on September 16, 1997.

Prague, 1951, the Show Trial of American Journalist William N. Oatis, a Victim of Menticide, Part One ©

 "Fear, and continual pressure are known to create a menticidal hypnosis. The conscious part of the personality no longer takes part in the automatic confessions. The brainwashee lives in a trance, repeating the record grooved into him by somebody else."

Joost A.M. Meerloo, M.D., The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing (1956)
 

In January 1950, Czechoslovakia expelled all Western correspondents. The Associated Press (AP) news agency was allowed to reopen its Prague bureau, but AP’s Czechoslovak nationals were ordered not to send stories abroad. 

Born in Marion, Indiana on January 4, 1914, William Nathan Oatis went to work for the Marion Leader-Tribune in 1933 and joined the AP in Indianapolis in 1937. 

William Oatis took up his position as AP correspondent and bureau chief in Prague on June 23, 1950. 

Almost from the beginning of his assignment he reported being subjected to harassing tactics by Czechoslovak authorities. During March and April 1951, he reportedly came under close surveillance by the police, and three Czechoslovak nationals on his staff were arrested: Tomas Svoboda, Pavel Wojdinek and Peter Muntz.

Oatis told Tyler Thompson, Counselor at the American Embassy, that he was really getting worried about his own safety. But still he did not leave Czechoslovakia. On the night of April 23, 1951, six officers of the secret police (StB) arrested him in his office and drove him to the headquarter's building.

The American Embassy in Prague was informed on April 25 that Oatis had not been seen either at his office or residence since April 23. The Embassy contacted the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry and a formal note was presented requesting an immediate investigation as to his whereabouts. On the following day, the Foreign Ministry informed the Embassy that 

Oatis was detained for having carried out activities hostile to the Czechoslovak State including use of Czechoslovak employees of the Associated Press office in

• securing and verifying “secret” reports, 
• acquiring and disseminating illegal press material, and 
• utilizing Czechoslovak employees for similar purposes. 

Oatis later described what happened after his arrest:

There a cold-eyed plainclothesman began my interrogation by shouting, 'We could hang you!' The Czechoslovakian legal system being what it was then, I could well believe that, though I had done nothing to warrant such punishment. 

I had done nothing I considered espionage - nothing more than gather news from Czechoslovak media and exchange information with acquaintances of mine. But in prison I was given to believe the country's legal definition of espionage was rather broad.

The U.S. Embassy, immediately thereafter, contacted the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry and

• expressed astonishment at the arrest of Oatis on such charges, 
• reserved rights on his behalf, 
• requested permission for a consular officer to visit him, and 
• asked whether an American lawyer would be permitted to represent him in Czechoslovakia. 

The Foreign Ministry replied by denying the request for consular access on the grounds that according to existing law a visit could not be permitted at that stage of Oatis’ investigation. At the same time the Foreign Ministry stated that any person chosen to represent Oatis would have to be a Czechoslovak lawyer qualified to appear before a Czechoslovak court. 

There were radio and newspaper stories in the United States speculating that Czechoslovakia was seeking a deal in which Oatis would be released with the closing of Radio Free Europe. On May 26, 1951, Secretary of State Acheson sent a message to the U.S. Embassy in Prague, which, in part read:  [C]zech avoidance publicity re Oatis developments, Dept’s representative concluded conversation by pointed comment we had had nothing to do with radio and press stories alleging Czech proposal RFE for Oatis deal, had not publicized Oatis case “

On May 31, 1951, Assistant Secretary of State sent a message to Acheson on the subject of reaching a policy decision on Czechoslovakia.  He wrote, in part, “The problem is to reach a decision on policy toward Czechoslovakia in view of the implications of the Czechoslovak note of May 21 charging the US Government broadly with hostile incitement from Western Germany against Czechoslovakia and its people, and elaborating two specific cases of such hostile activity in the RFE broadcasts and an alleged border violation on May 4.” And,

The impulse to the message was doubtless the inauguration on May 1 of RFE Czech and Slovak language broadcasts from a location near Munich. A directional antenna beamed toward Czechoslovakia with a power of 135 kilowatts transmits programs amounting to a total of about eleven hours each day. It is apparent from the Czechoslovak note that the RFE transmissions from Munich have made a real impact and that the Czechoslovak authorities regard this as a climactic step in a campaign of mounting US efforts against the regime. They are thus reacting strongly against our increasing pressure which also includes hard-hitting VOA programs and mounting unconventional activities.

Oatis was held incommunicado nearly 70 days before he was brought to trial. He was questioned around the clock, held in solitary confinement, and permitted no visitors, not even the U.S. Ambassador. 

Next Part Two: The Trial of William N. Oatis

American Clandestine Radio Broadcasting to Romania in the early Cold War; "România Viitoare — Vocea Rezistenței Naționale" (Future of Romania – Voice of National Resistance), Part Two, ©

In December 1953, SHELLAC was the cryptonym for the clandestine radio subproject in the QKBROIL Romanian country project. The broadcasts had the primary aim of, “disaffecting the Romanian communists and it is planned to supplement these broadcasts with an "intruder voices program to be established in 1954.”  The programs would be broadcast from the same transmitting site near Athens, Greece, from which programs were already being beamed clandestinely to Bulgaria and Albania.

The CIA in 1954 chose Mugur Dumitru Valahu (1920-2003), attorney and journalist, as chief of the new clandestine radio station in Greece. Valahu had escaped Romania in 1948. He first settled in Paris and eventually worked for Radio Paris, BBC, and Radio Free Europe. For Radio Paris, Valahu and his Romanian colleague Gheorghe Bumbesti (1919-2002) were responsible for broadcasting “coded messages” to non-existent persons in Romania that gave the impression that the West had links with a fictitious anti-Communist resistance. Romania protested these broadcasts and Valahu and Bumbesti were forced to resign from Radio Paris. They left France and went to the United States.

In an interview given to Radio Romania’s Center for Oral History on October 25, 2010, Valahu talked about his broadcast experiences in Athens: 

I came into contact with American friends who had been in Romania with the American Commission in 1944-1945 and whom I met in Paris and with whom I discussed this plan of mine about a clandestine post. And then I was told that the US Government was planning to appoint me with the leadership of this post in the psychological war of the Americans.  Bumbesti and I then went to Athens, Greece, and began broadcasting clandestine radio programs to Romania. 

The offices were in Athens in a building, in a villa, where we recorded the tapes on tape. Then these tape tapes, put in a kind of envelope, were sent with a special courier to Thessaloniki, where our transmitter was. The courier who came every day was American, he spoke a little Romanian because he had been through Romania. Our equipment was not extraordinary - there were two tape recorders, a microphone, and so much. For our programs there was a special transmitter.

Valahu began is 15-minute program with: "Here is the clandestine radio station Future of Romania - Voice of National Resistance!. Lieutenant Colonel Dumitru Arbore speaks to you.." It was his broadcast pseudonym. The show was announced through a segment of a 1953 Hollywood American movie  "Blowing Wild" starring Gary Cooper. According to Valahu, “Our broadcasts were quite violent, because I thought I was expressing what the whole people wanted to say, which was hostile to the communist regime.” Valahu focused his programs on intellectuals and the military. Bumbeşti was concerned with peasants and workers. This is an excerpt from a March 1, 1957, broadcast:

The Communists have dug their own grave! Keep your trust in freedom! Brothers! Let's step up the strike of laziness and bureaucracy! Lets boycott the orders of the government servants! Through continuous struggle to freedom and independence! Communists! Listen to the warning of the Romanian people! Break away from Moscow! Break away from the henchmen of the Romanian people! Give us the proof that you are not stooges of the invaders! Give the country a truly socialist government! Move quickly to earn the mercy of the people! Stop the terror, stop the looting and exploitation!

In his oral interview, Valahu said:

We wanted to leave the impression that we were located directly in Romania. In our broadcasts, incitement was our very clear intent.Not only did we attack the government, calling them gypsies, vagrant, stooges, etc., but also at the end of each broadcast we said: "Death to the government’s henchmen!Down with Dej’s gang of gypsies". 

Our shows were nothing like those broadcast on Radio Free Europe or on Voice of America, which were, so to say, more elegant, more moderate, and purely informative. 

From time to time, we met with Romanians who briefed us on the current state of affairs back home. One of the engineers from one of the jamming stations  told us that the government was extremely concerned with our activities on the radio, with the fact that we instigated people and called for capital punishments. Every time our show came on the air, they would say “Here comes Radu Verde.” Radu Verde meant us, and the technician said we were considered public enemy number one from the point of view of the communist regime. 

During the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Valahu described his broadcasts to Romania: “We urged people to become aware of Romanian pride, of the fact that Hungarians were about to rebel and that Romanians could not sit idly by. We just had to do something, we had to hold strikes and street rallies ... We advised people to carry out individual acts, so as not to give way to reprisals against potential groups.”

CIA decided October to close down “Future of Romania” (and Albanian and Bulgarian broadcasts) on October 31, 1960 and Valahu and Bumbesti left Greece. Valahu said, “The Americans took all the papers, all the appliances, everything. I asked for my personal records to be given to me, they said, ‘Lord, no! These are all secrets, we can not give you anything, it's a closed case.’ So we do not even have the copies of our articles or the tapes we have preserved.”

Afterwards, Mugar D. Valahu spent many years in Africa. He went on to become a successful author of books about Africa, including, The Katanga Circus: A Detailed Account of Three UN Wars. He died in southern France on February 24, 2003.. 

Georghe (George) V. Bumbesti returned to the United States and eventually became Deputy Director of the Voice of America’s Romanian Service. He died in King City, California on March 8, 2002.

American Clandestine Radio Broadcasting to Romania in the early Cold War; "România Viitoare — Vocea Rezistenței Naționale" (Future of Romania – Voice of National Resistance),Part One, ©

The Office of Policy Coordination, a hybrid organization of CIA and State Department responsible for psychological warfare operations, proposed a project, presumably in 1951, that included the following points in the best (or worst if you will) Cold War rhetoric:

Undoubtedly some of the broadcasts of the Free Europe program
s and some of the Voice of America broadcasts are listened to by quite a flew Rumanians in the hope that they may grasp some information as to early liberation of their country. We believe and recommend that intensive propaganda by means of a "black" radio be instituted as soon as this plan is approved with a radio station in the vicinity of our proposed forwarding base in Greece. 

From Greece the free Romanians assigned to this radio work, will be in a position to listen daily to the Bucharest Communist radio broadcasts and pick up any points which will he useful
in countering the false propaganda spread by the official Communist station. 

This powerful “Black" radio directed to Romania from Greece, whether on a long or medium wave, will no doubt be subjected to jamming 
in certain areas of the country, but according to past experienced, they will be unable to extend this all over Romania. Consideration should also be given to the dropping of throw-away redios.to the local population. It
is very gratifying that quite a good many free Romanians now in the United States have had opportunity to receive proper training and indoctrination as to the making up of programs directed to Romania under the auspices of the National Committee for a Free Europe. These people will no doubt above very helpful in setting up and running the black radio program with the assistance of U. S. technicians. Attempts should also be made to shadow broadcasts or inject adverse ghost talk into the Communist broad- casts emitted from Bucharest.

In addition to the black radio, consideration should be given to the dropping in of leaflets and posters in various parts of Romania. One of the primary objectives of the black radio should be to uncover the Communist "bullies" and threaten any further Communist crimes with measures
of retaliation. 

Once bases in Romania have been established, it will be easier to carry out threats made by radio and, in fact, carry out acts
of reprisals against Communist leaders and those threatened. Information shall be collected from all possible sources emanating from Romania and from those recently out of the country, in order to piece together the pattern and set up of as many Communist organizations and towns as possible. 

In this way we will have correct information as to the Communist leaders
in various towns and follow up their doings. Should a Communist official or Militia chief embark on a terror campaign against the local population in some areas, then both by radio and by leaflets we could uncover him, threaten him and actually abduct him and leave his body exposed in the “Red Square" of the village or town.

The project was approved on August 7, 1951, and given the cryptonym QKBROIL. The timetable for 1951-1952 included

The current objectives of Project QKBROIL for the support and eventual liberation of a Free Rumania are:

1.    To establish and implement successful psychological warfare propaganda aimed at that country.

a. To accomplish the fist objective, the Chief Propaganda Officer is being dispatched at the earliest possible date to Europe to recruit the remainder of the Propaganda Broadcast Staff. It Is expected that his staff will have been completed and his station manned by the end of February 1952 and operating by the end of March 1952. 

However, it was not until 1954 that broadcasting actually began from a secret CIA transmitter site near Athens, Greece.

Next: Part Two, more details of CIA’s clandestine radio broadcasts to Romania.

When George Washington Stopped World War III Before It Started! ©

George Washington, the first President of the United States of America, was born on February 22, 1732.

For the 1954 Crusade for Freedom fund-raising campaign in behalf of Radio Free Europe, the Advertising Council developed three themes:

•   "Help end World War III before it starts" 

•   "Send truth through the Iron Curtain" 

•    "Let George do it" (referring to the face of George Washington on the one-dollar bill). 

Below we will look at the third theme that was used to rally Americans to action in the Cold War: "Let George do it."

The goal of the massive 1954 campaign was to raise ten million dollars to "beam through the Iron Curtain." The Ad Council mailed a campaign guide to 20,000 advertisers, agencies and media executives. Newspaper ads were sent to "daily, weekly, farm, labor, foreign language, religious and Negro papers." 85,000 two-color ads were to be posted on busses, trolley and commuting railroads. 15,000 post office trucks were to carry Crusade for Freedom posters.

The "kit" sent to television stations included films that featured prominent television and stage stars. There were 26 million homes with televisions in the United States. The estimated number of “home impressions” from network spots of the Crusade for Freedom was 3 billion, In addition, there were 18,500 spot announcements on local television stations. Radio kits were sent to 2,700 local radio stations that resulted in an estimated 700,000 announcements.

The Outdoor Advertising Incorporated supported arranged for 8,000 large24-sheet billboard posters which were to "generate more than 1 1/2 billion advertising impressions." This outdoor advertising was to be "one of the greatest public service contributions in history."

One of 1954 newspaper and magazine advertising themes was "Let George Do It“ -- a play on the American slang "Let Someone Else Do it."  The text of one advertisement was:

The best way $1 from you can help end World War III before it starts.

Take a look at one of the dollars in your pocket. Believe it or not, that dollar might buy you the thing you want most in all the world-peace.

That single dollar can help send Truth through the Iron Curtain-Truth to 70 million restless, freedom-loving captives of Communism who can do more than anyone else to stop Soviet Aggression dead in its tracks!

Radio Free Europe (an independent American enterprise supported by private citizens like yourself) is getting the Truth through to them now ... Truth to counteract Soviet lies about you ... Truth about their own countries and their Soviet masters.

RFE is sending Truth day and night, from 21 powerful radio transmitters.

Your dollar can help do even more.- It can send at least 100 words of Truth and hope where they are needed most. It can help build new transmitters, send more programs. It can help stop World War III before it starts.

Another Ad read:

Let George Do It

No, you wouldn't as a rule.

But here’s one time you can — andhelp stopWorld WarIII before it starts.

You can do it with your dollar, which carries the portrait of "the man who couldn't tell a lie."

Through Radio Free Europe your George Washington dollar can carry the TRUTH to 70 million Communist-controlled people behind the Iron Curtain— if you'll let it.

Give a "Truth-Dollar“ for Radio Free Europe — the free world's most effective promoter of hope and courage behind the Iron Curtain today.Send your dollar to Crusade for Freedom, c/o your local Postmaster. 

It will buy 100 words of TRUTH on Radio Free Europe for those captive millions who are our first line of defense against Soviet aggression. Your dollar will squelch a Red Lie

"Let George Do It“— today!

Ferit Agi, Veteran Journalist And Former Director Of RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service, RIP

Ferit Agi, a veteran journalist and former director of RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service, died on December 25 in Munich, Germany. He was 75.

Born to a Tatar émigré family in Manchuria, China during World War II, Agi experienced Soviet brutality first-hand from his earliest years. As an adult, he dedicated his life to defending human dignity and individual rights and promoting pluralism and diversity.

When Agi was just two years old, in 1945, Soviet forces entered Manchuria and his father was detained by Joseph Stalin’s secret police and sent to the Gulag for his political activism among Tatar emigres. Agi did not see his father again until he was 25 years old. By that time, the family had taken refuge in Turkey. Agi pursued a degree in Turkic studies at Istanbul University, served in the military and participated in local Tatar cultural life.

In 1969, he received an offer to join RFE/RL, then based in Munich, Germany. He remembered that period of his life with humor, saying he went to Germany with one piece of luggage, expecting he would not stay long. 

But Agi’s term in RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service lasted an incredible 37 years.

He began as a radio producer, moderator and broadcaster, becoming director of the service in 1989. Agi led the service’s move from Munich to Prague in 1995, creating a network of local correspondents in Tatar-populated areas of the former Soviet Union. In 1997, he oversaw the opening of a bureau in Kazan, the capital of Russia’s Tatarstan Republic and launched the rebroadcast of RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir programs on FM affiliates in Tatarstan. 

Agi gained the deep respect of his colleagues as well as RFE/RL’s management. In 2002, he was asked to oversee the launch of a new North Caucasus Service and briefly led it. Colleagues remember him as a gentle person but also as a man of firm principles if it came to RFE/RL’s mission and standards. 

In 2006, Agi retired from RFE/RL and moved back to Munich with his family, but remained in close touch with the Tatar-Bashkir service and its correspondents in the field. He also published a book of his father’s memories about life in the Gulag.

Ferit Agi is survived by his wife, Aische, also a long-time RFE/RL employee in Munich, and his two children, Kerim and Banu. 

Source RFE/RL

The Battle for Timisoara, Romania, December 1989, Radio Free Europe Correspondent Eggleston's Eye-witness Report ©

Roland (Roley) Eggleston, RFE/RL's correspondent in Budapest, Hungary, was in that city on December 22, 1989, when word reached him of the developing events in Romania, He telephoned a Hungarian-Romanian-speaking interpreter and asked her to accompany him to Romania. Below is his exciting eye-witness account of the battle for Timisoara, Romania December 22-25, 1989 -- adapted from the January 1990 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in-house publication Shortwaves. 

At the border we discovered most of the crossings were closed. From the radio, my interpreter learned there was one post not far away, which was still open. We quickly drove there. I identified myself as a Radio Free Europe journalist. The officer in charge was dubious and twice searched the car thoroughly. A second soldier jumped around us excitedly, convinced we were bringing assistance for the revolution. I paid 53 DM and finally received an entry visa in my passport, but the officer cautioned us that there was still shooting taking place on the roads.

Without further incident we drove to the nearest city, Arad, and found our way to the center square. It was now dark. I witnessed an amazing scene: the square was crowded with people, all kneeling, with candles, reciting the Lord's Prayer. Although we were told there had been no incidents, and that a single member of the dreaded Securitate was tied up in the local town hall, gunfire broke out in the square as we departed Arad.

The road to Timisoara was clear, and in total darkness, without the aid of street lights, we made our way to the center of the city. I thought 1 must have become hardened from movies or television, as the scene which then unfolded seemed to be unreal. We had just parked in the square when a firefight began between the Securitate and the Romanian army. Together with my interpreter, we had to lie face down in the street as bullets struck around us.

The most frightening aspects of the battle were helicopters, which hovered overhead, manned by the Securitate, shooting indiscriminately at anything that moved.

At nearly all intersections barricades had been thrown up and manned by civilians with armbands. At one such barricade, I asked for help in making my way to the city hospital, where I knew much of the story of the battle of Timisoara was taking place. I again identified himself as a correspondent for RFE. This was greeted with cheers and praise, and shouts that, "You're the only ones who told us the truth!"

A burly man in civilian clothes offered to take us through the barricades to the hospital. He was reluctant to go into the building with us, but eventually did so.

We were hardly inside, when a woman doctor began screaming and pointing at this man. People rushed up, pinned back his arms and dragged him away. The doctor said she recognized him as being in the hospital a week earlier, carrying a machine gun and in the company of Securitate, who were hauling away civilians wounded in earlier fighting. 1 never saw him again.

I used a hospital phone to try to call Munich but could not get through. Next to me, on the floor, lay the body of a civilian with his arms outstretched over his head. I couldn't tell whether he had fallen like that or had been shot with his hands in the air. I assumed he was one of the Securitate.

The next day I finally found an international line at the Timisoara police station and was able to telephone my reports to RFE/RL. We stayed overnight in the hospital. The staff, extremely helpful, made beds available and offered us endless cups of hot tea. We ate the same food as the hospital staff; margarine, bread, and cold sausage.

The next day I went to grave sites where the bodies of persons executed had been found. It was a nightmare scene, with many of the bodies mutilated terribly, among them small children.

After three days in Romania, my interpreter and I joined a convoy of automobiles, protected by a Romanian army tank, which made its way out of Timisoara toward the Yugoslav border.

At nearly every small village along the way, local farmers, armed with iron bars and clubs, stopped us despite the army tank escort and searched the cars thoroughly, looking for members of the Securitate. I put my RFE/RL identification to good use on these occasions.

We eventually reached the Yugoslav border and from there to Szeged, where I filed another report to RFE/RL, using the facilities of Hungarian Television, which was quick to cooperate. 

Listen here to the battle sounds of Timisoara on December 17, 1989, as broadcast over Radio Free Europe's Romanian Broadcast Service on December 20, 1989, after verification of its authenticity.  

In March 1990, Roley Eggleston received one of the first "President's Award for Outstanding Achievement" from then RFE/RL President Gene Pell. The plaque he received read, "For outstanding journalistic achievements covering events in Eastern and Western Europe and for dedication to the mission of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty."  In his remarks, president Pell cited Roley's journalistic abilities and his physical courage while reporting on the Romanian Revolution.

Photograph of Timisoara courtesy of The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER). Audio, photograph of Roley Eggleston receiving his award for his reporting, and article adaption courtesy of RFE/RL.