Carlos the Jackal and The Last Tango in Munich:The Bombing of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, February 21, 1981 ©

 

From the mid-1970s to his overthrow and execution in December 1989, Romanian Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu waged a vengeful war against the Romanian Broadcast Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich. His regime fought with intimidation, threats, and physical attack; the radios countered with the 'truth' in the programs broadcast to Romania.

Although various soviet bloc intelligence services had planned over the years to bomb the headquarters of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, there was only one physical attack: the bomb attack on February 21, 1981 --  one of the most politically sensitive yet little-known operations of "Carlos the Jackal." This was his only known American target. Carlos called his terrorist operations Tangos; this would be his Munich Tango.

February 21, 1981, at 9:50 p.m., a massive explosion in the center of Munich was heard throughout the city. A team of four Euro-terrorists, under the direction of the infamous "Carlos the Jackal" in Budapest, had just set off a powerful bomb, estimated to be about 30 pounds (c. 15 kilograms) of the Romanian-made explosive nitropenta.

Just above the area where the terrorists placed the bomb, three employees of RFE/RL's Czechoslovak Broadcast were busily preparing a news program scheduled for 10 p.m. that was never aired. At 9:50 p.m., one employee picked up the ringing telephone and said. "Hello." No one answered. The employee tried again, "Hello." The room exploded into rubble. The time was later confirmed by a German agency to monitor earthquakes; the bombing was so powerful it registered on the equipment. Four Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty employees were seriously injured: Maria Pulda, Rudolf Skukalek, Allan Antalis, Czechoslovak Broadcast Department, and Ingeborg Eberl, telephone operator. Damage to the building exceeded $2,000,000. In the history of the radio stations, this was the only direct attack on the RFE/RL headquarters building.

The bomb's concussion caused extensive damage and terror in the immediate area. Windows were shattered in fifty percent of RFE/RL's offices (more than 170) and in apartment buildings more than one hundred yards (meters) away from RFE/RL.

Glen Ferguson, then president of RFE/RL, sent out a message to the staff. In part, it read, "Four of our employees are injured, our building is damaged, but RFE/RL will continue to be heard."

Major international and West German media covered the Saturday night bomb attack against RFE/RL in the Sunday and Monday editions. West German television and radio began covering the account at 11 p.m. Saturday and continued coverage throughout Sunday and Monday. Soviet and East European media also carried the story starting Sunday morning.

Although the evidence has long been there and the perpetrators identified, no one has been and will most likely never be prosecuted for this terrorist act. Carlos is in jail for two life terms in Paris. Of the four Euro-terrorists in Munich, Johannes Weinrich is in prison for life in Berlin, Bruno Brequet has disappeared (presumed dead), one of the Basque terrorists died in Cuba, and the other was never identified. The Romanian general who ordered the attack died, as did the Romanian intelligence officer who coordinated the attack with Carlos.

Carlos used a safe house in Budapest, Hungary, for the bomb planning, preparations, and communications. Based on monitored telephone calls, a top-secret summary report on October 3, 1980, by Department III/II-8 of the Hungarian Interior Ministry, identified RFE/RL Romanian Service employee Emil Georgescu, Romanian King-in-Exile Michael, Paul Goma, and other émigrés as targets for Carlos. The attack on Emil Georgescu was supposed to be accomplished by an attack on the Romanian Section of Radio Free Europe. Then, the terrorists would take "secret" documents from the building.

Also, Carlos was assigned to break into or destroy the monitoring station outside Munich in Schleissheim and obtain "secret" documents. In return, the Romanians gave Carlos thirty-four Italian, German, French, and Austrian passports, plus Romanian diplomatic passports for Carlos, Johannes Weinrich ("Steve"), and Magdalena Kopp.

There was another planning session in Budapest on October 14, 1980, when the terrorists discussed existing surveillance reports detailing how the RFE/RL building appeared Saturday night. Someone, evident from the discussion, had already observed the RFE/RL headquarters building at 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. The surveillance report showed that about forty percent of the rooms had lights on, and the observer estimated that twenty percent of the employees worked at 9 p.m. When the bomb exploded Saturday at 9:50 p.m., only forty employees were in the building, out of a staff of almost one thousand. Their surveillance report was wrong in the estimated numbers of employees.

Carlos decided that his team would go to Munich in November and wait for the explosives, weapons, and other logistics necessary to carry out the attack. Further surveillance also would be required.

On December 19, 1980, in Budapest, Hungary, Carlos and German terrorist Johannes Weinrich had a heated discussion about the bombing of RFE/R--their conversation was covertly monitored and recorded by the Hungarian Intelligence Service. Carlos said he wanted to do it on Christmas Eve or Christmas day as no one would expect a bomb attack on those days. Weinrich agreed in principle but said they were not ready, as they did not have the required cars, and Carlos suggested New Year's Eve.

Weinrich then told Carlos that when he and the Swiss terrorist Bruno Breguet ("Luca") were doing surveillance of RFE/RL earlier that month, he stopped urinating against one of the trees on the RFE/RL grounds. Two guards walked in his direction and saw him, but they did not say anything and kept going. He noticed that one had a bunch of keys in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Because he had been seen, Weinrich told Carlos he needed a new coat, or the same guard might recognize him when they returned to bomb the building. Weinrich added that he preferred not to shoot the guard first. Carlos asked: "Why not?" Weinrich answered that this would draw unnecessary attention to them and that the Christmas tree in front of the building blocked the guard's view. Carlos told Weinrich that even if the bomb were to be discovered before it exploded, if anyone then tried to move it, it would explode, and "CIA would see just how professional their work was."

The original time for the bombing was scheduled to be 22:15. Weinrich told Carlos that he had planned that he and Bruno Breguet would need 12 minutes to get to the train station and head off from Munich in different directions. If they were discovered on the train, they would have alibis. Breguet would take the train to Nuremberg, where he would change to a train arriving from Switzerland to Berlin. He would exchange tickets with a helper on that train, and Breguet would then continue to Berlin as if he had been on that train the whole time. Carlos told him that this was a great idea.

On January 30, 1981, Carlos went to Bucharest and remained there until February 3, 1981. Taking advantage of the terrorists' absence, Hungarian counterintelligence officers entered Carlos's apartment on January 31, 1981, and discovered newly brought documentation about the bomb preparation. Included in the documentation brought to Budapest by the ETA terrorist Luc Edgar Groven ("Eric"), the documents included detailed sketches of RFE/RL's headquarters and other locations in Germany. Although it was not clear from this documentation when the bombing would occur.

Carlos set February 14, 1981, Valentine's Day, as the date for the bombing. However, ETA could not provide the necessary vehicles for the February 14 bombing, and the attack was postponed for one week. Carlos called "Andrei" in Bucharest on February 13, 1981, and in guarded terms told him that there was a delay in "Steve's" activities: "Steve cannot travel to Bucharest this weekend but will travel a few days later."

On February 19, 1981, Weinrich telephoned Carlos and told him in surreptitious terms that the bombing would now take place before Sunday—he was having bank transfer problems, but that should be resolved by Sunday morning- The following day, Carlos called Nica. He said, "Steve will come to Bucharest Sunday morning. He will telephone at 10 a.m. with the exact time."

Two members of the Basque terrorist group ETA Politico-Militar drove two vehicles from Marseille, France, to Munich for use in the bombing. One was a white 1968 Ford with a license plate stolen in Strasbourg, France, on February 20, 1981.

On Saturday night, February 21, 1981, Munich's temperature was below freezing. Snow covered the grounds around the sprawling two-story building. Evidence points to four members of Carlos's group physically involved in the bombinb:

• Johannes Weinrich
• Bruno Breguet
• Jose Maria Larretxea (Larrechia-Goni in Spanish) (“Chepe”) from the Basque terrorist  group ETA PM

• Juan Miguel GOIBURU MENDIZABAL, "Santiago” also from ETA.

A section of RFE/RL's headquarters building was in shambles as the Basque terrorists sped away in their cars across the bridge over the Isar River. The two Basque terrorists stopped about 300 yards from the damaged building and changed cars. They left behind the 1968 white Ford. Six months later, Munich police towed the car since it had been abandoned for so long. After they opened the trunk, they discovered five Soviet-made Koveshnikov F-1 hand grenades. These grenades were of the same type used by Carlos in the 1970s in Paris.

Breguet made his way to Berlin via a train from Munich through Nuremberg, where he switched trains and was given a ticket purchased in Switzerland to give him an alibi at the time of the bombing. The German terrorist Johannes Weinrich took a train to Switzerland, and the two ETA members also left Germany in one of the stolen cars. Months of careful preparation in Budapest, Hungary, had paid off.

After the bombing of RFE/RL, Carlos flew to Bucharest on March 6, 1981. Colonel Nica reluctantly toasted him with champagne for his performance, even though Carlos was unsuccessful according to Romanian wishes.

Nica was visibly upset, but Carlos did not seem to notice it. Nica raised a glass of champagne and ironically toasted Carlos, "Usually I kill for money, but this time I kill for nothing. Narok!" (Cheers!)" Carlos smiled throughout the toast, as he did not get the irony. Nica knew about the story of Carlos and one of his friends in the 1970s, when Carlos visited him one morning and, holding a gun to his head, he said: "Do you remember the movie where the cowboy says 'I kill you for money, I kill you for a woman, and I kill you for nothing because you are my friend." Carlos then put the gun down and hugged his friend. He was only joking.

After the RFE/RL bombing, Carlos had become a liability for the Socialist countries. Carlos left Europe and moved his base of operations to Damascus, Syria, where he continued to direct the group's international operations. After submitting to international criticism as a government involved in state-sponsored terrorism, Syria asked Carlos to leave in 1990. Carlos had problems settling in a friendly country. Reportedly, he did not ask the Iranian government for shelter because of his Marxist ideology and his resentment of religious movements. Iraq and Libya, under intense international pressure, refused him refuge.

Carlos settled in southern Yemen with his wife and child. Civil war erupted in Yemen in 1993, and Carlos learned that Palestinian factions protecting and supporting him would be transferred to Gaza and Jericho to participate in Palestinian autonomy. Carlos decided to seek refuge in Sudan, which was listed for years by the U.S. State Department as one country that harbored international terrorists.

Carlos became expendable, and, in the circumstances still unclear, Carlos was arrested in August 1994. French officials took him into custody, flew him to Paris, and placed him in a maximum-security prison.

On February 22, 1996, Carlos was placed under formal investigation by French authorities for the hand-grenade attack in Le Drugstore and charges of "assassination, attempted assassination, and destruction with explosives and other weapons.

In December 1997, Venezuelan-born Ilych Ramirez-Sanchez played out his role as "Carlos the Professional Revolutionary" and shortly held center stage during his trial in Paris. The judge and jury were not swayed by his histrionics and revolutionary rhetoric: he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment for killing two French secret agents and their Lebanese informer in 1975 

When Carlos was using the safe house in Budapest, before and after the bombing, he had continual telephone contact with Lt. Col. Sergiu Nica, who used the code name Andrei Vitescu with the Carlos group. For a yet unknown reason, exactly nine years after the bombing (February 21, 1990), Nica hand-wrote a report concerning his knowledge of some Romanian intelligence activities:

In 1978, when PACEPA betrayed us, I was working in Bucharest in the military unit U.M. 0620 and was in charge of the intelligence service and, among other duties, personally concerned with the informative action against the international terrorist "CARLOS." Our country was threatened from various angles (attack at the Otopeni airport, indications as to attacks of different embassies in Bucharest, etc.) with no possibility to localize the terrorist

Thanks to a foreign source, I was able to determine in 1979 that "Carlos" was living in socialist countries; ... "Carlos" was interested in establishing contact with the Romanian authorities, as well. I passed on this information and, after several meetings with the "informants." 

Colonel BLAGA, Stefan and General VLAD, Iulian, the management of the State Security Service, i.e., POSTELNICU, Tudor himself, decided to send me on a business trip abroad to verify statements concerning "Carlos΄" identity, to determine his attitude towards Romania and, also, to get me interested in a possible collaboration with him, to neutralize the traitor PACEPA.

Between 1981 and 1982, General PLESITA met "Carlos" and other members of his organization several times. With these meetings, he intended to:

• Have "Carlos" refrain from taking terrorist actions against Romania

• Support him in a certain way (meetings in Bucharest with his mother, as well as with terrorist elements active in South America)

• Get "Carlos" to support us with the neutralization of the traitor PACEPA.

As far as I know, nothing was attempted with PACEPA because they did not have any people in the U.S.A. Nevertheless, we could be sure at that point that no terrorist attacks would be taken against Romania.

Pacepa died on February 14, 2021, in the United States.

Carlos is in jail for two life terms in Paris. The Romanian general who ordered the attack died, as did the Romanian intelligence officer who coordinated the attack with Carlos. 

Johannes Weinrich remains in prison in Berlin, where he is serving a life sentence for the 1983 bombing of the French Cultural Center in Berlin.

Bruno Breguet was arrested and jailed in Paris in 1982 and returned to Switzerland after his jail sentence in 1985. He became a CIA informant in Switzerland in 1991 with the cryptonym FDBONUS/1 and was paid $3,000 per month for his services and information about international terrorists. He disappeared in 1995.

Jose Maria Larretxea died in Cuba on February 29, 1996.

Photographs courtesy of RFE/RL

Ion Pacepa and the mysterious Death of RFE/RL's Vlad Georgescu ©

Ion Mihai Pacepa, former intelligence general, who defected from communist Romania to the United States in 1978, died of COVID, aged 92 on February 14, 2021, in the U.S. Below is one story about how Pacepa’s defection and subsequent activity in the U.S. affected Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE(RL)

 

The Mysterious Death of Vlad Georgescu

 

Vlad Georgescu was a prestigious historian and dissident, who had a long history of trouble with the Securitate. Starting in 1974, the Securitate harassed him for criticizing the Ceausescu regime. He was accused of treason in 1977 and was jailed for writing several anti–Ceausescu essays and passing them on to the U.S. embassy for publication abroad. Because of the U.S. Government's interest in his case, Vlad was allowed to leave Romania and travel to Washington, where he asked for and received political asylum. Shortly afterward, he became a contributor to RFE’s broadcasts. Two years later, he was appointed associate director of RFE’s Romanian Broadcast Department and then became the BD director based in Munich, Germany.

In December 1987, Vlad Georgescu loaned me his copy of the recently published book, Red Horizons, by Ion Mihai Pacepa. The book was highly critical of the cult of personality surrounding Romanian Communist Party leader Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena. 

Pacepa, a former general of the Romanian external intelligence service (DIE), defected to the United States in 1978. Pacepa claimed in his book that he had inside knowledge of activities of the Romanian intelligence service against RFE/RL. These included bomb threats against RFE/RL, attacks and threats against RFE/RL Romanian BD staff, and the use of a secretary in the office of the director of Central News, Agent “Balthazar.”

Vlad Georgescu’s sister-in-law, who lived in Romania, was due to visit Vlad. He aired his first review of the book on a Saturday in November. She was called into the Romanian intelligence service (Securitate) office on the Monday following the broadcast. The Securitate officer castigated Vlad for reviewing the book. He then told her that if Vlad allowed a reading of the book itself to be aired, he would be killed. She was allowed to leave Romania to give Vlad Georgescu this threatening message. 

Vlad was not intimidated and decided that RFE/RL’s Romanian Service would begin broadcasting a reading of the book starting the week of January 5, 1988. I sent a risk assessment report to senior management advising them to take this threat against Vlad Georgescu, and indirectly against RFE/RL, seriously.

On December 18, 1987, RFE/RL President Gene Pell expressed considerable concern about the broadcasts. He was even thinking about canceling the series: if RFE/RL canceled the book series, this would have been a political decision, rather than because of RFE/RL backing off due to the threats. 

On December 29, 1987, the New York Tribune published a long article headlined “Book Exposing PLO-Romanian Intrigue and Scandals Said Targeted by Terrorists.” The journalist wrote that the FBI was investigating a possible terrorist plot designed to disrupt the distribution of the Pacepa memoirs. He went on to say there were at least three known death threats to those associated with the book, including RFE/RL employees. “Agents of the PLO are principal suspects in the threats against the book publishers and Radio Free Europe, the government defector says.” This was the first information that the Palestinian Liberation Organization might be involved in any threats against RFE/RL

The Romanian Service broadcast the first of four programs on January 4, 1988. A week later there was a meeting in Vlad Georgescu’s office to discuss the recent Romanian programs and what steps RFE/RL was taking regarding any security problems he and his staff might face. Four more programs were broadcast that week and four programs were broadcast the following week, for a total of twelve programs. After the broadcasts, Vlad Georgescu told the radio listeners: “If they kill me for serializing Pacepa’s book, I’ll die with the clear conscience that I did my duty as a journalist.”

 Vlad Georgescu experienced digestive problems in the first months of 1988. In July 1988, doctors discovered a brain tumor. He had surgery to remove the malignant tumor. He flew to Washington to undergo unsuccessful experimental treatment at the National Institutes of Health. In early November, he returned to Munich where he died a week later on November 13, 1988.

 In the middle of December, RFE/RL contacted the U.S. legal attaché office in Bonn regarding the U.S. News and World Report article on the death of Vlad Georgescu. He answered that the U.S. Department of Justice had not yet authorized any investigation into the allegations of “murder through radiation.” Therefore, any report that the FBI was conducting any such investigation or would investigate was premature. Activity by the legal attaché’s office in West Germany was put on hold, because of “some flap” about the unauthorized visit of an FBI agent to the RFE/RL Washington office.

 The LKA (Bavarian State Police) decided that there was no cause to investigate the death of Vlad Georgescu.

In Washington, on December 27, 1988, an article by Bill Gertz appeared in the Washington Times. He quoted Pacepa in an interview as saying that he believed four Radio Free Europe officials had been killed with a radiation device designed by Romania’s Intelligence Service, CIE, with help from the Soviet KGB. He added that he warned the U.S. officials about the weapon during debriefing sessions in the late 1970s. In his book, Red Horizon Pacepa wrote: “In the spring of 1970, Service K added radioactive substances provided by the KGB to its deadly arsenal. Ceausescu himself gave the procedure the code name “Radu.” ... The radiation dosage was said to generate lethal forms of cancer.” Gertz quoted Pacepa as saying, “I don’t know anything for sure, because I was no longer in Romania when these events occurred. But I have no doubt this was not coincidental. I believe Ceausescu wanted these people killed with Radu.”

 In my book Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950-1960, I give more details of how Pacepa’s defection affected RFE/RL.

 

November 1952, President Elect Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson “United in the Cause of Freedom” in Support of Radio Free Europe ©

On November 4, 1952, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected the 42nd President of the United States. While on a post-victory two-week vacation in Augusta, Georgia, he recorded a message in behalf of the opening of the third Crusade for Freedom campaign in support of Radio Free Europe that was broadcast in a 15-minute program on November 11, 1952, by the four major radio networks: CBS, ABC, NBC and MBS (Mutual Broadcast System).  The goal of the Crusade for Freedom fundraising was $4 million.

The next day, their messages were quoted in newspapers throughout the United States. Crusade chairman Henry Ford II was the moderator of the radio broadcast and began, in part, with these words: “The words you are about to hear cannot be muffled or distorted or hidden away by the Communist suppressors of truth. Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia will carry the story and no force can stop it.”

 

Eisenhower continued his Cold-War rhetoric of 1950 in his radio address, when he said that the purpose of Radio Free Europe’s broadcast “was actively to oppose communism—to fight the big lie with the big truth.” He added, 

 

Millions of people have listened to an infinite number of Communist lies designed to make them hate us. At the same time, their children have been told it is their duty spy on their parents…The Communists have isolated their people to keep them from ever hearing the truth—to create a vacuum in their minds which will absorb lies because there is nothing else for them to seize on.

 

In today’s world, freedom cannot live in any nation, no matter how powerful, unless it is preserved also in other significant parts of the globe.  The big enemy of freedom everywhere is the big lie. People believe lies only when they have no opportunity to hear the truth.

 

The only way to frustrate this evil manipulation of human minds and emotions is to supply the truth, which gives the oppressed people a measuring stick to lay against each lie that is told to them.

 

People believe lies only when they have no opportunity to hear the truth.  The Crusade for Freedom, through Radio Free Europe, is supplying the truth.

Men and women who might otherwise have succumbed to the philosophy that it is good to be slaves still keep alive the sparks of freedom in their hearts. 

 

The frenzied counterattacks on both sides of the world prove that these two radio networks are hurting the Reds and giving comfort and encouragement to the oppressed people.

Eisenhower’s opponent was Democrat Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, who recorded his remarks about Radio Free Europe and the Crusade for Freedom at this home in Springfield, Illinois. He pointed to the Crusade for Freedom as a “vital activator of American’s will to be free. In part, Stevenson said:

The programs have a spontaneity and freshness, which no official information agency can have. Freedom speaks most clearly between man and man, when its voice is neither muffled nor amplified by government intervention nor other official trappings.

 

There are mounting indications of the effectiveness of free radio broadcasts…One of the best tests is the shrill violence of the attacks upon them by Radio Moscow betraying the deep concern of the Communist rulers about these efforts.

 

Freedom is shielded by other things than steel and gunpowder. Vigilance in freedom’s defense is served by other than military means. The survival of freedom is best assured by the will to be free.

 

It is the work of the crusade tend the flame of the will to be free, to feed and fan it wherever possible, to keep it flickering in places where if may be burning low. The success of the crusade will mean firm friends and allies in places of critical need behind the enemy’s walls – walls erected to keep out the truth.

 

Henry Ford commented on Eisenhower and Stevenson’s speeches: “The joint statement of the two political rivals showed this nation is strongly united in the cause of freedom.” 

Marathon for Freedom, September 23, 1951 ©

Over ten million homes were with television sets in the United States in September 1951—about 24 percent of all American households. A 12-hour TV marathon, with viewers calling in contributions on behalf of the Crusade for Freedom and Radio Free Europe, sponsored by the television network CBS and pooled with the other networks, took place on Sunday, September 23, 1951. 

The marathon featured top names in politics, business, theater, films, and broadcasting. This was the first "live" television fund appeal nationwide, with telephone contributions coming in those areas where the program was aired nationally for four-and-a-half hours and locally for 12 hours.

The live television transmission was over the American Telephone and Telegraph Co.'s recently finished $40,000,000 nationwide microwave relay system from New York to Oakland, California. This was the first time viewers on the West Coast saw New York and Washington live, and viewers on the East Coast could see Hollywood live. The NBC and ABC television networks also aired special Crusade for Freedom appeals on Sunday's network programs.

The purpose of the marathon was to gain moral and financial support from Americans for the Crusade's drive against communism. Viewers could pledge donations via telephone, telegram, or mail their contributions. In New York, $150,000 was raised through the marathon.

Ed Sullivan, who was once described as television's "best all-around product spokesman, ”was scheduled to emcee the live entertainment program. However, the last-minute television personality Steve Allen replaced him due to Sullivan's illness. From 4:30 p.m. to midnight, Steve Allen cut in on network programming, introducing national figures supporting the Crusade for Freedom.

Entertainers who were seen taking telephone calls and contributions from viewers included Ken Murray, Constance Moore, Jan Murray, Robert Merrill, Delores Gray, Mimi Benzcll, Earl Wrightson, Joe E. Lewis, the Copacabana girls, and the Latin Quarter show. Political personalities included U.S. Vice President and Mrs. Alben W. Barkley, former President Herbert Hoover, columnist Drew Pearson, and Ambassador Joseph Grew of the National Committee for Free Europe.

Art Linkletter "emceed" special half-hour segments from Hollywood relayed to the East Coast to wind up the vast outdoor rally in Los Angeles. In Holywood, during the evening show, entertainers who operated the telephones included Bob Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Wiliam Bendix, Jack Smith, Vincent Price, Marie Wilson, Ginny Simms, and J. Carroll Naish of the 1950 “Life with Luigi” radio program. One newspaper columnist wrote, “It was a successful day all around, and for West Coast television, it was the day we’ve been waiting three years for. West Coast television has taken on a new dress.”

 

Fighting the Big Lie with the Big Truth

On September 4, 1950, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) passionately called for an American Crusade for Freedom and Radio Free Europe. In a nation-wide radio broadcast, covered by the four major radio networks, from Denver, Colorado, he said, in part: 

I speak tonight about the Crusade For Freedom. 

This Crusade is a campaign sponsored by private American citizens to fight the big lie with the big truth. It is a program that has been hailed by President Truman, and others, as an essential step in getting the case for freedom heard by the world's multitudes. 

Powerful Communist radio stations incessantly tell the world that we Americans are physically soft and morally corrupt; that we are disunited and confused; that we are selfish and cowardly; that we have nothing to offer the world but imperialism and exploitation. 

To combat these evil broadcasts the government has established a radio program called the Voice of America, which has brilliantly served the cause of freedom, but the Communist stations overpower it and outflank it with daily coverage that neglects no wavelength or dialect, no prejudice or local aspiration. Weaving a fantastic pattern of lies and twisted fact, they confound the listener into believing that we are warmongers, that America invaded North Korea, that Russia invented the airplane, that the Soviets, unaided won World War II; and that the secret police and slave camps of Communism offer humanity brighter hope than do self-government and free enterprise. 

We need powerful radio stations abroad, operated without government restrictions, to tell in a vivid and convincing form about the decency and essential fairness of democracy These stations must tell of our aspirations for peace, our hatred of war, our support of the United Nations and our constant readiness to cooperate with any and all who have these same desires 

One such private station Radio Free Europe —is now in operation in Western Germany. It daily brings a message of hope and encouragement to a small part of the European masses. 

The Crusade for Freedom will provide for the expansion of Radio Free Europe into a network of stations. They will be given the simplest, clearest charter in the world: “Tell the Truth.” For it is certain that all the specious promises of Communism to the needy, the unhappy, the frustrated, the down-trodden, cannot stand against the proven record of democracy and its day-by-day progress in the betterment of all mankind. The tones of the Freedom Bell, a symbol of the Crusade, will echo through vast areas now under blackout.

In this Battle for Truth, you and I have a definite part to play. During the Crusade, each of us will have the opportunity to sign the Freedom Scroll. It bears a declaration of our faith in freedom, and of our belief in the dignity of the individual, who derives the right of freedom from God. Each of us, by signing the Scroll, pledges to resist aggression and tyranny wherever they appear on Earth. Its words express what is in all our hearts. Your signature on it will be a blow for liberty.

In a newsreel covering the speech, he could be seen signing the Freedom Scroll, which read: 

I believe in the sacredness and dignity of the individual.

I believe that all men derive the right to freedom equally from God.

I pledge to resist aggression and tyranny wherever they appear on earth.

I am proud to enlist in the Crusade for Freedom.

I am proud to help make the freedom Bell possible, to be a signer of this
Declaration of Freedom, to have my name included as a permanent part of the Freedom Shrine in Berlin, and to join with the millions of men and women throughout the world who hold the cause of freedom sacred. 

The full speech can be found here: 

https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/file/pre_presidential_speeches.pdf

 

Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected as the 34th President of the United States in 1952.

 

Early Cold War Shortwave Radio Broadcasting to Byelorussia (Belarus) ©

 

This post will focus on exile broadcasts via Radio Nacional de España in Madrid to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) in the early Cold War. CIA not only unsupported these broadcasts, but also consistently rejected numerous requests for financial support for them, although CIA financially supported the exile group in its other activities. 

 

There is some confusion as to the correct English spelling of Belarus and its language: according to the Wikipedia entry:

 

·      Belarusian (also spelled Belarusan, Belarussian, Byelarussian) – derived from the name of the country Belarus, officially approved for use abroad by the Belarusian authorities and promoted since then.

·      Byelorussian (also spelled Belorussian, Bielorussian ) – derived from the Russian name of the country “Byelorussia” (Белоруссия), used officially (in the Russian language) in the times of the USSR and, later, in Russia.

·      White Ruthenian (and its equivalents in other languages) – literally, a word-by-word translation of the parts of the composite word Belarusian. The information below is based, in part,  on a chapter in my upcoming book Cold War Frequencies: CIA Clandestine Radio Broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The book is available for pre-ordering now, with publication in Autumn 2020. 

 

The post-World-War-Two Byelorussian emigration in Western Europe was split into two organizations: 

BZR/BCR (Beloruska Zentralna Rada or Byelorussian Central Council) and BNR (Beloruska Nationalna Rada, Byelorussian National Council or Council of the Byelorussian Peoples Republic).

 

From 1951 to 1962, CIA financially supported and used the BNR émigré/exile group in the United States and Europe. CIA operations against the BSSR began in summer 1951, when CIA initiated a Foreign Intelligence project (CIA cryptonym AEQUOR) that included agent infiltration operations in BSSR to establish contact with partisan groups and set up support bases for future operations. 

 

CIA’s Munich Combined Soviet Operations Base (CSOB) was the responsible unit. CIA’s Office of Special Operations  and Office of Policy Coordination shared equally in all expenses related to the recruitment, training, compensation, equipment, dispatch, and exfiltration of agents into and out of Byelorussia. Foreign Intelligence operations ceased in 1953, and psychological warfare operations became the main CIA focus.

 

Nationalism became a serious topic of discussion within CIA:

 

Despite the fact that Byelorussia has been recognized as a separate national and nationalistic entity by the Soviet government and by the United Nations, there is still some unexamined doubt lingering … concerning the identity of the Byelorussians as an ethnic-national group. This doubt would not be significant if there were persons …  other than the case officers working on the AEQUOR project, at all familiar with historical developments in Byelorussia -- a subject which is not taught at any U. S. establishment. 

 

Even among case officers who are willing to admit that a modicum of nationalist feeling probably exists, doubt persists as to the significance of Byelorussian nationalism. The question of nationalism in Byelorussia is no less important, and possibly considerably more important because of the strategic location of the BSSR, than is the same question in each of the other nationality areas in the USSR, including, of course, the RSFSR (Russia today). Considering that 8 to 10 million inhabitants in a relatively rural area speak the same language and have had a long and close association with freedom-loving Poles and Lithuanians, it would be abnormal indeed if no nationalism existed in Byelorussia.

 

On March 3, 1953, CIA sponsored Radio Liberation from Bolshevism began short-wave broadcasting in Russian to the USSR. Initially, the Byelorussian section of Radio Liberation consisted of five persons, who would make only one 15-minute broadcast daily: one announcer, one secretary, and/or translator and three researchers.

 

Voice of America Byelorussian language shortwave broadcasts were transmitted only from 1956 to 1957.

 

BNR Byelorussian language shortwave broadcasts over Radio Nacional de España began on January 1, 1959, to the BSSR and Byelorussian minority living in Poland. The renewal request of CIA psychological warfare project AEQUOR, dated July 16, 1959, included the following comments: 

 

Byelorussian language broadcasts over Radio Madrid are directed to the BSSR and to the Byelorussian colonies in Poland. The technical reception of these broadcasts in Poland is known to be good. Various letters have been received from Poland proving that these Byelorussian broadcasts are listened to assiduously. 

 

The BNR has been able to continue these broadcasts to the present day only by levying a tax on each gainfully employed member of the BER in Europe with the hope that CIA would see fit to continue this going and effective PP effort. CIA funds requested by the BNR for this effort have been in the modest sum of $4000 per year in order to pay the salaries of two BNR employees who devote their full time on these broadcasts and to cover all other costs of broadcasting. 

 

It should be noted that there are no other Byelorussian nationalist broadcasts in the Byelorussian language in existence. (NOTE: The Byelorussian broadcasts over Radio Liberation are not nationalist in content and are strictly controlled to accord with a non-offensive policy toward the nationality issue.) The Spanish government is not currently censoring these broadcasts over Radio Madrid. 

 

In the request for CIA projects renewal for FY 1960, the “analysis of effectiveness” of these early broadcasts read, in part:

 

Fifteen-minute programs are transmitted twice daily. Two BNR adherents prepare the programs under extremely primitive conditions, but reports from legal travelers indicate that the programs are received at least as far as the Byelorussian colonies in eastern Poland. It is likely that they are also heard in Byelorussia. Soviet jamming is said to be erratic and only moderately effective. The cost of the broadcasts is borne entirely by BNR, although CIA support has been requested … Many members of the group are regular employees of such organizations as Radio Liberty

 

CIA never did financially support the Madrid broadcasts to Byelorussia and decided in August 1961 to terminate project AEQUOR effective December 30, 1961, for the following reason: 

 

The project is being terminated for lack of evidence that it is contributing significantly to the fulfillment of Agency objectives. The Field concurs in this judgment. That the project has had some effect in the Cold War is true, but it is not believed that its effectiveness merits continued investment of Agency funds.

 

Note: broadcasts to Belarus continues today from RFE/RL in Prague: “RFE/RL's Belarus Service is one of the leading providers of news and analysis to Belarusian audiences in their own language. It is a bulwark against pervasive Russian propaganda and defies the government’s virtual monopoly on domestic broadcast media.​“ 

For more information on clandestine radio broadcasting: Cold War Frequencies: CIA Clandestine Radio Broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. 

   

 

 

Cold War Radio Television Series in Development ©

COLD WAR RADIO Television Series in Development: 

Summary

The story begins around 1949 as Russia sets up satellite states all across Eastern Europe and CIA sets up a radio station that allow refugees to broadcast propaganda and rallying cries for freedom to their countrymen on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

This is the time of the completion of Soviet domination of East Europe, the Berlin airlift, American Care packages to Germany, and the Marshall Plan to renew Germany’s destroyed economy. Central, and Western Europe are physically divided by barbed wire, armed patrols, land mines and guard towers. In Eastern Europe, the Communist monopoly and censorship of media is absolute behind the Iron Curtain. The free flow of information is cut off, not only from the outside, but also internally.

Americans are exhausted and apathetic after World War II so Washington decides to call in experts from advertising and public affairs firms in New York to convince Americans of the danger of Communism. The U.S. Government doesn’t want the station to be linked with CIA, so a domestic campaign, the Crusade for Freedom, is created to persuade ordinary Americans, to contribute “Truth Dollars” to give the appearance of a spontaneous, popular, grass-roots initiative against the Communist threat.

In New York, radio spots, films, and television shows, jingles, slogans and songs convince Americans that they personally can do something about the threat of Communism, and millions of dollars are raised. Such iconic slogans as, Freedom Bell, Freedom Train, Freedom Hat, and Freedom Girl are used in media and outdoor advertising campaigns. Famous entertainment and media stars are recruited for one-minute radio spots.

In Munich, emigrés from Eastern Europe face intimidation, blackmail, threats of kidnapping, bombings, murder attempts, vitriolic denunciations from state-controlled media behind the Iron Curtain, and spies. Actions, in this case hostile actions, speak louder in the battle of ideas fought by East and West. For many, it was “The Worst of Times”, for others “The Best of Times.”

Idea: Uwe Kersken
Coproduction: G5 fiction and Bavaria Fiction
Screenplay: Colin Teevan
Historical advisor: Richard Cummings (Radio Free Europe; "Crusade for Freedom") 

Producer: Uwe Kersken & Moritz Polter