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Radio Free Europe
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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is an independent international broadcast organization that provides uncensored news, information, and analysis to countries where free media is often limited or banned. RFE/RL reaches 25 million listeners and readers in including Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus, and Iraq.
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Encyclopedia
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is an independent international broadcast organization that provides uncensored news, information, and analysis to countries where free media is often limited or banned. RFE/RL reaches 25 million listeners and readers in including Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus, and Iraq. It is funded by the US Congress through the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an organization whose mission is "to promote democracy through the open communication of information and ideas". The radios maintain headquarters in Prague, have 19 local bureaus, as well as a corporate office in Washington DC.
Early history
Radio Free Europe was created and grew in its early years through the efforts of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), an organization that was formed in New York City in 1949 as a response to the growing number of refugees, many of them intellectuals, fleeing Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe. The committee was composed of an "A list" of powerful US citizens including former ambassador and first NCFE chairman Joseph Grew; CIA director Allen Dulles; Reader's Digest owner Dewitt Wallace; and prominent New York investment banker Frank Altschul. Its mission was to support the refugees and provide them with a useful outlet for their opinions and creativity. The NCFE divided its program into three parts: exile relations, radio, and American contacts. Although exile relations were initially its first priority, Radio Free Europe (RFE) became the NCFE's greatest legacy.
RFE was developed out of a belief that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means. American policymakers such as George Kennan and John Foster Dulles acknowledged that the Cold War was essentially a war of ideas. The United States, acting through the CIA, funded a long list of projects to counter the Communist appeal among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world.
RFE was modeled after Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) a US government-sponsored radio service for Germans living in the American sector of Berlin. Staffed almost entirely by Germans with minimal US supervision, the station provided free media to German listeners. In order to establish a broadcast presence in Europe like RIAS, the NCFE began an extensive fundraising effort known as the "Crusade for Freedom". The bulk of its RFE's initial funding, however, came from the CIA. In January 1950 the NCFE obtained a transmitter base at Lampertheim, West Germany and on July 4th of the same year RFE completed its first broadcast aimed at Czechoslovakia
In late 1950, RFE began to assemble a full-fledged foreign broadcast staff, becoming more than a "mouthpiece for exiles". Teams of journalists were hired for each language service and an elaborate system of intelligence gathering provided up-to-date broadcast material. Most of this material came from a network of well-connected emigres and interviews with travelers and defectors. RFE did not use paid agents inside the Iron Curtain and based its bureaus in regions popular with exiles. RFE also extensively monitored Communist bloc publications and radio services, creating an impressive body of information that would later serve as a resource for the CIA and other government organizations.
In addition to its regular broadcasts RFE was also known for its balloon operation (1951-1956), a project that involved dropping anti-Communist propaganda from hot air balloons. The project, which did little to increase RFE's credibility in Eastern Europe, was nevertheless a great publicity tool that solidified its reputation as an anti-communist organization.
Radio Liberty was the product of the American Committee for Freedom for the Peoples of the USSR (Amcomlib) an organization that was similar to the NCFE but dealt with exiles from the Soviet Union. Radio Liberty began broadcasting from Lampertheim on March 1, 1953, gaining a substantial audience when it covered the death of Joseph Stalin four days later. By March of 1954 Radio Liberty was broadcasting six to seven hours daily in eleven languages.
Both broadcasters dealt with significant technical challenges while trying to reach their intended audiences. In 1951, RFE supplemented its shortwave transmissions from Lampertheim with broadcasts from a transmitter base at Gloria, Portugal. In 1955 Radio Liberty began airing programs to Russia's eastern provinces from shortwave transmitters located on Taiwan, while in 1959 Radio Liberty commenced broadcasts from a base at Playa de Pals, Spain.
Cold War years
RFE played a critical role in Cold War era Eastern Europe. Its listenership increased substantially following the failed Berlin riots of 1953 and the highly publicized defection of Józef Swiatlo. Its Hungarian service's coverage of Poland's Poznan riots in 1956 served as an inspiration for the Hungarian revolution. At the time, RFE was accused of precipitating the revolution by giving its Hungarian listeners false hope of Western military assistance. Later investigations of RFE's involvement in the Hungarian revolution cleared these accusations while urging it to be more cautious in its broadcasts. RFE's Broadcast Analysis Division was established to ensure that broadcasts were accurate and professional while maintaining the journalists' former autonomy.
During the Cold War RFE was often criticized in the United States as not being sufficiently anti-communist. Although its nongovernmental status spared it from full scale McCarthyist investigations, several RFE journalists including director of the Czech service, Ferdinand Peroutka were accused of being soft on Communism. Fulton Lewis a US radio commentator and fervent anti-communist was one of RFE's sharpest critics throughout the 1950's. His critical broadcasts inspired other journalists to investigate the inner workings of the organization including its connection to the CIA.
In late 1960, an upheaval in the Czechoslovak service led to a number of dramatic changes in the organization's structure. RFE's New York headquarters could no longer effectively manage their Munich subsidiary and the show could no longer be run from across the ocean. Major management responsibilities were transferred to Munich, making RFE a European-based organization.
Broadcasts were often banned in Eastern Europe and Communist authorities used sophisticated jamming techniques to prevent citizens from listening to them. Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and Russian reformer Grigory Yavlinsky would later recall secretly listening to the broadcasts despite the heavy jamming.
Communist governments also sent agents to infiltrate RFE's headquarters. Although some remained on staff for extended periods of time, government authorities discouraged their agents from interfering with broadcast activity, fearing that this could arouse suspicions and detract from their original purpose of gathering information on the radios' activities. In 1965-71 an agent of the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa successfully infiltrated the station with an operative, Capt. Andrzej Czechowicz. According to former Voice of America Polish service director Ted Lipien, "Czechowicz is perhaps the most well known communist-era Polish spy who was still an active agent while working at RFE in the late 1960s. Technically, he was not a journalist. As a historian by training, he worked in the RFE’s media analysis service in Munich. After more than five years, Czechowicz returned to Poland in 1971 and participated in propaganda programs aimed at embarrassing Radio Free Europe and the United States government." None of these intimidation tactics changed the radios’ message, making them largely unsuccessful.
The CIA stopped funding Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in 1972. In 1974 they came under the control of an organization called the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB). The BIB was designed to receive appropriations from Congress, give them to radio managements, and oversee the appropriation of funds. In 1976 the two radios merged and added the three Baltic language services to their repertoire.
The 1980s and beyond
Funding for RFE/RL increased during the Reagan Administration. President Reagan, a fervent opponent of Communism, urged the radios to be more critical of the Communist regimes. This presented a challenge to RFE/RL's broadcast strategy, which had been very cautious since the Hungarian Revolution.
During the Gorbachev Administration, the radios worked hand in hand with Glasnost and benefited significantly from the administration's new openness. Gorbachev stopped the practice of jamming and the radios could for the first time freely interview dissident politicians or officials without sentencing their interviewees to several years in a gulag. By 1990 Radio Liberty had become the most listened-to Western radio station broadcasting to the Soviet Union. Its coverage of the 1991 August coup enriched sparse domestic coverage of the event and drew in a wide audience from throughout the region. The broadcasts allowed Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to stay in touch with the Russian people during this turbulent period. Boris Yeltsin later expressed his gratitude through a presidential decree allowing Radio Liberty to open a permanent bureau in Moscow.
In 1993 RFE/RL moved its headquarters from Munich to Prague. The Clinton Administration reduced funding significantly and placed the radios under the United States Information Agency's oversight. RFE/RL ended broadcasts to Hungary in 1993 and stopped broadcasts to Poland in 1997. In recent years RFE/RL has also stopped broadcasting to Estonia, Latvia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Romania. Meanwhile, it has launched new broadcasts to the former Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the North Caucasus.
RFE/RL today
RFE/RL currently serves as a surrogate free press in regions where uncensored information is often difficult to find. Although it maintains bureaus in 19 countries, authoritarian governments often slow down the radios' activities through a variety of tactics often involving technicalities such as fire or health inspections. RFE/RL is often the first to cover key events in these countries and ironically, their governments often receive valuable information through these broadcasts. It maintains a network of 750 freelancers who often risk their lives to broadcast balanced and reliable information to their listeners and readers.
The safety of these journalists has been a throughout RFE/RL's broadcast history and continues to be a major issue, as reporters are threatened and persecuted on a daily basis. Additionally, RFE/RL also faces a number of central security concerns including cyberterrorist attacks and general terrorist threats. After 9/11 United States and Czech authorities agreed to move RFE/RL's Prague headquarters away from the city center in order to make it less vulnerable to terrorist attack. On February 19, 2009 RFE/RL began broadcasting from its new state-of-the-art headquarters located on the city's periphery.
RFE/RL continues to struggle with authoritarian regimes for permission to broadcast freely within their countries. Starting January 1,st 2009, Azerbaijan has imposed a ban on all foreign media in the country, including RFE/RL. Kyrgyzstan has also suspended broadcasts of , RFE/RL's Kyrgyz language service, requesting that the government be able to pre-approve its programming. Other states such as Belarus, Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan prohibit re-broadcasting to local stations, making programming difficult for average listeners to access.
Despite these efforts, the radios continue to reach their listeners and sometimes even their governments. In 2008, Afghan president Hamid Karzai urged his government to provide assistance to a rape victim after listening to her story on Radio Free Afghanistan.
Relationship with the CIA
RFE/RL received funds from the CIA until 1972. Since then it has been funded by regular, open congressional appropriations and has received no funds from the CIA. The CIA's relationship with the radios began to break down in 1967, when Ramparts magazine published an expose claiming that the CIA was channeling funds to civilian organizations. Further investigation into the CIA's funding activities revealed its connection to both RFE and RL, sparking significant media outrage. Investigations into the legal basis of the relationship jeopardized the existence of both radios, which could not survive without the CIA's funding. The Radios, however, continued to receive CIA paychecks on the grounds that they were established by a government initiative and followed official policy guidelines. In 1971 the radios came under public spotlight once again when prominent US Senator Clifford Case introduced the Senate Bill 18 which would remove funding for RFE and RL from the CIA's budget, appropriate $30 million to pay for fiscal year 1972 activities and have the State Department temporarily oversee the radios. This was only a temporary solution, however, as the State Department was reluctant to take on such a significant long-term responsibility. In May 1972 President Richard Nixon appointed a special commission to deliberate RFE/RL's future. 44 The commission proposed that funding come from the United States Congress and that a new organization, the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB) would link the radios and the federal government and serve as a buffer between them.
Although both radios initially received most of their funding from the CIA, RFE maintained a strong sense of autonomy. Under Cord Meyer, the CIA officer in charge of overseeing broadcast services from 1954-1971 the CIA took a position of minimal government interference in radio affairs.
See also
External links
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- (shortwave radio Liberty station in Spain)
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- Mentions a FY 1970 budget of $13,130,000 for the Radio Liberty Committee
- ftp://realaudio.rferl.org/ru/sosin.pdf ???? ????? ????? ???????
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