After 75 Years, Whither Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty? Update 15.3.2025©

Presidential Advisor Elon Musk recently wrote about the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

1. Europe is free now (not counting stifling bureaucracy). 

2. Nobody listens to them anymore. 

3. It’s just radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1B/year of US taxpayer money.

Background

Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL) were described in a secret 1969 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report as “the oldest, largest, most costly, and probably most successful covert action projects aimed at the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.“ From 1949 to 1971 (when the CIA sponsorship ended), thousands of persons worked for these radio stations at a cost of over 465 million dollars to the American taxpayers—over 3 billion dollars in 2025.

 

Radio Free Europe first went on the air on July 4, 1950; Radio Liberty in March 1953.

 

In the Cold War, there were two attempts to close Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.

The first took place under President Richard Nixon.

 

A major turning point in RFE/RL's history occurred in 1967 when Ramparts magazine publicly revealed the RFE-CIA connection. President Lyndon Johnson appointed a Presidential Commission to look into RFE funding among other CIA covert-action programs. When the US Congress decided that CIA funds would no longer finance RFE and RL after 30 June 1971, possible future sources of funding were debated.

During a meeting on the CIA budget on December 17, 1969, President Nixon reviewed the programs of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which are covertly funded by the CIA. He decided to retain Radio Free Europe and “improve it” but to terminate Radio Liberty. He later changed his mind and in December 1969, he approved the Radio Liberty budget for Fiscal Year 1971.

On 19 August 1972, President Richard Nixon appointed a commission under the direction of Milton Eisenhower to study the future of international radio broadcasting. In 1973, the Eisenhower Commission published its report as 'The Right to Know'. Subsequent Congressional legislation consolidated RFE and RL into one new hybrid organization: a private non-profit corporation but still funded by Congress. Consolidation of the two radio stations took place in 1975-76 as a new corporation: RFE/RL, Inc.

 

The second attempt to close RFE and RL took place during the first Clinton presidency.

 

In April 1992, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy this week concluded: Taxpayers are no longer getting their money's worth from Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.”

 

President Clinton initially planned to eliminate funding for RFE and RL as of October 1995. He was supported by Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wisconsin), who introduced legislation to shut down the radios. However, an outcry from foreign policy experts in the U.S (including then Senator Joe Biden) and such European leaders as Polish President Lech Walesa and Czech President Vaclav Havel convinced Clinton to reconsider. The supporters of the radios cited "The fragile nature of democratic reforms in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as an important reason for maintaining the radios as nonpartisan sources of information and as models for the media in the emerging democracies." 

 

On July 4, 1994, President Clinton announced he had accepted the “generous offer of the Czech government to make the former Parliament building in Prague available for Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty and its associated research activities.”

 

RFE/RL today

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a private, nonprofit, multimedia broadcasting corporation that serves as a surrogate media source for 23 countries in 27 languages, including Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and Ukraine.

With over 1,700 staff, RFE/RL is one of the most comprehensive news operations in the world. Headquartered in Prague, RFE/RL operates local bureaus throughout its broadcast region to better serve its audiences and facilitate the production of compelling, locally oriented programming, in a cost-effective manner.

UPDATE_ RFE/RL was notified that its grant to operate was terminated on March 15, 2015. RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said, “The cancellation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s grant agreement would be a massive gift to America’s enemies. The Iranian Ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate the demise of RFE/RL after 75 years. Handing our adversaries a win would make them stronger and America weaker. We’ve benefitted from strong bipartisan support throughout RFE/RL’s storied history. Without us, the nearly 50 million people in closed societies who depend on us for accurate news and information each week won’t have access to the truth about America and the world.”

Canada Calling in the Cold War ©

 

Canada Calling in the Cold War 

Books and articles have been, and will continue to be, written about the "major" radios in the Cold War: Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Voice of America, BBC and RIAS in Berlin. 

There was another level of radios, the "medium" level of Radio Vatican, Radio Madrid, Radio France Internationale, Deutsche Welle, and the Canada Broadcast Corporation (CBC) International Service. Below we will take a brief look at "the voice of Canada's" Cold War short-wave broadcasts to Europe. 

The CBC International Service began short-wave broadcasting in February 1945 in French, English and German from its studios in the Radio-Canada building in downtown Montréal and from transmitters at Sackville, New Brunswick. 

Czech and Dutch language programs began in 1946. Russian-language broadcasting, directed at the Soviet Union, began in early 1951. Dana Wilgress, Canada's ambassador in Moscow during World War II, addressed the Russian people when he said, in Russian: “It is no fault of ours that all our attempts to break down the artificial wall between you and us have met with an uncompromising rebuff from the Soviet government. We are, therefore, attempting to reach you by radio to tell you something about our land, our history, our people, our free way of life.“

Ukrainian language broadcasts begian in September 1952, Polish in 1953 and Hungarian in 1956. 

In 1954, International Service director Charles Delafield, listed the objectives of the International Service, including: “To provide a reliable source of Canadian and international news for peoples of Eastern Europe; to counteract communist propaganda about the western world, through news, factual information, a vigorous statement of our views on current topics to encourage the Soviet people to question their government policies and to oppose its aggression tactics.“

By 1958, the International Service was broadcasting in 16 languages. A 1958 television documentary on the CBC Internation Service gave the rationale behind the short-wave broadcasts: “There's just one priority: bringing news from Canada to audiences in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Communist rule in those countries leaves their people with few sources of reliable news about the world.“ 

The USSR jammed CBC International Service, BBC, and Voice of America broadcasts, but the three services agreed to coordinate their broadcasts to overcome the jamming. 

In July, 1970, the service was renamed Radio Canada International (RCI). On March 25, 1991. Six of RCI's 13 broadcast languages - Czech, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish, and Portuguese were discontinued. 

For more information in English: http://www.rcinet.ca/english/about-us/ 

K.R.M Short, Ed. Western Broadcasting Over the Iron Curtain, (Croom Helm, London & Sidney, 1986)

János Weissengruber, Confessed CIA agent in Hungary in 1951 ©

 On 23 December 1951, Radio Budapest announced the arrest of four men. The leader of the group was listed as János Weissengruber, who apparently admitted that he had been trained by American intelligence in Salzburg in secret writing and use of weapons.   

The Director CIA wrote in his Daily Log on 26 December 1951 that Weissengruber was an agent of the CIA’s Office of Special Operations (OSO):

The Hungarian announcement on 23 December that 4 U.S. intelligence agents have been arrested in Hungary identifies 2 by name. Weissengruber is an OSO agent run by the Salzburg base who entered Hungary on 15 October. Baranyi is one of the agent prospects he was to recruit. OSO surmises that the other 2 may be another Salzburg agent, who accompanied Weissengruber, and a second prospective recruit. 

The damage to future Hungarian operations by the compromise of Salzburg facilities is being assessed but is not believed to be critical. The human smuggler who assisted the agents to enter Hungary and might have betrayed them will be thoroughly interrogated and checked by the polygraph.

 

Newspapers in the United States published details of the case.

 

Hungary Arrests Four Others On Charges Of Spying BUDAPEST. Hungary, Dec. 22 (UP) The Hungarian government, prepared to try four American airmen aa border violators, announced tonight the arrest of four other persons on charges of spying for the United States. The state security office said the leader of the spy suspects was Janos Weissengruber. a Hungarian laboratory researcher who escaped to Austria last January. 

 

The announcement regarding Weissengruber said that, while he was in Austria, a former Hungarian "fascist Gendarme Colonel" named Nagy had persuaded him to get basic training as a spy and return to Hungary. It added that Weissengruber had Joined various training camps in Austria and the American occupation zone of Germany, including those at Salzburg and Bad Reichenhall headed by U. S. Army officers. 

 

The announcement said Weissengruber had made a confession covering those points. The announcement reported these details: Weissengruber returned to Hungary last October, and got in touch with Bela Baranyai, a radio mechanic (and presumably one of the three associates arrested with him). With Baranyai's help, he set up a radio transmitter to communicate with their "superiors" outside the country and organized persons willing to help American agents and to commit criminal activities. The group's task was to find suitable places in Hungary for parachuting agents from planes. A submachinegun, pistols, poison, maps.10.000 florins ($830) and 1000 Austrian shillings ($47.50) were found with Weissengruber when he was arrested. 

 

The announcement falls in a pattern of accusations against the United States from Communist nations In recent weeks. Hungary and others In the Red bloc have made several announcements of purported spying activities on behalf of the United States, apparently to bolster Soviet charges in the United Nations that the United States is financing "traitors" under the mutual security act. The U. N. rejected the charges. Russia broadcast Wednesday a statement that two men with the Slavic names of A. I. Osmanov and F K. Sarantsev had been executed as saboteur spies parachuted into Russia after training in West Germany. The State Department reported it had never heard of the men. Romania protested last week that two saboteurs had been parachuted into that country from an American plane on Oct. 18. The Romanian note said they confessed. It demanded 'punishment of those responsible.”

When Golf Legends Palmer and Nicklaus Played for Radio Free Europe ©

Professional Gold legend Arnold Palmer (1929-2016) died September 25, 2016, at age 87

 

What is not generally known is that just over 50 years earlier (September 8, 1966), he and Jack Nicklaus (another Golf legend) played an exhibition round of golf at the Wilmington Country Club (WCC) South Course in Wilmington, Delaware, on behalf of Radio Free Europe (RFE). The exhibition had been arranged by the Delaware Committee of the Radio Free Europe Fund (RFEF) as part of its fund-raising drive in 1966. 

 

There was a press conference on June 1, 1966, to announce the golf exhibition. Participating in the press conference were 

 

·      Crawford H. Greenwalt, board chairman Du Pont Company and 1966 RFEF National Chairman

·      Robert A. Short, State Insurance Commissioner, Delaware RFEF co-chairman

·      Thomas B. Evans, Jr. a Wilmington insurance executive, Delaware RFEF co-chairman.

 

Greenwalt said, “The radio network broadcasts to the five countries of Eastern Europe and is a private, non-profit organization. RFE is believed by and has great influence with the people of Eastern Europe because it is not associated with any government.” 

 

Before the match, there was a $100-a-plate luncheon. At 1:30 PM, Palmer and Nicklaus gave a 30-minute golf "clinic" to the assembled guests. 1,500 spectators purchased a ticket for $10 for the 2PM match. 

 

Delaware RFE co-chairmen Evans and Short sent an invitation to C. Rodney Smith, Vice President of Free Europe Inc., in which they wrote, “We are having a luncheon for a limited number of people prior to the golf game, which will be attended by Palmer and Nicklaus, along with some other interesting personalities. We would like you to be our guest for lunch and, or course, the exhibition itself.”Smith agreed and attended both the luncheon and exhibiton.

The match was held on the WCC South Course, with Palmer teamed with Delaware State Amateur Champion Roy Marquette. Jack Nicklaus was team up with another famed amateur golfer William (Bill) Hyndman III, from Philadelphia, who had participated in 15 National Amateur Golf Championships. Nicklaus shot a course-tying record of 69; Palmer shot 71; Marquette shot 73; and Hyndman shot 75. The Morning News newspaper edition of September 9, 1966, carried a photo in the "sports" section that showed the 1,500 spectators crowding around the first green. 

 

RFE Vice President C. Rodney Smith wrote a thank you letter to Arnold Palmer, which in part read: “Please accept my sincere thanks and appreciation for so generously giving a full day of your time to the RFE cause, right in the midst of your currently pressing schedule. All of us present enjoyed your friendly personality, which added all the more to your superb way with those gold sticks. Your exhibition practice shots as well as your match play were an impressive demonstration of control, form, accuracy and distance.”

 

C. Rodney Smith sent a letter to Jack Nicklaus, in which he wrote: I well know the pressing demands constantly being made on your time and good nature. Your willingness to give a full day to the RFE cause is thus all the more meaningful … [Y]our convincing words in support of the work Radio Free Europe is doing were greatly appreciated.”

 

After the match, C. Rodney Smith wrote a thank-you letter to the Delaware Committee Co-Chairmen, in which he said, “ The turnout for both the lunch and the golf exhibition and the newspaper and radio coverage were all amazingly good. It was a good illustration of how effective an imaginative idea can be when so well executed. The wider knowledge about Radio Free Europe, as well as the financial support, generated by the lunch and exhibition with their attendant publicity is very valuable to us. The interest in RFE and East Europe displayed by the newsmen was impressive….It was a genuine pleasure to meet both of you and your distinguished guests, and to get to see Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus in action. Their pre-match demonstration shots as well as their play on the course were something to watch. Those two have personalities to match their professional golfing abilities".

 

Delaware RFEF Committee Co-chairman Thomas B. Evans, in a letter to C. Rodney Smith, wrote, “ Your presence added a great deal to the occasion and the members of the press and radio were particularly impressed with what you had to say. Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer both said it was as an enjoyable an exhibition as they had ever played in.”

Reportedly, the exhibition match raised $8,200 to help support Radio Free Europe. The 1965 Delaware fund raising campaign resulted in $3,500 in private contributions for RFE. Coincidentally, Nicklaus and Palmer each received $3,500 for their participation in the match. 

A New Book of Interest: New Book of Interest: Spymaster: The Memoirs of Gordon M. Stewart, CIA Station Chief in Cold War Germany

 

New Book of Interest: Spymaster: The Memoirs of Gordon M. Stewart, CIA Station Chief in Cold War Germany

De Gruyter Publishers 2024

From the publisher:

For over two decades, Gordon M. Stewart guided CIA operations in Cold War Germany. As chief of the agency’s largest worldwide station, he hunted Nazi war criminals, sent spies into the Soviet bloc, and recruited sources inside the West German government. His memoirs, introduced by renowned intelligence scholar Thomas Boghardt, offer a fascinating inside look at the epicenter of Cold War espionage and the career of a most accomplished CIA officer. 

 

Endorsements:

“The long overdue – and utterly fascinating – memoirs of one of the most important American intelligence officers of the early Cold War period, with a masterful introduction by Thomas Boghardt. This is essential reading for anyone hoping to gain an intimate view of the CIA at its inception – or who simply loves a good spy story!” Scott Anderson, author of The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War: A Tragedy in Three Acts.

“Gordon Stewart is one of the most important and least well-known Americans who helped shape postwar Germany. In this revealing memoir, masterfully edited and introduced by Thomas Boghardt, Stewart’s guidance and leadership of the CIA comes to life. This book is a critical contribution to our understanding of the Cold War and the role of intelligence in U.S. diplomacy.”  Thomas A. Schwartz, author of Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography.

“Revealing without being sensational, this is a delightful memoir by a thoughtful, modest, principled man – an American George Smiley, you might say. The book benefits both from careful editing and from an excellent and well-written introduction by the intelligence historian Thomas Boghardt.” Adam Sisman, author of John le Carré: The Biography.

“Gordon Stewart is a hidden hero of the early CIA. Chief of its largest spy station,he takes us on a remarkable journey from hunting Nazi fugitives to a subterranean battle beneath Berlin. Spymaster is an essential contribution to Cold War history and a must-read for all those interested in the world of espionage.”–Richard J. Aldrich, author of GCHQ.

“Gordon Stewart was present at the creation and height of the U.S. intelligence effort in Cold War Europe. Superbly edited by Thomas Boghardt, Stewart’s memoirs shed new light on the CIA’s hidden history.”–Christian F. Ostermann, author of Between Containment and Rollback: The United States and the Cold War in Germany(2021)  

From the Introduction by Thomas Boghardt:

„Germany was the epicenter of the Cold War. Across the Iron Curtain, hundreds of thousands of soldiers faced each other, and if World War III were to break out, contemporaries surmised, it would happen here. The country’s frontline status made it an El Dorado for spies, who gathered information on military targets, penetrated local governments, and conducted covert operations. For the Americans, the newly established Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) came to take the lead in this silent–and sometimes not so silent–contest. In the heyday of the Cold War, the agency employed roughly 1,700 personnel in West Germany and Berlin, making it the largest overseas station in the world. Ultimately, this far-flung apparatus reported to the CIA station chief in West Germany and his deputy. For many years, either of those positions was held by Gordon Matthews Stewart.“

 

A New Book of Interest: Cold War Europe: A Space of Communication

A new book of interest

Cold War Europe: A Space of Communication 

Edited by Tobias Nanz and Hedwig Wagner 

Contents

Introduction

I Infrastructure 

Joanna Walewska-Choptiany, Wired Radio Spreads its Tentacles over the Country: The Development of a Wired Radio System in Post-War Poland  

Tobias Nanz, European Crisis Communication: British and French Hotlines to Moscow as Means of 

Disruption 

Hedwig Wagner, (Telecommunication) Satellites – Celestial and Terrestrial Concepts of Europe 

Johannes Pause , Stories of Rescue and Sacrifice: Cold War Cinema and the Arctic Imaginary 

II Broadcasting 

Luciana Radut-Gaghi. Radio Free Europe and Radio France Internationale: The Tones of Democracy and the Voices of Exiles  

Thomas Wegener Friis and Nils Abraham, Creating an Alternative Public: Socialist Media and its Followers during the Cold War 

Will Studdert, “Refined and Experienced Opponents?”: The BBC’s German East Zone Programme in the Cold War 

Anna Mazurkiewicz and Anna Podciborska, “I Wanted to Know the Truth”: Listeners to Western Radio Broadcasts in Poland during the Cold War: A Pilot Study

  

III Circulation of European Ideas, 

Bauer and Iulia-Karin Patrut, A Romanian Renegade: The Case of Petru Dumitriu, 

Joanna Nowicki, “Fifteen Minutes with Jacek Kaczmarski” on Radio Free Europe (1983–1995): A Voice 

Impossible to Scramble 

Joanna Szylko-Kwas, “A Window onto the World”? On European Themes Presented in the Polish Przekrój Weekly Magazine  

Camelia Beciu and Dana Popescu-Jourdy, Media and Catastrophic Events during the Cold War: Between Ideological Borders and Solidarity  

A Cold War Latvian Martyr: Leonid Zariņš ©

Leonid Nikolayevich Zariņš was born on 28 August 1927, in Priehule, Latvia. 

Along with his family, Leonīd Zariņš arrived in Germany as a “displaced person” in 1944.

He graduated from the Ausekls Latvian Gymnasium in Augsburg, a Hochfeld Baltic refugee camp. After graduating (1947), Leonīd studied mechanics and electrical engineering at the Baltic University in Pinneberg. H received a Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) scholarship to attend Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Zariņš received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering in 1951. 

He then joined the Bell Telephone Laboratory. In the same year, Leonīd sent a letter to U.S. President Truman based on a university course paper documenting the brutal actions of the Russian occupying power against the Baltics. He urged the United States to actively support anti-Soviet underground activities in the USSR, especially among non-Russian peoples. A copy of the letter somehow was sent to the CIA. The original spotting and preliminary CIA assessment began in the latter part of 1951 and continued through 1952. He entered CIA training at the end of 1952. 

After about 20 weeks of intensive training in the USA and a short rest, Leonīds Zariņš was taken to West Germany in preparation for his dispatch to Latvia. After further training, on 16 May 1953, he was parachuted near Auce. On 22 May, Zariņš met CIA parachuted agent Edvin Ozolins at the corner of Lenin and Karl Marx Streets in Riga and handed over 25,000 rubles. After an overnight stay in the Ozolin apartment in the Arkadia Park area, Zariņš was arrested on the street the next day. After a trial in Moscow, Zariņš was sentenced to death on 3 August 1954 in Butirk Prison. 

In Prison

Ozolins was later identified as a double agent for the Soviets with the code name "Pilot." One CIA report concluded: “Zariņš was infiltrated into Latvian SSR in May 1953 by means of an air dispatch. No communication from him or information concerning him has ever been received and it is presumed that he met his death immediately subsequent to dispatch. His parents, who have moved to Norway, were informed of Zarin’s death, and his benefits and effects have been transmitted to them. An appropriate cover and legend was devised and utilized for their benefit: he died while employed at the Bell Laboratory.” 

However, in 1977, Leonīd  Zariņš was reported to be still imprisoned in a camp in Siberia. His sister, a physician in Berlin, Germany, heard about her brother periodically over the years and was the source of the information that he was still alive. One CIA officer wrote, “Zariņš appears to hold the sad record of having spent more time in prison than any other CIA agent. He certainly deserves consideration as a part of any exchange arrangement which may be proposed to the Soviets.

The top line of the Zariņš' memorial stone above is a quote from a Latvian patriotic poem, "The Trumpeter of Talava. It says, "My gold is my country." The hero proclaims it as he chooses death over the offer of a bribe of gold to betray a castle where the enemy who accosted him is heading. Before being killed, he just has time to blow a warning on his trumpet, and the castle is saved. The stone goes on:

 

To the Patriot

Leonīd  Zariņš

 

Who parachuted into Kuzeme in 1953

Born 1927 in Priekule. Shot in 1954.

 

And to all those who came from the West

in the cause of Latvian freedom and perished

in the war against occupation.

 

The former staff of the Augsburg Latvian High School