Clandestine CIA Broadcasts from Greece to Albania: Voice of Free Albania (VOFA) ©

Following a week of spot announcements, the clandestine radio Voice of Free Albania began regular short-wave broadcasts from its clandestine transmitting site near Athens at 10 P.M on September 18, 1951. The programs were heard in various European cities. In addition, the station was given considerable publicity by Voice of America, BBC, Radio Free Europe, and in newspapers in the United States, including the New York Times. 

“Radio Free Albania“ is often used as the name of the clandestine station, but the official name was Voice of Free Albania. CIA’s cryptonym was HTNEIGH. CIA’s station in Italy monitored the first broadcasts. An internal CIA Information Report was distributed in November 1951 with the subject: Albanian Clandestine Radio Station and contained details of the initial broadcasts: 

·      A new Albanian clandestine radio station, which has been vigorously denouncing the Albanian Communist regime and is known as the “Voice of Free Albania,” has been heard recently on short wave.

·      The station has advised its listeners that it will broadcast instructions for sabotaging the regime.

·      Although the location of the station is unknown, it is believed that it is in Albania itself since it appears extremely well-informed on Albanian matters. 

A subsequent internal CIA Information Report included these comments:

·      It purported to be on Albanian soil and stated its sponsor to be the “Free Albania Committee.” The first bars of the old Albanian national anthem were used as a signature tune.

·      “This is the Voice of Free Albania- for Albania, for Freedom, for the Red and Black Flag.  Brothers and sisters, listen to the Voice of Free Albania; the Voice of Free Albania talks for all Albanians who love their country and want it strong and free…” This was followed by news items and commentary critical of the present Communist regime.

In September 1953, CIA’s monitoring station at Bari, Italy, reported continued jamming of VOFA. The monitoring station believed the jamming was due to the VOFA defection appeal to Albanians repeated daily. The defection appeal was, in part, “Albanians -- you are forcing the regime to the wall! Continue to demand what is due you. The despots are weakening and fearful of the next orders from Moscow. Enlightened and repentant Albanian Communists there is no security in a regime of traitors that uses scapegoats to explain its failures, but there is haven for you in the Free World.“  

One propaganda leaflet dropped into Albania contained information about the NCFA and Voice of Free Albania and included these excerpts:

         Radio Announcement

Albanians!

By means of a clandestine radio transmitter the NCFA fights to eradicate the Communist lies which fill and poison the Fatherland.  “The Voice of Free Albania” transmits each evening at 6:30 and 9 o’clock, as well as every afternoon between 1 and 2 o’clock. Through these transmissions, patriotic Albanians may hear:

The TRUTH on the filthy crimes of the Tirana Communist clique and of their Russian patrons which they serve.

The TRUTH on the strives and fight of your national Committee to bring honor and freedom to Albania.

The TRUTH of the immeasurable strength of our friends and Allies Nations in the free world. 

Albanians!

Those of you who have radios may assist in the Fight for Freedom by listening to the “Voice of Free Albania” and by passing the news secretly to a trusted friend.

It must be emphasized that everything should be done clandestinely and with the greatest protection.  You must be aware of every danger and especially the Sigurimi. (Secret police) 

In 1958 CIA decided to terminate VOFA broadcasts mainly due to the lack of a qualified psychological officer. As a result, three staff members in Athens were let go on February 28, 1958, and returned to the United States. However, CIA clandestine broadcasts continued to Albania as the “National Socialist Radio (NATCOM) that had started broadcasting in May 1957 separately from VOFA that was aimed at medium and lower level Communist Party and government officials. Its cryptonym was OBTEST 1.

For more information on VOFA and NATCOM, see Chapter 5 in

Book Review: Radio Free Europe's Crusade for Freedom: Rallying American's Behind Cold War Broadcasting, 1950-1960

Radio Free Europe’s “Crusade for Freedom”: Rallying Americans Behind Cold War Broadcasting, 1950–1960. Richard H. Cummings (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2010), 257 pp., endnotes, appendices, bibliography, photos, index. 

The Crusade for Freedom (CFF) was an early Cold War domestic propaganda campaign aimed at arousing the “average American against the Communist threat.” (1) Intensely popular at the time, citizens contributed funds, attended rallies, marched in parades, participated in essay contests, and read the Crusade for Freedom Newsletter, which described the nature of the threat and advocated means to counter it. A principal component of the public program was Radio Free Europe (RFE), a broadcast service that sent the ‘truth about communism’ to countries behind the Iron Curtain. What was kept from the public at the time was that both CFF and RFE were covertly sponsored by the CIA. The CIA role was officially revealed in 1976, but Radio Free Europe’s “Crusade for Freedom” adds details not made public at the time. 

Author and former RFE officer Richard Cummings admits that some might consider CFF and its radio operations as a fraud on Americans. But his view is that if they were a fraud at all, they were benign and probably contributed to a Cold War anti-communist consensus. His book is devoted to documenting that position. 

Cummings focuses on CFF and RFE from their planning stages in 1949 until CFF was terminated in 1962. RFE continued to function under CIA sponsorship until 1967, when RFE came under independent management, an arrangement that exists to this day. Cummings first describes the program’s origin and goes on to review the bureaucratic and financial conflicts that persisted throughout its existence. Finally he looks at the program’s clandestine elements. 

The book treats the public side of CFF in some detail. This includes discussion of an extensive publicity campaign involving Hollywood celebrities, the news media, and political, industrial, and military figures. Here we read about the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, Bing Crosby, Ronald Reagan, General Eisenhower, President Truman, Walter Cronkite, President Kennedy, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to name a few. Defectors from the Soviet bloc were pressed into service. Col. Joseph Swiatlo of the Polish secret service is a case in point. In RFE broadcasts he informed those behind the Iron Curtain how the KGB dominated the security services of the bloc countries. The CIA role in CFF and RFE was exposed by journalist Drew Pearson in March 1953 (95). Fulton Lewis Jr. added critical remarks in 1957, noting “Dulles doesn’t want it known.” (171) Cummings explains how these events were dealt with and how they led to the demise of CFF in 1962.

Radio Free Europe’s “Crusade for Freedom” is well documented and contains a useful chronology of major events. Cummings does not comment on the overall value of CFF, but judging from this history, it is unlikely that anything like it could be attempted successfully today. 

Studies in Intelligence Vol. 55, No. 2 (Extracts, June 2011). P.88 

 https://www.cia.gov/static/73256583aaade1b84a8161f66ec20c72/Intel-Officers-Bookshelf-55.2.pdf

June 17, 1953, Berlin anti-Communist Riots, and Radio Free Europe ©

On June 16, 1953, workers in East Berlin rose up in protest against government demands to increase productivity. Within days, nearly a million East Germans joined the protests and began rioting across hundreds of East German cities and towns. The protest was brutally put down on June 17, 1953, by the Soviet and East German military.

 

Although Radio Free Europe (RFE) did not broadcast to East Germany (German Democratic Republic), it reacted to the events in Berlin. As worked out its top policy advisors—Lewis Galantiere, then policy advisor in the New York office, and William E. Griffith, political advisor at RFE, Munich—RFE had developed a technique of what was called “chipping away” at the Communist power structure: aiming at the day when the gradual evolution of the captive nations would bring them nearer to the free open societies of the West. “Peaceful liberation” through “liberalization” became the RFE broadcast strategy.

 

Lewis Galantiere wrote a Special Guidance no. 12-A for Radio Free Europe: “On the Situation in East Berlin.” He advised the RFE staff that neither the United States nor NATO could be expected to act on the election-year Republican platform of Liberation. Furthermore, in 12-A, he warned RFE broadcasters to refrain from encouraging armed resistance by their listeners.

 

We do not advise other Eastern European workers to follow the example of the workers of East Berlin. We advise them only to take heart from what has happened there and to make note of it for the future…they should always be careful not to resort yet to overt acts which might only result in defeat, further suppression, and enslavement.

 

RFE—must avoid inciting the population of its target counties to similar actions at this time. We must remind our audiences that premature demonstrations of resistance will lead only to ruin and despair, for they are sure to be put down ruthlessly by the Soviets and their puppet stooges. [W]e do not want them to endanger themselves needlessly at this point. (Galantiere: The Lost Generation’s Forgotten Man)

 

The Free Europe Committee rejected Galantiere’s Special Guidance and FEC’s political advisor Reuben Nathan wrote a new 12-A guidance, with CIA input entitled “The Opening of a New Phase,” which, in part, stated that the people of Eastern Europe should “prepare for effective resistance,” that it was time “to call Moscow’s bluff,” and “nothing less than the freedom of the captive people is acceptable.”  William Griffith and Paul Henze (RFE deputy political advisor in Munich) reportedly were furious when they saw Nathan’s Guidance 12-A and ridiculed it as: “the ‘stupid’ hare-brained’ advice of U.S. government and FEC “psy- warriors.” RFE’s Director Bill Lang even threatened to resign over it. Former Radio Free Europe Director Dr. A. Ross Johnson wrote:

When unrest broke out in East Germany in June 1953, RL Munich officials on their own initiative, sought to organize loudspeaker appeals to Soviet forces in Berlin and carry German-language interviews intended for the East German population. The Office of the High Commissioner for Germany put a stop to both initiatives, which it viewed as needlessly provocative before they could materialize. [T]his was one of several cases at RFE in the early 1950s of conflict between Munich executives and broadcast chiefs, on the one hand, and New York policy officials they disparaged. (Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty; the CIA Years and Beyond) 

 

Was the CIA involved in provoking the riots in Berlin? The answer is no:

 

The issue of direct American (particularly CIA) involvement in support of the disturbances has received much attention. Some have speculated that because Eleanor Dulles was in Berlin during this time as a State Department desk officer, Allen Dulles, her brother, and the new CIA di­rector, may also have been there, but he was not. Actually, like its KGB counterpart, the CIA base in Berlin was completely surprised as one Berlin Operations Base (BOB) reports officer put it, "We were caught flatfooted!" Some East Berlin agents contacted their BOB case officers in West Berlin to report on the events, but as soon as the border closed, this kind of firsthand information was no longer available. The CIA German mission was equally surprised. Chief of Mission Gen. Lucian Truscott was in Nurem­berg at the time with his deputy, Michael Burke, and his assistant, Thomas Polgar, discussing Czech cross-border operations with the US military. They read about the riots in the evening editions of newspa­pers on the train ride back to Frankfurt. (Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War, pp. 169-170)

 

Listen to a RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) report live from Potsdamer Platz, including gun fire: Berlin:http://www.rias1.de/sound4/timeline_nachrichten/1953/1953-06-17-r-schuesse_am_potsdamer_platz-2_.mp3

 

For more English information on the riots in Berlin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_uprising_of_1953

 

A memorial to the June 17, 1953, uprising is in front of the Federal Ministry of Finance building in Berlin: “The glass image, which as has been sunken into the ground, shows a photo of strikers marching to the building known at the time as the House of Ministries. The roughly pixelated photo has been blown up several times its original scale. Information panels report what happened before and during the protest march.“

 

Radio Free Europe's "Radio Free Albania" ©

 It is not generally known that Radio Free Europe (RFE) broadcast to Albania, as the "Voice of Free Albania," from June 1, 1951, to September 30, 1953. If at all mentioned in the histories of RFE, Albanian broadcasts are usually mentioned in the footnotes. Below is a brief look into RFE and Albania in the 1950s. 

At the regular monthly meeting of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE) board of directors on July 20, 1950, it was resolved to increase the 1950-1951 budget of the National Councils Division by $60,000 for "support of the National Committee for Free Albania."

 

In the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE 42), dated November 20, 1951, on the situation in Albania, it was written, "Among the Albanian émigré resistance movements the Committee for a Free Albania, an affiliate of the National Committee for a Free Europe, with operational headquarters in Rome is perhaps the most influential." 

 

In announcing the inaugural broadcast on June 1, 1951, RFE's press release said, "It will warn Albanians of new 'security measures planned by the Kremlin's MVD police and further advise: 'Be cautious, my friends, be patient.'"

1n 1952, the National Committee for Free Albania (NCFA) complained to CIA that the RFE desk in New York did not make full use of the material published in the two NCFA publications. To overcome this, it was proposed to have one member of NCFA do a 15-minute summary once a week, which Radio Free Europe would broadcast. This was a condensation of the material appearing in the two NCFA publications with particular emphasis on the news that would be of interest to the listener. NCFA believed that Bill Griffith, RFE political adviser in Munich, was probably responsible for many of the mistakes RFE made in airing programs taped by exile Albanians outside NCFA. It was agreed between NCFA and RFE to have the 15-minute recordings made in Rome and sent to Germany for broadcasting.

 

By 1953, Radio Free Europe had 20 short-wave transmitters and one medium-wave transmitter. RFE used three transmitters to broadcast to Romania (3 hours per day), Bulgaria (3 hours), and Albania (1 1/2 hours).

 

Crusade for Freedom fundraising campaigns in the United States for Radio Free Europe included Albanian broadcasts. For example, the 1952 Crusade opened on November 11, 1952, with a national goal of $4,000,000 and signatures of millions of Americans on "Freedom-Grams" in the shape of a normal telegram that would be sent over the Iron Curtain. On the backside of the "Freedom-Gram," this message was translated into Albanian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, and Bulgarian:

 

Do you listen to Radio Free Europe?  I hope you do, for I am one of the millions of American citizens who has voluntarily contributed to building these stations, which bring Truth to you who are deprived of it.

 

In America, millions voluntarily pray for an understanding between our peoples. Please add your prayers to ours. Surely our common faith in God is the place where hope for freedom begins.

 

Occupation

Name

Address

 

Note to Contributors: Replies to this Freedom-Gram may be

received in a foreign language. If you should be unable to

translate them, free translations may be obtained by forwarding the 

letters to Crusade for Freedom c/o your local Postmaster

 

Eventually, six million Americans signed the "Freedom-Grams," which were then sent to West Germany for inclusion in the balloons provided by the Free European Press.

 

RFE ceased broadcasting on September 30, 1953, primarily because it was not cost-effective broadcasting to a country that, according to a UNESCO report, only had an estimated nine thousand radios in a population of one-and-a-half million.

In 1957, CIA's Chief of the Psychological and Paramilitary Staff requested consideration of Radio Free Europe resuming broadcasting to Albania. The idea was dismissed International Organizations Division, which was responsible for RFE,  because:

a.  Budget limitations on RFE in this fiscal year and ceilings on ensuing fiscal years, coupled with increasing administrative costs the most important of which relate to anticipated wages adjustment, are expected materially to reduce RFE’s present operational funds. 

b.  The acquisition of competent Albanian exile desk employees and Albanian-speaking American supervisors, while not insoluble, is a difficult problem. 

c.   The proposal envisions that RFE would pick up the straight anti-Communist line of the present broadcasts, leaving to the present broadcasts the treatment of "national communism." This would place RFE in a difficult position vis a via its exile employees who would question the difference in program lines to Albania as compared to the present five target countries

For information about the CIA clandestine radio station also called "Radio Free Albania" see Chapter 5 in:

CIA Cold War Support of Clandestine Radio Free Russia ©

The initials NTS stand for Narodno Trudovoi Soyuz -- National Alliance of Russian Solidarists or National Labor Alliance” (In Russian: Национально Трудовой Союз, Народно-Трудовой Союз российских солидаристов—Narodno-Trudovoy Soyuz Rossiyskikh Solidaristov). The initials NTS were also used for two patriotic
slogans “Neem tiranam smart” (We are bringing death to tyrants) and “Neem trudiashimsia svobodu” (We are bringing liberty to the workers). NTS was founded in Belgrade, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in 1928 (sometimes given at 1930) by a group of young Russian exiles opposed to Soviet Communism. 

CIA had many cryptonyms for NTS operations and projects, including AEROSOL, AESAURUS / AENOBLE, AEGIDEON / AENOBLE, QKDROOP, CARCASS, CABOCHE-1, PDGIDEON, and SHUBA-100. 

 

According to one declassified CIA document: 

 

Initial contact between this agency and NTS took place in May 1950 through the support of NTS's anti-Soviet newspaper, Possev, which is published in Germany and distributed both overtly in Western Germany and covertly in Eastern Germany among Red Army personnel. NTS was not aware at the time that funds were supplied by a U. S. government source. Upon further appraisal of the NTS's operational potential and organization, this agency decided to contact NTS to discuss support of its overt and covert activities. 

 

Radio Free Russia

 

In December 1950, NTS began broadcasting Radio Free Russia that was beamed at the Red Army in Eastern Germany from a station is owned and operated in the British Zone—the broadcast operation eventually moved into the U.S. Zone. The first transmitting station placed on a small truck was a small battery operated by only 38-watts power. There were no poles for the antennas; trees were used instead.

 

The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Thursday, 27 December 1951, carried this article about NTS and Radio Free Russia by an unnamed "Special Correspondent: 

 

Soviet Underground Grows in Europe 

 

A strong "underground movement led by Russian émigrés, is increasing the weight of Russian resistance to the Soviet police state. At the beginning of this year, a new factor appeared in this struggle. NTS established a mobile, unlicensed short-wave transmitter, "Free Russia". Each day it broadcasts anti-Communist propaganda in three languages: Russian, Ukrainian, and German. Being unrestrained by diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, unlike "The Voice of  America," NTS radio appeals to the Soviet Army and citizens to revolt. It sends out instructions on the organization of underground cells and their immediate tasks. 

 

By 1958, Radio Free Russia was on the air daily from 8:30 to 15:30, with one program in German to East Germany on Thursdays. The typical 20-minute program began with music from Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and this announcement, which would slightly change over the years: 

 

NTS is speaking. Attention. Attention! 

 

Within the USSR itself, radio still constitutes the only important means used currently to reach the Russian people. Jamming by the Russians of our broadcasts continues to present a significant problem . In addition to the radio, leaflet distribution was utilized to reach Soviet military forces stationed outside the USSR. 

 

You are hearing the station Free Russia. Attention, Attention!
 Here is NTS speaking. Long live Freedom (Liberty). 

 

The programs consisted of brief news, comments on current affairs, ideological subjects, appeals, and directions to revolutionary workers and NTS members in the USSR. Twice a week, Radio Free Russia broadcast a special program to Soviet soldiers stationed in East Germany. 

 

In addition to instructions on organizing revolutionary activities in the army, NTS broadcast lyrics to popular Soviet music, including: "Comrades on the Front:
We have always played the game; Let your choice today be blunt – Russia’s freedom is our aim.” Humor was included in the programming, e.g., "Lenin was a Marxist – Stalin was a sadist – but Khrushchev is only a tourist." 

 

NTS attempted to place Radio Free Russia broadcasts on the wavelengths of Moscow radio stations. One reportedly successful attempt was when Radio Moscow was broadcasting an opera. The audience included officers of the Soviet army stationed in East Germany, who had gathered in the officer's mess. An NTS announcer cut into news announcements with sarcastic remarks and "Long live Freedom (Liberty)." As the program ended with "This is Radio Moscow. We have given you the latest news. Now you can hear the bells of the Kremlin tower." At this point, an announcer of NTS broke into the broadcast with, "You have also heard the underground radio station Radio Free Russia. Alliance of the Russian Solidarists speaking. Death to the tyrants! Freedom for the people.” 

 

For more information, see Chapter 8 in: 

Menticide -- Lessons learned from the Cold War ©

The modern techniques of brainwashing and menticide- those perversions of psychology- can bring almost any man into submission and surrender. Many of the victims of thought control, brainwashing, and menticide that we have talked about were strong men whose minds and wills were broken and degraded. But although the totalitarians use their knowledge of the mind for vicious and unscrupulous purposes, our democratic society can and must use its knowledge to help man to grow, to guard his freedom, and to understand himself. 

Joost A. M. Meerloo, MD, Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, 1966 

After World War II, Michael Shiplov, a Bulgarian citizen, worked as a translator at the American Legation in Sofia, Bulgaria.  The Bulgarian secret police arrested him in 1949 on suspicion of espionage for the Americans, and, under the force of the secret police, he "confessed" to being an American spy.  He was not immediately jailed and released from custody. He went directly to the American Legation and wrote down what had happened to him.  The Bulgarian secret police rearrested him, and after a show trial, he was sentenced to prison.

 

Here are excerpts from Shipkov's full report that was published verbatim in the U.S. Department of State Bulletin, March 13, 1950::

 

I was ordered to stand facing the wall upright at a distance, which allowed me to touch the wall with two fingers of my outstretched arms. Then to step back some twelve inches, keep my heels touching the floor, and maintain balance only with the contact of one finger on each hand. And while standing so, the interrogation continued ... I recall that the muscles on my legs and shoulders began to get cramped and to tremble, that my two fingers began to bend down under pressure, to get red all over and to ache, I remember that I was drenched with sweat and that I began to faint, although I had not exerted myself in any way. If I tried to substitute [fingers], I would be instantly called to order . . . And when the trembling increased up to the point when I collapsed, they made me sit and speak. I did get several minutes respite, catching my breath and wiping my face, but when I had uttered again that I was innocent, it was the wall again.

 

After a time of this, I broke down. I told them I was willing and eager to tell them all they wanted. And if I were to stop and plead fatigue, or poor memory, or ask to rest -- the wall again, and the slaps, and the blows in the nape [of the neck]. And I remembered I would come up gasping and talk and talk and feel utterly broken.

 

Out of the jumbled memories, some impressions stand out vividly.  One: they are not overly interested in what you tell them.  It would appear that the ultimate purpose of this treatment is to break you down entirely and deprive you of any willpower or private thought or self-esteem, which they achieve remarkably quickly.  And they seem to pursue a classic confession, well round off in the phraseology, explaining why you were induced by environment and education to enter the services of the enemies of Communism, how you placed your capacities in their services, what ultimate goad did your pursue -- the overthrow of the people's government through foreign intervention. And they appear to place importance on the parallel appearance of repentance and self-condemnation that come up with the breaking down of their prisoner.

 

The March 13, 1950 issue of Time magazine carried a story "COMMUNISTS: How They Do it," which, in part, read:

 

The U.S. State Department last week published a remarkable document. It was one answer to a question that has interested the West since the famous Moscow purge trials of 1936-38, a question which has become increasingly urgent with such postwar trials as that of Hungary's Cardinal Mindszenty, Bulgaria's 15 Protestant leaders, and the U.S.'s Robert Vogeler: How do Communist secret police extort "confessions?? The Communists' first victim to tell his first-hand story is Michael Shipkov.

 

Psychiatrist Joost A. M. Meerloo Joost, in the Journal of Psychiatry, February 1951, coined the term "menticide" when he wrote that an "organized system of judicial perversion and psychological intervention, in which a powerful tyrant transfers his own thoughts and words into the minds and mouths of the victims he plans to destroy or to use for his own propaganda."

 

He presented Nazi propaganda as "social menticide," and the Cardinal Mindszenty case mentioned in the Time magazine article as an example of "individual menticide." We will look at the case of Mikhail Shipkov and "individual menticide."

 

In April 1950, the National Committee for Free Europe (parent organization of Radio Free Europe) reprinted, in the "public interest," a 31-page pamphlet entitled Breakdown: The Story of Michael Shipkov in the Hands of the Secret Police, which told, "How the Communist secret police are able to pry confessions of treason out of men and women who love their country, a story courageously laid bare for the first time in March 1950."

 

President DeWitt Poole described the pamphlet in a cover letter to the NCFE Directors as part of the "campaign to reach the American public." DeWitt Poole wrote, "I am sure you will agree that these pamphlets will prove useful in our struggle for victory in the contest of ideas." The back cover of the pamphlet informed the American public.

 

The Committee's members are convinced that the danger of the present crisis cannot be exaggerated. Freedom is at stake. At this very moment, it is being decided what kind of world our grandchildren are going to live in.

 

The ultimate decision lies in the contest of ideas. Only a world relieved of totalitarian despotism and held together by the tested ideals of freedom and democracy can live in peace. In the struggle for this consummation, the National Committee for Free Europe offers every single citizen the opportunity to throw in his weight. 

 

Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt would later write about the NCFE pamphlet in her June 2, 1950, national syndicated column, My Day:

 

A little booklet I have just read, published by The National Committee for Free Europe, Inc., called: "Breakdown. The story of Michael Shipkov in the hands of the secret police." This pamphlet will give you a picture of how, under authoritarian regimes, confessions are finally extorted. One shudders to think what horrors confront people where justice no longer exists, where they live under constant espionage, and where freedom is something they may once have dreamed of but no longer know as a reality.

 

It seems impossible for people ever to free themselves under the circumstances described in this pamphlet. Neither is it conceivable for a nation to go forward and develop economically, spiritually, or socially under this type of government. Living must become so utterly futile. Even under the lash of fear, one must cease working and producing because life is so completely valueless. No one could want to bring children into a world where people are no longer allowed any personal freedom and must face moral and mental domination.

 

CIA Clandestine Radio Broadcasting from Radio Rome, Radio Vatican, and Radio Nacional de Espaňa to Lithuania in the early Cold War ©

AEGEAN was the cryptonym for the joint OPC-OSO project that began in November 1948 with support for the Lithuanian resistance group Vyriausiasis Lietuvos išlaisvinimo komitetas (VLIK)--The Supreme Committee for Liberation of Lithuania. OPC supported VLIK for both political and psychological warfare (PP) operations.

 

With the merging of OPC and OSO in 1952, the OPC functions under the project were given CIA’s Soviet Russia (SR) Division. The project cryptonym was then changed to CAPSTAN.

Voice of America broadcast to Lithuania for the first time on February 16, 1951. 

 

One of the early mentions of “black radio broadcasts” to Lithuania was in the renewal of the CAPSTAN Basic Plan October 1951 to June 30, 1953: “Psychological warfare activities will be centered on the support of indigenous organizations through which black radio broadcasts, distribution of leaflets and the support of newspaper and pamphlets can be carried out.”  The cryptonym of the project was changed to Project AECHAMP.

 

AECHAMP’S activities were listed in this report as: [B]roadcasting to Iron Curtain areas in the Lithuanian language on seven-day weekly schedules over the following short -wave facilities: “Radio Rome and Radio Vatican – 20 and 15 minutes daily respectively, 15 minutes daily over Radio Madrid. This time is available to the AECHAMPS free of charge.” 

 

VLIK also provided the following both on demand and at their own initiative:  texts, tapes, and speakers to 

 

§  VOA (Radio Center Munich and New York) 


§  RFE Munich (Polish Section) 


§  RIAS (Radio in the American Sector, Berlin) 


§  Radio Stuttgart (Südwest Rundfunk) 


§  NWDR Hamburg 


§  Deutsche Well Köln 


§  AFN (Armed Forces Radio for the American military)

 

VLIK also maintained a monitoring station at Scherbeuts, near Lübeck, Germany, to record radio stations in Lithuania. Local news and names were then rebroadcast with comments.

 

Daily broadcasts to Lithuania over Radio Nacional de España began January 1, 1955:

 

During the past year the activities under this project with respect to radio broadcasts have expanded considerably. Under the aegis of AEPOLE/1 there are now maintained regular daily ten to twenty-minute broadcasts to the target area via Radios Rome, Vatican and Madrid…|T|hese broadcast activities are especially the new broadcasts require expansion of the AEPOLE/1 Radio Section headquarters as well as the establishment of a Radio Section office in Madrid.

 

The programs were identified as the “Voice of the Supreme Committee for Liberation of Lithuania.” 

 

This was the radio schedules to Lithuania in 1955:

 

    Radio Vatican                      14:00 – 14:15              Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday

 

    Radio Vatican                      18:00 – 18:15              Monday, Wednesday, Saturday

 

    Radio Rome                        20:00 – 20:15              Daily

 

    Radio Nacional                    17:10 – 17:25              Daily

 

 One CIA comment in 1955 read: 

All the programs are identified as the Voice of the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania. It is believed that because radio sets in the USSR are expensive, the vast majority of the audience consists of persons of relative status and importance… In general the content of the radio programs is strongly anti-Communist. Their avowed purpose is to maintain the native traditions of the Lithuanian people in the face of enforced Sovietization. No attempt is made to accommodate the propaganda to operate within the framework of Communist indoctrination. The evidence available indicates that the Soviets have so far not made appreciable progress in eradicating Lithuanian traditions and the sense of Lithuanian nationality. 

One of the accomplishments of the CIA project during fiscal year 1957 was:

 

Direct CIA case officer contact was established with the Lithuanian program directors at Radio Nacional and Radio Rome, which were formerly supported by CIA indirectly through VLIK. They are now receiving from CIA modest monthly salaries and reimbursements for some operational expenses. In return for this assistance, they may be counted on to incorporate into their daily broadcasts propaganda material we provide or suggest. Although these Lithuanian language radio programs are still nominally supported by VLIK, they are in fact nearly completely dependent on CIA support. 

 

Moreover,

 

            Until a non-partisan radio center and propaganda policy group are organized by VLIK, or other elements of the Lithuanian emigration, CIA financial support and policy guidance will be given straightway to the directors of the Lithuanian radio programs at Radio Rome, and Radio Nacional.  This formula is designed to prevent the disintegration of these radio assets, while the leaders of the several political factions dispute over the mantle of prestige inadvertently associated with the party appearing to control the radio programs.

CIA sponsored broadcasts over Radio Rome, Radio Vatican, and Radio Nacional de España to Lithuania ceased on October 31, 1963. The decision was based on the “very limited effectiveness of the broadcasts.” And, "Based on the results of the peripheral monitor conducted by our Communications Officer at Warsaw, Helsinki and Stockholm, we concluded that if the signal is heard it all in the target area, it is beard sporadically and with difficulty.“ 

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