From Conflict to Smokey Joe's: Secret Tunnel Operations in Vienna ©

 Richard H. Cummings

“Divided Cities and Contested Cities during the Cold War”

Gorizia, Italy

20-23 March 2025

 

 

From Conflict to Smokey Joe’s: Secret Tunnel Operations in Vienna

 

 

            Operation Silver was a collective term for several individual tunnel projects. The British secret service MI6 completed three tunnels in Vienna from 1948/49. They were named Conflict, Lord, and Sugar. The purpose was to tap into the Soviet occupying power's military communication.

            Conflict was the operational name for the first tunnel. In the summer or autumn of 1948, an Austrian telecommunications expert is said to have given British Intelligence an explosive tip: Under Aspangstraße in Vienna-Landstraße, a telephone cable handled a large part of Soviet military telephone traffic as well as the international lines to Prague, Budapest, Sofia, and Bucharest.

            Three men worked around the clock in two or three-hour shifts in the tunnel nicknamed "Smokey Joe's" because of the unfiltered air mixture of cigarette smoke and cellar moisture. When a man heard a telephone call, he activated the recording device, the conversation was recorded on an Edison phone cylinder. The cylinders were then flown three times a week in special barrels from Vienna to London. There, the recordings of the MI6 department were listened to and transcribed. The team comprised of 50 to 60 Russian emigrants, Polish army officers in exile and language experts. The transcripts of summaries from this were incorporated into a regular bulletin about the order of battle of the Red Army in Austria.

.           Lord, the longest and most elaborate of the three espionage tunnels, was created at the end of the Simmeringer Hauptstraße – just opposite the Soviet-occupied eastern bank of the Schwechat River The goal was also, in this case, an underground cable, which ran parallel to the road and the Hotel Imperial with the command of the Red Army. Access to the tunnel was via a villa where intelligence officer John Edward Wyke and his wife had previously moved in. Wyke was the right hand of MI6 head Peter Lunn, the driving force behind Operation Silver. The tunnel is said to have been just over 21 meters long. Previously, the house entrance had been renewed with a layer of concrete and dug from the cellar to the cable.

 

CIA Operation

 

            Communications intelligence (COMINT) is information gathered from communications between individuals or groups of individuals, including telephone conversations, text messages, email conversations, radio calls, and online interactions. Specifically, COMINT refers to analyzing the signals containing speech or text generated by these interactions. The targets for the British and Americans were the same: the penetration of Soviet operations and Soviet order-of-battle intelligence. What went on in the Imperial Hotel in Vienna was, accordingly, a major intelligence target. 

            One time Director of CIA Richard Helms wrote in his memoirs: “By 1951 our research showed that the landlines followed the original conduits established for telephonic traffic before World War I in Austria and Germany. The proximity of these lines to areas in which we might work suggested a long-shot possibility of breaking into the mass of communications between Moscow and the Soviet occupation headquarters in Austria, Germany, and the Central Group of Forces in Hungary. However slight our chances, the potential product of a successful operation appeared to justify an all-out effort. Landlines can be intercepted only by tapping the telephone cables. Breaking into the lines—most of which were tucked underground—would be a considerable undertaking, but would have one advantage over radio monitoring.”

            The CIA Vienna station had a blueprint of the underground cables and communications routes between the Soviet command in the hotel and Moscow. Using information from city plans and other sources, Carl Nelson, an officer in the CIA's Office of Communications, was able to put this blueprint together. Helms wrote, "We were well along with this research in Austria when our Vienna office earned that the British had independently come upon the same idea and had made considerable progress in tapping into the underground cables. The potential value of the intercept product in Austria and Germany meant there was too much at stake to risk any overlapping effort in such a narrow field. The British agreed, and we each cooperated to the hilt at all times."

According to one historian, "During its lifetime, the joint operation in Vienna kept a steady supply of firsthand information flowing to top decision-makers in London and Washington. The CIA recruited the first of a series of Soviet intelligence officers at the turn of the year 1952/1953. This invaluable source … contributed greatly to the West's requirements for reliable early warning of a Soviet offensive."

            The deputy head of British Intelligence in London, Section Y, George Blake, had been a Soviet KGB since his imprisonment in the Korean War. In October of 1953, Blake was said to have handed over a folded piece of paper to his KGB contact in London. The folded piece of paper contained a list of all the SIS's telephone tapping operations in the Vienna tunnel operation, as well as information about microphones planted in Soviet and East Bloc embassies in Western Europe. In only their second or third meeting, in early December 1952, “Blake handed over a hugely damaging Minox film of a ninety-page report entitled 'Banner 54/1', which contained a compilation of the tapped calls between Austria and Hungary, obtained via the tunnels in Vienna.”

            The CIA covered 75 percent of the cost of the joint tunnel operation, which ran until 1955 when Austria regained sovereignty. The CIA had been so impressed by Operation Silver's output that it copied it on a much larger scale: in 1954/55, a 450 meter-long tunnel was dug under the Soviet-occupied sector of Berlin: Operation Gold.

Isaac Patch and Radio Liberty Committee’s “Book Project” ©

 Isaac Patch and Radio Liberty Committee’s “Book Project”

 

            Although CIA files and documents relating to Radio Liberty Committee’s book distribution program remain basically closed, we can still glimpse this important Cold War activity.

            Parallel to Radio Free Europe, the short-wave international radio network that became known as the CIA covertly financed Radio Liberty from its beginning. Eventual financial support from U.S. Government funds for Radio Liberty would amount to $160 million.  William H. Chamberlin, one of the original members of the RLC Advisory Council, succinctly described the major difficulty it faced: 

 

Emphasis was on trying to promote a united organization of Russian and non-Russian émigré groups (Communists, Fascists, and extreme reactionaries excluded), which would carry on radio broadcasting and other anti-Communist activity in the name of a united politically conscious emigration.  

 

This attempt was frustrated by the atmosphere of suspicious hostility, which prevailed among the Russian and non-Russian political groups, and also by personal feuds among leaders of the groups.

 

            The man chosen to unite the émigré groups was Isaac Patch, who had been a career diplomat in Moscow in World War II and later in Prague, from where he was expelled on 24-hours-notice in October 1949 for having been involved in anti-Communist underground activities in Czechoslovakia. 

            Patch joined RLC in Munich as "director of émigré relations" or "political coordinator," in a failed attempt to unite the émigré groups. In his memoirs, he wrote, “My job as émigré relations advisor had run its course. Although I had been unsuccessful in bringing the Russians and non-Russians together in a committee to serve as its sponsor, I did help in recruiting people for the various Radio Liberty desks.”

            Patch then took over the Special Projects Division, which published a newspaper and quarterly journal for the Russian émigré community. In 1956, Patch transferred to RLC headquarters in New York to begin “The Book Project.” He has written that the purpose of “The Book Project” was “To communicate Western ideas to Soviet citizens by providing them with books -- on politics, economics, philosophy, art, and some technology -- all denied them by the Soviet dictatorship.”

            Howland Sargeant, president of RLC, heartily endorsed Patch's Program and presented it to the CIA for financial support. The CIA responded with an initial grant of $10,000. To give cover to the book program, The Bedford Publishing Company was initially created as a "private venture" to publish Western books that had not been previously translated into Russian. The Bedford Publishing House remained physically separate from Radio Liberty operations. Although no longer officially associated with Radio Liberty, Patch attended its regular staff meetings in New York.

            The Bedford Publishing Company had offices in London, Paris, Munich and Rome. Book translations were made in France and England, and publishing was done in Italy. Soviet visitors to cities such as London, Paris, New York, and Rome were given books, as were Western travelers to the Soviet Union. In the 14-year-long book program associated with Radio Liberty, over one million books were delivered to the USSR this way. In his memoirs, Patch broke down this number:

 

35 percent were given to Soviet travelers to the West:

 

·      Engineers,

·      Teachers,

·      Artists, 

·      Students and

·      Journalists.

 

40 percent were given to Western travelers to the USSR:

 

·      Doctors, 

·      Lawyers, 

·      Teachers and

·      Engineers

 

10 percent were mailed to people authorized to receive book packages from the West

Fifteen percent found their way to the USSR by special routes.

            Although CIA funding for The Bedford Publishing Company, as a unit of the Radio Liberty Committee, ceased in 1970, support continued until the Program was consolidated with the International Advisory Council (IAC) into the International Literary Center (ILC) in July 1975.

            Patch wrote, "There was no evidence that the Soviet government made any concerted attempt to disrupt our efforts." He added, “The Book Program was a rewarding endeavor for me and everyone involved. Americans in the Department of State approved of the project, and Walt Raymond, who was my liaison with CIA, told me years later that the Book Program was highly regarded by his agency. It was great fun dealing with books and ideas and working with other book lovers who enjoyed searching for titles and translators. Those of us working on the Program were thrilled to think that those hundreds of thousands of books perhaps helped to broaden Soviet minds and horizons toward democracy and western economic ideas.”

            Isaac (Ike) Patch died on May 31, 2014; he was 101 years old.

Cold War CIA Sponsored Russian Language Propaganda Leaflets/Balloons into East Germany ©

 Cold War CIA Sponsored Russian Language Propaganda Leaflets/Balloons into East Germany

 

The CIA created and controlled Russian émigré organization "Central Association of Post-War Émigrés" (TsOPE – transliteration of ЦОПЭ - Центральное Объединение Послевоенных Эмигрантов) was founded in November 1952. CIA cryptonyms for TsOPE included HBDUCKPIN, AEPAWN, and AEVIRGIL-1. According to one declassified CIA document: "TsOPE was created, supported, and controlled by CIA in order to develop and utilize some of the human resources in the Russian anti-Soviet emigration in support of CIA's political and psychological objective of accelerating evolutionary changes in the character and policy of the Soviet regime." 

 

According to one CIA report, “Experience argues that, by and large, attribution to a real organization lends propaganda a legitimate authenticity which notional attribution cannot achieve. Indigenous press and radio coverage of TsOPE's activities help, along this line, to reinforce the basic leaflet campaign. TsOPE staff members write the leaflets under the close supervision of a contract agent, who transmits policy guidelines and related directions of the case officers.” TsOPE’s headquarters was set up in Munich, Germany, with chapters in Brussels, Paris, and Vienna.

It was proposed to continue financial support of TsOPE, to “enable consolidation of present achievements and to provide for sound expansion of its anti-Soviet psychological warfare program. Specifically, it was proposed in Fiscal Year 1955:

a.     to undertake long-range balloon dispatch of leaflets aimed at our primary target, the peoples of the USSR; 

b.     to carry out short-range balloon dispatch of leaflets aimed at Soviet occupation personnel in Germany; 

c.     to increase both the quantity and quality of defection and disaffection leaflets, pamphlets and ideological materials; 

d.     to provide the group with printing facilities to enable production by the organization itself of leaflets in sufficient quantity for the expanded distribution program; 

The American zone of Germany centering on the Coburg-Hof area, was one base of operations used to launch balloons. In the initial phase, the objective was to launch balloons carrying anti-Soviet propaganda leaflets in the Russian language within the Soviet zone of Germany. Balloons were launched with fuses for targets within a one-hundred kilometer radius of the Coburg-Hof area. Bursting methods was used for targets above one hundred kilometers away but less than the maximum accurate range of five hundred kilometers. The project was a short-range balloon operation, In the initial phase, Soviet installations within a five-hundred kilometer radius of the Coburg-Hof area and inside the Soviet zone of Germany were the targets. 

Personnel employed did not require any special cover. They operated as representatives of TSIOPOE engaged in carrying out an anti-Communist action. Permits were obtained from the Border police for this purpose and the actual launching operations took place in the forest at a safe distance from cities and towns. A camouflaged truck possibly one employed in the transport of just such gas cylinders was needed for the dispatch. These cylinders were used commercially and customarily transported by truck to supply points.

The estimate of costs was based on an average monthly launching of forty balloons carrying 13,500 leaflets each, or a total of 540,000 leaflets per month. Special operations with two three-man enabled the teams to release 3,000,000 leaflets in any given three-day period, weather conditions permitting, or 6,000,000 over a period of one week, The balloon team in Bavaria launched a total of 1,576,250 leaflets in six actions during the month of December 1956. The balloon team in Berlin launched a record total of leaflets during December. A total of 14,993,361 leaflet units were launched in the DDR through the use of 3474 balloons.

The TsOPE shop in Munich printed a total of 530,000 leaflet units during December 1956.The balloon team in Bavaria launched a total of 1,576,250 leaflets in six actions during the month of December 1956. The balloon team in Berlin launched a record total of leaflets during December. A total of 14,993,361 leaflet units were launched in the DDR through the use of 3474 balloons. 

TsOPE operations were terminated in the summer of 1963 for the following reason: “Events have superseded TsOPE’s usefulness and because the CIA personnel and resources allotted to its support could now be used more effectively in other forms of CA (Covert Action) activity.“

 

Code Name "Krüger" ©

Code Name “Krüger”

 

“Krüger” was a source for KGB information from 1972 to 1986, but he did not report to or

work for the KGB. His story has an interesting twist.

 

“Krüger” was born in 1922 to Russian émigrés in Belgrade. He graduated from Belgrade

High School. During World War II, he went to Berlin in 1941 and studied at the Film Technical

School for two years. In 1943, he became an officer of the Russian anti–Soviet army of General

Vlasov in Germany. He spoke fluent Russian, Serbian, German, and good English. Because of a

war injury, his left leg was amputated at the knee in 1944, and he remained in a military hospital

until February 1946. Afterwards while living in various displaced persons’ camps in Austria, he

was able to get various jobs with the U.S. Army occupation forces as a film projectionist until he

successfully got a job as a monitor with Radio Liberty in 1955, because of his language abilities.

 

He was known to have continuous and serious financial problems in the fifties and sixties

until sometime in 1972. While employed in the Russian Monitoring Section, he was also

controlled and paid by the former DDR (East Germany) intelligence service (MfS). The MfS

was, apparently, operating in behalf of the KGB, since the MfS normally would have had little,

if any, interest in RFE/RL. “Krüger” was paid 1,000 DM on the average per month. In return he

was to supply personal information about RFE/RL’s employees and provide documents

especially from his own department, which monitored and transcribed Russian language radio

broadcasts.

 

Also part of his task was reporting on the large and active Ukrainian exile community in

Munich. He used his RFE/RL employment to maintain contact with them. “Krüger” met his

handler in various locations in Munich and Bavaria. The initial information given to the RFE/RL

security office in 1991 did not give concise details of what “Krüger” was to have allegedly done,

or what information he might have provided to the MfS, or if he acted alone in the MfS tasking.

 

The MfS was directly involved in various activities with non–German émigré groups in the

West (presumably for the KGB), including employees of RFE/RL. In January 1992, the RFE/RL

Bavarian counterintelligence contact finally had the opportunity to meet with the former MfS

intelligence officer, Karl-Hermann Mueller, responsible for “Krüger.” He said the KGB had

originally recruited “Krüger,” but in 1972 they turned over the operation to the MfS. The MfS

was tasked with gathering information about the CIA, and they wanted to use “Krüger” to gather

information about presumed CIA involvement and personnel at RFE/RL. “Krüger” was then

given his code name. He was a member of the Works Council and one can assume that this was

his prime source of information on RFE/RL: hirings, firings, promotions, demotions,

disciplinary action, etc. He provided copies of internal RFE/RL memoranda, the telephonebooks, 

and any other written information. In total, the amount of information provided by “Krüger” was 

about forty inches thick.

 

The MfS used him to gather materials and information about RFE/RL until February 1986,

when Gundarev defected in Athens and was flown to the United States. At the same time, the

MfS sent a message to Moscow asking if Gundarev’s defection could jeopardize the “Krüger”

operation. The KGB answered yes, that Gundarev had knowledge of the KGB’s prior control of

“Krüger.” The MfS thereupon stopped the “Krüger” operation.

 

“Krüger” met his contacts on a monthly basis in a Wienerwald restaurant in the town where

he lived. The MfS and the KGB had conducted a “false flag” operation with “Krüger” as he

apparently thought all along that he was providing information to the British Intelligence

Agency MI5. Mueller later said that “Krüger” was never told his information was going to the

MfS or KGB. He thought that “Krüger” was possibly originally recruited by a KGB agent or

officer named Grynov, who also was at one time possibly controlled by the British intelligence

agency M15. Grynov had previously been an officer in “Krüger’s” detachment during World

War Two, and the two of them maintained contact after the war.

 

Over the years, “Krüger” was paid in excess of DM 100,000 for his information, which

totaled over 2,500 pages. “Krüger” was last known to have met with his MfS contacts in

February 1986. The statute of limitations in these cases was five years, thus there was no

prosecution possibility.

 

Cold War Radio; The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1850-1980,

Chapter 7 

  

Kidnapping of Gottllieb Burghardt in Cold War Berlin ©

Cold War Frequencies: CIA’s Clandestine Radio Broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

 

Chapter Eight (excerpt)

 

Kidnapping of Gottlieb Burghardt 

 

On 15 December 15, 1956 at 7 p.m, Gottlieb Burghardt went to keep an operational contact meeting with DDR contact Waltraud RICHTER. The next day Ilse Burghardt reported that her husband was missing. CIA could not understand Burghardt’s failure to take the necessary precautions in going to a night meeting alone with a suspect contact.

A short second page article in the East Berlin Newspaper Berliner Zeitung on December 18, 1956, mentioned that Burghardt was reportedly seized on an East Berlin street by pedestrians, when he was molesting them. He also was alleged to be drunk and carrying a pistol. 

The story was viewed by CIA as an East Germany MFS or Soviet KGB effort to cover the kidnapping in event that Burghardt was to be used publicly later in which case his presence in East Berlin would have to be explained. 

Ilse Burghardt wrote a letter to famed Attorney Wolfgang Vogel on January 2, 1957, asking him for his help in the case. He agreed and they met for the first time on January 30, 1957. Subsequently, Wolfgang Vogel reportedly stated he had learned from DDR authorities that Burghardt was kidnapped and he was to be tried under Article 6 of the DDR Constitution which includes espionage activities.

The West Berlin police took an active part in the investigation and put four people in custody, who allegedly formed a MFS kidnap team that was originally given the assignment by the MFS to kidnap Burghardt. Another team was organized and given the assignment according to the testimony of one of the people in custody.  

CIA’s Berlin Operations Base tried to do all it could to aid Burghardt, e.g., “No psychological / propaganda activity was undertaken pending determination of the best tactics to be utilized in the case: a. a statement that Burghardt kidnapped made at time of incident and we in fact have nothing more to say now,
and b. on balance we feel strong play this stage would force DDR court to throw book at Burghardt in self-justification…[W]e are attempting via police keep lid on previous kidnap plot. plan use this as counter blast …this might catch them off balance and upset prearranged plans thus benefit.”

The trial of Gottlieb Burghardt began at the end of June 1957. He was charged with working for the American intelligence service from 1951-1953 and then for TsOPE against the DDR. The trial lasted three days and was not open to the public. He was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. Burghardt reportedly admitted that he had at least 35 active agents in the DDR. Vogel’s pro-forma appeals of the sentence were for naught. After the trial, Vogel again met with Ilse Burghardt. An unidentified TsOPE member was also there and ask Vogel if he could arrange for a prisoner exchange. Vogel did bring up the possibility with the DDR but in April 1958, this was declined. 

He was finally released from prison in August 1964, when he was among the first 70 prisoners released by the DDR in exchange for money from West Germany. Vogel personally drove Burghardt to West Berlin; the other ex-prisoners were taken in three buses to West Germany. Burghardt’s fate afterwards is not known.

 

Thanksgiving Day of Freedom 1954 ©

 

On Thursday, November, 25 1954, snow was falling lightly but that did not stop

enthusiastic citizens from the borough of Freedom, Pennsylvania, with a population of 3,500,

from greeting two Romanian refugee children, and their mothers, in the local Thanksgiving

Day celebration. Freedom’s enthusiastic pageantry gained nation-wide newspaper attention

and could be seen as a textbook example of how to rally Americans in support of Cold War

broadcasting in the 1950s. Below, we will look at Thanksgiving Day 1954 in Freedom, Pennsylvania, a borough in Beaver County located along the Ohio River about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Constantin V. Teodoru, his wife Mirela, and Mr. and Mrs. I. Pop “escaped” Romania in

1951 and settled in New York with their families in 1952. Reportedly, broadcasts from Radio

Free Europe inspired them to “escape” from Romania. The Teodoru family later said they

“got through the Iron Curtain safely” by bribing a railroad guard; the Pop family did not

explain how they “pierced the Iron Curtain.”

 

On October 27, 1954, Frank Smith, president of Ambridge radio station WBVP, hosted a

luncheon at the Penn-Beaver Hotel in Rochester, Pennsylvania. Those in attendance included

representatives from Freedom’s borough government, schools, churches and civic groups.

Smith announced plans for the Thanksgiving Day festivities in behalf of two refugee children

Nicolas Teodoru (12) and Alina Pop (14), who were to be “entertained as guests of the people

of Freedom and Beaver County.”

 

Frank Smith told the assembled group in Freedom that Nicolas and Alina, at their request,

were to appear on the popular CBS television program “Strike it Rich” in New York on

November 24, 1954 so they could win money to donate to the Crusade for Freedom. “Strike it

Rich” (“Strike in Lucky in the UK) has been described as “A game show where people relate

their unfortunate situations (fatal disease, injury, their house burned down, etc.) in hopes that

someone will take pity on them, call the show and give them money or merchandise.“ The

producer of the show was Walter Framer formerly of Pittsburgh.

 

The American Heritage Foundation arranged to fly the children to Pittsburgh on Thanksgiving

Day as a “Flight to Freedom” to symbolize the Romanian family’s flight to freedom.

Arrangements would be made by the American Heritage Foundation to take them to Freedom,

including a possible helicopter flight.

 

Burgess (mayor) Thomas W. Harrison was named chairman of a committee that was formed

to arrange for a community dinner and program for the children. Harrison called for a

planning meeting in the Freedom High School Home Economics House on the evening of

November 4, 1954 of the borough’s schools, churches, civic clubs and fraternal

organizations.

 

Smith concluded the meeting with the hope that there would be national television and radio

coverage of Freedom’s Thanksgiving Day activities.

 

The November 24, 1954 editorial in the grass-roots newspaper Beaver County Times began

with this headline, “We Should Be Thankful for American Freedom.” The editorial went

on: "Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, the good people of Freedom, U.S.A., will pay tribute to

the continuous efforts of the “Crusade for Freedom” and Radio Free Europe to liberate the

downtrodden people of the Iron Curtain countries behind the yoke of the Red horde. As a

symbol of the freedom so earnestly desired by those people held captive in their own

countries by the Communist dictators, residents of Freedom will stage a community welcome

for two children who fled from Romania with their parents to escape the Red oppressors."

Nicolas and Alina appeared on the television show “Strike it Rich” on Wednesday night and

won $210 for the Crusade for Freedom. They left New York Thursday morning with their

mothers and Normal H. Pader from the American Heritage Foundation. After their arrival at

Greater Pittsburgh Airport, they all traveled via a motorcade to Freedom.

 

Freedom school children, waving American flags and singing “God Bless America” greeted

Nicolas and Alina as they entered the borough. Burgess Thomas W. Harrison presented them

with the “keys to the city” as a symbol of their "freedom to enter and leave without question.”

Harrison said he was “proud of the enthusiastic response of local civic and municipal groups

in arranging the Thanksgiving fete at a demonstration of American freedom and liberty in the

name of our community."

 

After a parade down Freedom’s main street Nicolas' and Alina sat down with 150 guests at a

Thanksgiving Day banquet in the Freedom High School gymnasium. Freedom housewives

dressed in pioneer costumes served the guests.

 

Nicolas and Alina then watched with 600 Freedom residents and guests a pageant depicting

early Pilgrim and pioneer days. School groups and Boy Scouts demonstrated Indian dances

and scenes from early American history. Alina Pop was asked if there was a difference

between “nothing but lies” of Communist propaganda and “the truth this side of the Curtain.”

She replied, “There is, oh, such a big difference.” Afterwards, Nicolas and Alina visited a

typical American turkey farm and then returned to New York.

 

Associated Press and United Press reports provided newspaper coverage throughout the

United States. The Associated Press reported, for example, “The community not only was the

scene of the actual festivities but symbolized the liberty found in every American town. And

the children represented freedom-loving peoples throughout the world”.

 

"Life with Luigi" in the Cold War ©

"Life with Luigi" in the Cold War

 

In 1950, about 3.9 million households in the United States had televisions -- this was 9 percent of American homes. Radio was the primary source of entertainment, dramatic, comedy, and variety programs. Radio was also a rallying tool for the first Crusade for Freedom campaign and Radio Free Europe.

 

A very popular weekly radio program that aired from 1948 to 1953 was a situation-comedy show “Life with Luigi,” with famed Hollywood actor J. Carrol Naish, who, as Luigi Basco, feigned a heavy Italian accent. The show aired before a live audience on the CBS radio network Tuesday evenings from 9:00 to 9:30 P.M. The fictional Luigi Basco was a new immigrant from Italy, who had recently arrived in the United States. The show’s premise was that Luigi wrote a weekly letter to his mother, who had remained in Italy, about his continuing experiences in the United States.

 

On September 19, 1950, the weekly half-hour long radio program was entitled “Crusade for Freedom Speech” and sponsored by the Wrigley Chewing Gum Company. The program's narrator started the program with a commercial: "You know friends, Wrigley's spearmint chewing gum is a typically American product that appeals to peoples of all ages and nationalities in all parts of our country."

 

During the program, Luigi was visited by a Crusade for Freedom volunteer who not only had Luigi sign the Freedom Scroll but also to put a Crusade poster in his shop’s window and asked to seek out others to sign the Freedom Scroll. The Crusade volunteer also told Luigi that the scrolls would be collected and “enshrined at the base of a huge Freedom Bell in Berlin.” Luigi was unsuccessful as the people he asked to sign the Freedom Scroll ignored him because they were too busy, were in a hurry, or had other reasons not to listen to him about the Crusade for Freedom.

 

The teacher of his night-school citizenship class, Miss Spaulding, selected Luigi to give a speech about freedom before a meeting of 10,000 other immigrants. The topic selected by Luigi’s teacher was “What Freedom Means to Me.” At the meeting he told the assembly not only about his failure to gather signatures but also what the Crusade for Freedom meant to him. The results were successful and those 10,000 persons who had listened to him signed the Freedom Scrolls and $300 was collected.

 

Near the end of the radio program, listeners heard a recorded statement by  General Lucius D. Clay, Crusade for Freedom national chairman in New York: "Luigi, you give me a great hope. And you also fill me with considerable pride. It has not taken you long to learn what America really stands for. You have also found that because you believe in its ideals, you can reach the hearts and minds of its peoples. Thank you very much, Luigi, and the many thousands of other volunteers who are undertaking the Crusade for Freedom. But thank you especially Luigi for your faith in your new country and your belief in freedom.

 

 Luigi concluded the show with by reading from his letter to his mother: "Yes, Mama Mia, now you see why America is a wonderful country and is worth fighting for. Because only here is it possible for a little immigrant like your son to hear from a great general and a great American like General Clay. It is like I once wrote to you, in America: everything is possible. Your loving son Luigi Basco,"