Press Release July 3, 1950, on the first broadcast of Radio Free Europe July 4, 1950

Press Information

For Release July 3, 1950

 

“Radio Free Europe” to Penetrate 

Iron Curtain Tomorrow

 

The American people, and the exiled leaders of Eastern Europe, will speak to the enslaved peoples behind the Iron Curtain tomorrow with a new and powerful voice as Radio Free Europe takes to the air using its newly completed European transmitters.

 

Owned and operated by the National Committee for Free Europe, Inc., a group of private American citizens, Radio Free Europe will broadcast the true story of freedom and democracy to the eighty million people living in communist slavery between Germany and Russia. Freed of diplomatic limitations, the broadcasts will be hard-hitting.

 

“A prime objective of Radio Free Europe will be to bring to these peoples the voice of their democratic leaders, who have been driven into exile by Communist oppression,” said Dewitt C. Poole, President of NCFE. “At the end of the war we joined the United Kingdom and the USSR in promising these peoples that they should solve by democratic means their pressing political and economic problems. This promise has not been kept. Instead, the voices of the democratic leaders of these countries have been stilled by death, imprisonment, and exile.

 

“Now through Radio Free Europe, the numerous democratic leaders who escaped and have survived in exile will be heard by their own people once more. They will speak to the imprisoned countrymen in their own language, in the familiar tones as in a family reunited. They will give the lie to Communist propaganda and tell their listeners of the underlying struggle to ensure freedom everywhere.”

 

The Fourth of July, Independence Day, was deliberately chosen for Radio Free Europe’s first broadcast, according to Frank Altschul, Chairman of the NCFE Radio Committee.

 

“Throughout the world, ‘The Fourth’ is a pivotal date in the long history of man’s struggle for freedom, “ said Mr. Altschul. “During the ‘audience building’ period of broadcasts, from the fourth to the fourteenth – another pivotal date – the programs will consist of announcements of the station’s plans and purposes. On the fourteenth, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille and the start of the French Revolution, full broadcasting will begin.”

1953 Presidential Committee Report on International Information Activities ©

On June 30, 1953, the Presidential Committee on International Information Activities, under the chairmanship of William Harding Jackson, former Deputy Director for Central Intelligence, submitted a report to President Eisenhower. The  Presidential Committee first met on January 30, 1953. Over 250 witnesses were interviewed, including many representatives of government departments and agencies. The Committee also consulted with members of Congress, studied classified material furnished by various agencies, and received a large volume of correspondence both from government officials and from members of the public and private organizations.”  

In addition, surveys and evaluations of both Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were included. Specifically, on Radio Free Europe, the report read:  

 

In the original plan, the various national councils were to be responsible for broadcasts over RFE facilities to their respective countries. Since the complexities and rivalries of émigré politics made the organization of national councils difficult, it was decided to set up RFE on a non-political basis. Emigré staff were hired for competence rather than political affiliation, and programs to various countries are now identified as the Voice of Free Czechoslovakia, Poland, and so on. 

 

Although this reason for the national councils no longer exists, they do have potential value in exile relations. If the émigré leaders are prepared to create national councils of their own volition, NCFE should assist them to engage in such propaganda activities as they may be qualified to conduct. Primary attention, however, should be given to the broadcasting phase of NCFE activities. The Committee recommends that the rest of these activities be reviewed by CIA to determine whether they should be continued or modified. 

 

Some specific issues arose in connection with NCFE activities, particularly RFE. There is first the question of cover. It has been suggested that, because the present cover has worn thin, RFE's official connections be freely admitted. However, such a course would vitiate the principal reason for the existence of RFE as a separate organization. So long as its government connections are not officially admitted it can broadcast programs and take positions for which the United States would not accept responsibility. The Committee believes that the present cover is adequate for this purpose.  

 

The recommendations for radio in Chapter 4, Operations against the Soviet System, included:

 

·      All broadcast material to the Soviet system for which the United States government does not wish to accept responsibility should be handled by Radio Free Europe (RFE), Radio Liberation or other covert channels. 

·      The American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism, Inc., should concentrate on the improvement of Radio Liberation and reduce expenditures on the émigré coordinating center. 

 

The Commission's recommendations on Radio Liberation (Liberty) included:

·      In a situation short of war, the project can probably make its greatest contribution by de-emphasizing its political activities and devoting its major effort to the improvement of broadcasts from Radio Liberation. 

·      This station should use Soviet émigrés in an effort to weaken the Soviet regime and should concentrate on the Soviet military, government officials, and other groups in the population, which harbor major grievances against the regime. 

·      The American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism, Inc., should concentrate on the improvement of Radio Liberation and reduce expenditures on the émigré coordinating center.

 

For more detailed excerpts of the Committee Report, see Appendix E on RFE and Appendix F on Radio Liberty respectively in

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: