11

p The Second World War brought about radical changes in the world. The colonial empires began to disintegrate and fundamental socio-economic reforms were implemented in the countries of Eastern Europe. As a result of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the correlation of forces changed both in Europe and all over the world. Having suffered less than the other major participants in the war, the USA markedly outstripped them economically. In these conditions the US ruling circles thought that the way towards world domination was open to them.

p They considered that the main obstacle to their goal was the USSR’s military and economic might, its prestige and influence, which had grown during the war. Moreover, during the joint struggle against Nazi Germany, many Americans began to sympathize with the USSR and its people. Unless these sentiments were eradicated from the minds of the American people, it was impossible for the US ruling circles to pursue a policy of attaining world domination. Consequently, the right-wing circles launched an extensive anti-Soviet campaign in the United States, scaring the people with the muthical "Red menace". A wave of McCarthyism—an extreme right-wing anti-communist movement—swept across the country. On the international scene, the USA embarked on a policy of "rolling back" communism and began to resort to blackmail and threats. This policy marked the beginning of the cold war period.

p At the same time the majority of the American people 12 believed that humanity was entering an era of goodwill and peace. It seemed that the internal reaction had lost ground. For example, Texas Democrat Martin Dies, chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, declined to run for reelection in November 1944, and three other members of the same Committee were defeated in the same election. It was generally expected that this notorious Committee would be retired, but by January 1945 it was made permanent by the US Congress and continued its witch-hunt with even greater zeal. The hunt was led by John Rankin, a Democrat from Mississippi.

p “Saboteurs", "espionage agents" and "Communist renegades" were being tracked down. Even “experts” on Soviet affairs were being persecuted. The Committee’s mentality can well be illustrated by an exchange, reported in the press, between Rankin and William C. Bullitt, former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union:

p Rankin: Is it true that they eat human bodies in Russia?

p Bullitt: I did see a picture of a skeleton of a child eaten by its parents.

p Rankin: Then they’re just human slaves in Russia? Bullitt: There are more human slaves in Russia than ever existed anywhere in the world.^^1^^

p In April 1945 Winston Churchill called upon the AngloAmerican armies to act as world policemen. In August the same year he re-introduced the term "iron curtain" in Western political terminology. According to the London Times, this term was initially brought into use by Schwerin von Krosigk, Hitler’s Minister of Finance. It was also often used by Joseph Gobbels. In the same speech Churchill called for the use of atomic weapons in the struggle against "flaming ideologies". Thus, while stifl at war with the common enemy, Nazism, the Anglo-American allies launched a cold war against the USSR. On February 10, 1946, Churchill, while spending a vacation in Florida, flew to Washington to confer with President Truman about a speech he was to give at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.

p Truman accompanied Churchill to Fulton, where the retired British Prime Minister, who still wielded a great deal of influence in the Western world, called for a struggle against Red Russia. On September 30, 1946, FBI Director Edgar Hoover issued a statement which alleged that infiltration by Communists was growing in the United States and that "they were at work at every level arid in every organization"^^2^^. 13 Throughout the winter of 1946-1947 the Truman Administration drew the nation’s attention to the alleged "Soviet threat". On March 12, 1947, Truman made public his Doctrine which was regarded by some as the commencement of the era of US imperialism under the banners of the cold war. The Doctrine implied that the United States, under the pretext of aiding Greece and Turkey, was to involve itself in their domestic affairs and use their territories as a military-strategic bridgehead against the USSR and other socialist countries. The Doctrine was directed not only against the USSR, which posed no military threat to the United States, but also against the peoples of other countries who were seeking to replace their by now discredited political regimes and "who were increasingly looking eastward, to socialism, for alternatives"^^3^^.

p Eleven days after the Doctrine had been enunciated, Truman issued Executive Order 9835, the so-called Loyalty Order, placing under police surveillance more than two million federal employees. Subsequently, this Order was extended to include the entire American population. In his weekly In Fact, George Seldes wrote:

p “There is fear in Washington, not only among government employees, but among the few remaining liberals and Democrats who have hoped to salvage something of the New Deal." (Reference to the measures taken by the Roosevelt Administration in the 1933-1938 period for the purpose of negating the consequences of the 1929-1933 crisis and alleviating the contradictions in the US socio-political and economic system.) "... There is fear in Hollywood. ... There is fear in the book publishing houses. There is fear among writers, scientists, school teachers, liberals; among all who are not now part of the reactionary movement...”^^4^^

p In 1947 Abraham L. Pomerantz, deputy chief counsel to the US prosecution staff at the Nuremberg trials, wrote in the magazine Protestant:

p “The approach, copied from the Nazis, works this way: The press and radio first lay down a terrific barrage against the Red Menace. Headlines without a shread of substance shriek of atom bomb spies, or plots to overthrow our government, of espionage, of high treason, and of other blood-curdling crimes. We are now ready for the second stage: the pinning of the label ‘Red’ indiscriminately on all opposition.”^^5^^

p To ensure that position-of-strength policy based on the doctrine of "rolling back communism" and balancing on the brink of war would be pursued, the machinery of state had to be rebuilt to a certain extent. Psychological warfare became

14

p the most essential element in stepping up tension. For its conduct new agencies were set up which combined intelligence and propaganda operations. In 1946 the US radio broadcasting station RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) started its transmissions to East Germany from West Berlin. In 1947 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was set up in place of the abolished Office of Strategic Services, the principal US intelligence agency during the Second World War. The CIA concentrated its attention on conducting clandestine subversive operations against the USSR and countries of Eastern Europe. The Office of War Information, the basic foreign propaganda agency, was replaced by the Office of International Information and Cultural Affairs in the Deparment of State. In the same year the Voice of America radio station began its broadcasts in the Russian language.

p In the spring of 1948 the US Congress passed the SmithMundt Act, which provided the "statutory basis for a permanent foreign information programme, the basic legislation which to this day underlies the operations of the US Information Agency"^^6^^ created later.

p In 1949 the National Committee for a Free Europe was set up under the auspices of the US special services, and it had a small radio station Radio Free Europe (RFE). Two years later the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism was founded which had its own radio station, initially called Radio Liberation and then Radio Liberty (RL). More radio stations emerged later on, such as Free Asia and Baikal. These radio stations were alleged to represent anti-socialist opposition organizations or would-be anti-Soviet underground groups. To date, with the exception of RIAS, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, all of them have ceased to exist.

p The National Committee for a Free Europe was registered in the state of New York on June 2, 1949, as a non-government organization. The idea of creating such an organization for the conduct of a propaganda war against the countries of Eastern Europe was first publicly expressed by the principal designer of the doctrine of containing communism, former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, George Kennan. According to Robert Holt and Allan Michie, former RFE Deputy Director, both of whom have made a thorough study of the initial period of the cold war and the activities of the RFE, Kennan took note of the fact that a large number of displaced persons from the countries of Eastern Europe had settled down in the United States. Among them were many political leaders who had discredited themselves by cooperating with the Nazis and 15 those who cherished vain hopes for destroying the populardemocratic systems in their countries. They pestered governmental institutions with their demands for material and other assistance. Kennan proposed setting up a “non-government” organization in which these people could conduct propaganda war against the governments of East European countries. And this was taking place at a time when Washington was maintaining normal diplomatic relations with those governments!

p In February 1949, Kennan’s idea was transmitted, through his personal friend Joseph Grew, former Ambassador to Japan, to State Secretary Dean Acheson, who instructed Grew to set up the National Committee for a Free Europe. Besides Joseph Grew, the Committee included such influential politicians as DeWitt C. Poole and Frank Altschul.

p After the founding of the National Committee for a Free Europe, which was headed by the then CIA Deputy Director, Allen Dulles, the task was to put the voices of exiled leaders on the air, "addressed to their own peoples back in Europe, in their own languages, in the familiar tones"^^7^^.

p A radio committee for organizing broadcasts was set up under the National Committee for a Free Europe, and one year later it came on the air as Radio Free Europe. At that time RFE had a small 7.5 kW short-wave transmitter in West Germany. Its programmes were first beamed to Czechoslovakia. Soon it began to send one-and-a-half-hour broadcasts to Poland, Albania, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. All broadcasts were prepared and taped in New York, then brought to West Germany to be put on the air.

p On January 18, 1951, the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism was set up in the state of Delaware. Its main initiators were William C. Bullitt and Eugene and Isaac Don Levine, who worked in the US special services. Thus, these services were able to unite members of emigre organizations who had settled down in the USA. In late 1951 Admiral Alan G. Kirk, former Ambassador to the Soviet Union, was appointed Chairman of the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism. A year later he was succeeded by Vice-Admiral Leslie C. Stevens.

p From October 1954 onwards the Committee was headed by Howland H. Sargeant, who for several years had been Chairman of the Technical Industrial Intelligence Committee. Incidentally, the current President of RFE/RL, James L. Buckley, previously headed the same Committee.

p In 1952 the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism set up Radio Liberation from Bolshevism on the
•
16
•
basis of a US military radio station. It began broadcasting on March 1, 1953. In October 1956 it was renamed Radio Liberation and in December 1963, Radio Liberty.

p Former US President Harry Truman was the first honorary Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Radio Liberation. The board included eminent US businessmen, statesmen, military leaders and heads of mass media agencies, such as Henry V. Poor, Assistant Dean of the Yale College of Law; Howland H. Sargeant, President of the Radio Liberty Committee and former Assistant Secretary of State in the Truman Administration; Whitney N. Seymour, Chairman of the Carnegie Endowment Board and former President of the American Bar Association; John W. Studebaker, former US Commissioner of Education; Reginald T. Townsend, Vice President of the Radio Liberty Committee; Mrs. Oscar Ahlgren, former President of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs; John R. Burton, Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of Far Rockaway; J. Peter Grace, President of W. R. Grace & Company; Allen Grover, former Vice President of Time-Life Inc.; and General Alfred M. Gruenther (Ret.), former Allied Commander in Europe (NATO).

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p The founders of the Board of Trustees believed that such a membership would help win large public support for Radio Liberation. At the same time, the fact that Radio Liberation and Radio Free Europe were a CIA project was carefully concealed from the American public. The Board of Trustees, formally entitled to wide powers, had in fact a passive role to play, and it was Howland H. Sargeant, with CIA backing, who was the principal figure in decision-making.

p That the headquarters of the radio station was situated in New York was something of a historical and political paradox. Many of the station’s employees were former Soviet citizens who had committed serious crimes and feared retribution. They therefore wanted to live as far as possible from the borders with Eastern Europe (Munich is only about 80 miles from the German Democratic Republic’s border). They felt far more secure under the protection of the US special services, and therefore a department of Radio Liberation was founded in New York.

p That was how the US propaganda and intelligencegathering apparatus was taking shape, adopting “white” ( government), “grey” (private) and “black” (covert) methods of propaganda. The last-named was aptly described as " cloakand-dagger propaganda". Similar broadcasts had been transmitted by Gobbels’s radio stations. One of them broadcast to Great Britain posing as the BBC, another to the USA, presenting itself as a radio station of local isolationists. Now RFE and RL began to play a similar role...

p The creation of RFE and RL made it possible for the United States to deny that it was participating in a psychological warfare against the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe. What could not be broadcast by the Voice of America, the US government radio station, was broadcast by “private”, “ independent” radio stations. What this undertaking meant politically was aptly expressed by Lucius Clay, former Military Governor of the US Zone in Germany. He said that in addition to the Voice of America the USA needed another voice, perhaps less moderate and not liable to the requirements of showing the restraint placed on the government.

p The private character of the Committee, however, is purely formal. After all, from the very outset both “private” Committees and both “private” radio stations were financed by the state. But this fact was carefully concealed. The apparent nature of the finances which the stations received was designed to mislead the American public. The National Committee for a Free Europe allegedly received subsidies from 18 more than 70 organizations, government establishments and industrial associations in the United States, including several major corporations such as the United States Steel Corporation. Donations were also supplied by private individuals and even “schoolchildren”. The Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism and its radio station were financed in the same way. This system was called upon, on the one hand, to conceal the actual source of finance, and, on the other hand, create the impression that the Committee enjoyed wide popularity among, and the support of, the American people.

p That RL and RFE were affiliated to the CIA was kept secret for 20 years. The stations’ employees were strictly bound to conceal their affiliation to the CIA and upon taking up employment had to sign the following pledge:

p “The undersigned has been informed that Radio Free Europe is a project of the CIA and that the CIA provides funds 19 20 for operation of this organization. The undersigned has now been officially informed. If he divulges this information to a third party, he becomes liable for a fine and punishment not to exceed jf 10,000 and 10 years in prison.”^^8^^

p The US Administration and heads of the CIA did their utmost to let the American people know as little as possible about the work of the Committees and radio centres. But for several articles occasionally published in the press, no research or even descriptive material about Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe was published.

p At that time the United States openly intended to destroy socialism, planning a counter-revolutionary revolt instigated from the outside at the first stage and an armed intervention later, which was in keeping with the strategic doctrine adopted in the first years of government by the Eisenhower Administration. In his study of this subject Joseph Whelan, a specialist in Soviet affairs, wrote with regard to the countries of Eastern Europe that the purpose of the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism and the "radio’s main theme will be liberation...”^^9^^

p In November 1952 a draft policy statement was prepared which determined the policy of all programmes broadcast. It said that the radio would be centred on "implacable struggle against the Communist dictatorship until its complete destruction...”^^10^^

p These principles underlay the content of the radio programmes for a long time at the initial stage. The general policy of "implacable struggle against the Communist dictatorship until its complete destruction" was also incorporated: in the Radio Liberation Memorandum of June 5, 1953; Memorandum 14- 53 of December 10, 1953, and Memorandum 3-54 of January 8, 1954, which replaced the latter. Here is how the aims of Radio Liberation which determined the guidelines of radio programmes were formulated in the Memorandum.

p It stated that Radio Liberation was an organ of anticommunist struggle for the peoples of the Soviet Union and served exclusively the cause of liberating these peoples from Bolshevism.

p The radio station was called upon to carry on effective and prolonged propaganda and pursue the following objectives:

p (a) Convince its listeners in the Soviet Union and Soviet troops stationed abroad that Radio Liberation was their voice, speaking in their interests and in the interests of their country;

p (b) In every way possible weaken the strength and expose 21 the propaganda of the Communist dictatorship in the Soviet Union;

p (c) Work for a .clearer and more consistent expression of the existing discontent—direct the will of its listeners towards the overthrow of Communist dictatorship;

p (d) Instil doubts and discontent among those members of Soviet society who then considered their position satisfactory and supported the existing regime;

p (e) In every way possible help discredit MarxismLeninism-Stalinism as the ideological foundation of the Communist regime...^^11^^

p There is no need to go into detail in studying the text of the Memorandum. One thing is obvious: its authors were attempting to interfere in the internal affairs of another state and directly instigate the Soviet people to resist the bodies of Soviet power. Yet, to give the reader a full idea of RL’s work, let us look at the first item of Section 3 of the Memorandum, outlining the rules to be followed for enhancing the effect of broadcasting. It says, in effect:

p 1. Bearing in mind the fact that Radio Liberation is to convince its listener that it is a Russian (Azerbaijanian, etc.) radio station, serving his interests and the interests of his people, it must avoid anything that might create the impression that it works in the interests of a foreign power.^^12^^ That was how the instrument of “black” (covert) propaganda was put into operation. However, the reader should not take this to mean that Radio Liberty or Radio Free Europe are controlled by emigres from the socialist countries. Joseph Whelan, working at the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, admits that "...RL is clearly a United States Government operation and an integral part of this Nat4on’s foreign policy apparatus.”^^13^^

p With a view to improving the propaganda machinery, President Truman in 1951 set up at the highest level the Psychological Strategy Board, which included the Deputy Secretary of State, Deputy Secretary of Defense and CIA Director. Later this Board became the Psychological Operations Coordinating Committee. In the same year the Mutual Security Act 165 was passed. It incorporated the Kersten Amendment, stipulating annual allocations to the tune of 100 million dollars from the US budget for financing "any selected persons who are residing in or escapees from the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary... either to form such persons into elements of the military forces 22 supporting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or for other purposes..." This Act enabled the US special services to make extensive use of emigres for subversive operations against the USSR and other socialist countries.

p In organizing subversive propaganda against the USSR and other socialist countries, the US special services, particularly the CIA, tried to gain the support of the various groups of people who fled their countries to the West. "Radio Liberty," wrote Senator J. W. Fulbright, "focused upon the Soviet Union, Radio Free Europe upon the Eastern European satellites. Each radio presented itself as a spontaneous creation, run by freedom-loving refugees financed by dimes from free-world schoolchildren. Secretly, each was the organizational and financial instrument of the CIA, staffed by expatriates who sought the overthrow of Soviet rule.”^^14^^ The magazine Counter-Spy was even more specific in its definition of the employees of these cold war radio stations:

p “The CIA smuggled dozens of Eastern European Nazi collaborators into the United States to work for Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and the Voice of America, as well as the Pentagon. Some of the Nazis brought in were responsible for the killing of thousands of Jews and had been leading Eastern European fascist organizations which collaborated with the Nazis.”^^15^^

p People like Yaroslav Stetsko, leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), readily rallied under the banner of the cold war raised by the White House. When the Nazis occupied the Ukraine, Stetsko proclaimed a OUN government in Lvov, and after the war he founded the Anti-Bolshevik Alliance of Peoples. Rallying round the banner were also other nationalists who had collaborated with the Nazis, now united into the Alliance of Russian Solidarists, as well as the Yugoslavian, Hungarian and other emigre organizations which linked themselves closely with Western special services. By the mid-1950s all these anti-socialist forces were concentrated around the CIA’s propaganda and espionage centres—Radio Liberation and Radio Free Europe.

p In an effort to conceal its actual affiliation with the state and its links with the CIA, Radio Liberation beamed its broadcasts on behalf of Russian and other emigres and employed them on the editorial and service staff. The advantages of this approach were given particular emphasis by Director of Radio Liberation Richard Bertrandias in his Memorandum of April 28, 1957, to a member of the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism. Bertrandias noted that the idea of 23 cooperation between the emigres and the Americans carried into effect by the American Committee had several advantages over the work of official government radio stations and those which had no emigres on their staffs. He wrote that the RL broadcasts were credible, and the possibility of attaining the highest level of credibility depended on whether RL would be able:

p (a) to speak on behalf of the compatriots showing sincere concern for their homeland;

p (b) to avoid expressing views identical to those of a foreign (in this case, US) government; and

p (c) to pursue a policy not fully coinciding with the foreign policy of any government.

p Such “free”, “independent” committees as the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism and the National Committee for a Free Europe and their radios opened up a wide field of activity for the US intelligence agencies. The CIA used Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberation as a cover not only for waging psychological war against the East European countries but also for carrying out “special” operations.

p In 1973 the Presidential Study Commission on International Broadcasting headed by Milton Eisenhower published a report entitled "The Right to Know", stating in particular that "...the cost of the radios cannot be considered separately from our nation’s total cost of working for peace and deterring aggression. Over a long period of years, the contribution can obviate military expenditures many times greater than the broadcasting costs. Contrariwise, elimination of the radios could lead over time to increased military costs.”^^16^^

p In fact, the situation is altogether different in the United States. Both military expenditure and broadcasting costs are growing very rapidly.

p The Washington Post (August 8, 1973) carried an article by Senator William Fulbright, entitled "US Funding of ’Freedom Radio’", which said in particular:

p “Two decades later, international conditions—and our own attitudes—had changed dramatically. On both sides, ideology had waned, and power had stabilized. Gone in the process was our belief that we could shape the world, and fading too was our compulsive fear that someone else might. Continuing unabated, however, were the ‘freedom’ broadcasts—which by then had cost unknowing American taxpayers nearly one-half billion dollars...”

p Senator Fulbright went on to say that, apart from their secret financing, these radios "... criticize the domestic life and 24 policies of the Communist countries to which they broadcast... But seen in context, the paramount question still stands: Is this interference in Communist societies within the legitimate range of American foreign policy? In answer, one need only ask a further question: Which kinds of interference by other countries in our affairs do we find legitimate?...

p “We have, of course, no monopoly on ‘truth’. But if we wish to tell our story, let us now rely on other tools—on our overseas libraries and information centres, on expanding programmes of cultural and educational exchange, on the informative but unprovocative broadcasts of the Voice of America, on growing trade and tourism... But continuing the ’freedom radio’ assault only perpetuates the structure of mutual distrust...”^^17^^

p However, it was the line of the Administration that gained the upper hand.

p “Neither RFE nor RL, of course, could get a dime from Congress if they were not primarily engaged in trying to win friends and influence people in the Russian orbit at the expense on the Communist governments. However desirable this may have been some years ago, does it, on balance, serve the best interests of the United States...?”^^18^^

p In 1973 a Board for International Broadcasting was 25 established. In accordance with Public Law 93-129 passed in 1973, the Board was set up to consider and evaluate the aims and operation of RFE/RL radio corporation (in 1976 RFE and RL merged to form a single corporation) and "to assess the quality, effectiveness and professional integrity of its broadcasting within the context of the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States"^^19^^. The main purpose of the Board was to serve as a cover for RFE/RL, thus making it possible for the Congress to finance them openly (not through the CIA as was previously the case) as well as to pacify the public by presenting these subversive radio stations as a “new” organization with “new” functions which allegedly had no links with the CIA. The Board was in charge of allocations and acted as go-between for the radio corporation and the US legislative and executive bodies.

p On February 23,1942, broadcaster William Hale went up to a large graphite microphone and said, articulating every word distinctly: "The Voice of America speaks. Today America has been at war for seventy-nine days. Daily at this time we shall speak to you about America and the war. The news,may be good or bad. We shall tell you the truth.”^^20^^ Since then the Voice of America has continued to broadcast, turning during the cold war period into an instrument of the US Information Agency of which it has been a component part since the Agency was first founded. By 1946 the Voice of America had 36 transmitters and broadcast in 25 languages.

p During the election campaign of 1952 the Republicans’ Presidential candidate, Dwight D. Eisenhower, stated that the United States could not "win the struggle for men’s minds merely by tripling Congressional appropriations"^^21^^ for international information. When elected, Eisenhower promised in his first State of the Union Message to "make more effective all activities related to international information" because they were "essential to the security of the United States".^^22^^

p Immediately after his re-election to the Senate Joseph McCarthy became chairman of the Permanent Committee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. He began to specify the activities of the International Information Administration (HA), the USIA’s predecessor, and accused it of "pro-Communist tendencies". IIA Policy Order 5, issued only two weeks after Eisenhower’s coming to power, warned against using the works of liberal writers. On the instructions of John Foster Dulles, the new Secretary of State, a new IIA directive was issued with regard to the Voice of America. The directive ordered that "no material 26 27 by any controversial persons, Communists, fellow travellers, etc., will be used under any circumstances"^^23^^.

p A few days before the directive was issued, McCarthy opened his committee’s televised hearings on the Voice of America. Charging "gross mismanagement" of the VOA, McCarthy said that it "could not be merely the result of incompetence or stupidity", but must be deliberate and therefore Communist-inspired.

p Leonard Erikson, head of the VOA, was a believer in the "hard sell" and argued for a distinction "between broadcasts to Iron Curtain listeners, who have a strong emotional need for a hard-hitting anti-Communist message, and broadcasts to Free World listeners who tend to be hypersensitive to a propagandistic approach"^^24^^. In East European broadcasts, Erikson believed, the primary emphasis had to be on force and directness. It was this persistence on a "hard-hitting antiCommunist message" that for years damaged the credibility of VOA broadcasts as far as Western audiences were concerned. In particular, this fact was mentioned by Thomas Sorensen, a propaganda expert who studied the work of the VOA.

p During the same period, on Secretary of State John Dulles’s recommendation, the President prepared Congress Reorganization Plan 8 stipulating the establishment of the US Information Agency that would serve as the US Administration’s "fourth arm" (psychological—in addition to diplomatic, economic and military). The USIA began its work on August 1, 1953.

p By 1954 the USIA had considerably intensified the gathering and analysis of intelligence and set up its own Office of Policy and Research. In 1955 it was incorporated into the Psychological Operations Coordinating Committee set up by the President. Its director was to attend the National Security Council sessions as an observer and met the President once a month.

p The USIA waged its psychological war with even greater intensity under the Administrations of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. At that time the agency was particularly active in coordinating its efforts with the Department of Psychological Warfare at the Defense Department since the United States was very much tied up with the unpopular war in Vietnam and was regarded throughout the world as an aggressor.

p At the height of the cold war the VOA put into operation the world’s biggest, 4,800 kW, transmitter in Greenville, North Carolina, doubling the power of its short-wave transmissions.

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p Since the time of the cold war VOA broadcasts have been of a definitely propagandist and biased nature. In other words, they have served the aims of psychological warfare. At the same time, in a bid to win its listeners’ confidence, the VOA has steadily stressed its objectivity and breadth with regard to news coverage. From a VOA point of view, "it is more important to be credible than truthful"^^25^^. Although truth is not always believed, says US expert Robert Elder, it was used by the VOA, if it was on "our side". In other words, VOA news coverage always reflects United States government policy.^^26^^

p The Office of Policy and Research, which has defined and continues to define the VGA’s political line, apparently thinks of VOA news in terms of: "Is this in the American interest? If it is, play it up. If not, play it down.”^^27^^

p Regarding the “objectivity” of VOA broadcasts, researchers and others concerned with US broadcasting stress that VOA strives to be credible rather than objective, holding that what is considered objective depends on the level of the listener’s perception.^^28^^ The real political content, of course, can be found in the so-called “back-half” of the programme, in the commentary.^^29^^ The VOA has continued English-language broadcasts to many areas of the world, including East European countries, since, in the view of those repsonsible for US propaganda, among them former USIA Director Allen, local-language broadcasts lacked credibility because "listeners knew that the broadcasts were especially prepared for them"^^30^^.

p As has been noted by Thomas Sorensen, in the early years of the cpld war the VOA was more interested in polemics than persuasion and its workers were engaged in preparing " hardhitting, anti-Communist" broadcasts^^31^^ because most of the VGA’s foreign employees were emigres from Eastern Europe. Later the VOA’s employees began to adhere to the formula which had initially been laid down by President Eisenhower: "The Voice of America should ... employ truth as a weapon in support of Free World objectives, but it had no mandate or license to seek evidence of lack of domestic support of America’s foreign policies and actions.”^^32^^

p Such statements only gave added strength to the objections of many propaganda experts to the use of the VOA as the government’s mouthpiece. In late 1960, following heated debates that had been going on for many years, the then USIA Director George Allen signed the so-called Charter of the VOA, which was not approved either by the President or by the US Congress until mid-1976. The Charter briefly formulated the 29 three following principles: 1. VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive; 2. VOA will present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions; 3. VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively.^^33^^

p One does not have to be a great authority on propaganda issues to understand that the Charter, though being a compromise, was called upon to encourage those who believed that VOA broadcasts should glorify the United States and help implement US foreign policy. The provisions of the Charter could be used as a cover in any eventuality. It should also be added that the credibility of VOA information and the tone that it adopted were at all times subject to the interest of the policies of the US Administration. As Robert Elder noted:

p “The tone of the Voice and its credibility may fluctuate over time, depending upon the nature of the policies of the United States government or the demands placed on the Voice as a policy tool. It was strident and harsh in its handling of Soviet Union and East European affairs ... during the McCarthy era and the peak of the Cold War.”^^34^^

p Presidents Kennedy and Johnson "wanted the truth in context; it is no more honest to emphasize the ’blemishes and warts’ than it is to pretend they do not exist—and it is certainly not good propaganda.”^^36^^ The USIA director under the Johnson Administration, Carl Rowan, once noted that the best propaganda is the wisest dispensing of the truth.^^36^^

p The "best propaganda" disseminated by the VOA has resulted in a wave of criticism in all countries to which it has broadcast and especially, of course, in East European countries, where VOA propaganda has been the most crude. Here are some comments from Newsweek (June 1968) about the VOA broadcasts which had irritated Europeans with their emphasis on the American way of life. "You Americans," wrote one Hungarian listener, "have a tendency in your VOA of indirectly tell ing usthat life inyourcountryandthe ideals of your nation are superior and the best in the world.”

p Also damaging to the VOA was the United States’ involvement in Vietnam. "The United States is so deeply tied up with the war," wrote another listener, "that we do not believe you can afford to be objective.”^^37^^

VOA executives were constantly complaining that the governments of several countries whose populations were being subjected to massive propaganda were beginning to jam official and unofficial US radio stations. However, in the autumn

30 of 1970 the United States resumed after a five-year period to jam Radio Moscow.

p The VGA resumed broadcasting on a frequency of 173 kilohertz which had been allocated to Radio Moscow, regenerating the war on the air. The VGA’s administrators attempted to justify their actions by a desire to reduce the number of Radio Moscow’s listeners abroad. This decision was taken on the instructions of Frank Shakespeare, USIA Director, which meant that the people in some regions in Eastern Europe, who had normally received Radio Moscow broadcasts, could no longer do so. Many specialists believed that the use of a frequency allocated to someone else undermined the world system of frequency allocation.

p The aggressive attitude taken by the US ruling circles under the Carter Administration with regard to the USSR and East European countries meant that the VGA was returning to the former position it had adopted during the cold war. Although the USSR had long since stopped jamming the VGA’s broadcasts, the latter were so provocative and aggressive that the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Malcolm Toon, complained to Washington about them. His complaint, however, was not favourably received by the Carter Administration, and Zbignew Brzezinski, who was the President’s National Security Adviser, stated that they intended to ascertain aspects that were most painful for the Soviets.

p At the same time, one fact which had been carefully kept secret by the US Administration leaked out. It became known that many former RL and RFE employees, who had soiled themselves by collaborating with the Nazis or committing crimes in their own countries, were working for the Voice of America. This fact refuted the US Administration’s allegation that there were no links between the VGA and RFE/RL or between their employees. As President of the American Federation of Government Employees Bruce N. Gregory stated, "Approximately fifty of these former Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty employees are now working at the Voice of America.”^^38^^

p “A major task for America’s information programme has always been propaganda aimed at the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries through the Voice of America radio and various publications...

p “The USIA, in its early years, was an ideological weapon of the Cold War and was molded by those battles into a singlemindedly anti-Communist agency. Its propaganda was largely 31 32 directed at the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries.”^^39^^

p The USIA stepped up its anti-Soviet and anti-Communist activities especially after the appointment of President Reagan’s close friend and associate Charles Z. Wick to the post of USIA Director in 1981. His appointment resulted in a number of important changes in the work of the agency. With every passing day the USIA has been intensifying its subversive anti-Soviet propaganda. Today it is the most important aspect in the work of the main agency of psychological warfare. The USIA has more than 9,300 employees and implements 44 different propaganda programmes in 129 countries through its 214 information centres and 135 libraries.

p Wick has managed to obtain large funds for his agency. In 1985, the agency received 796.4 million dollars for its activities, and a further 888 million will be allocated to it in 1986. The new Director has fully brought the USIA back to the days of the cold war. As has been noted by a veteran US information officer, "the attitude of everyone in the agency is, ’Here we go again’... ’It’s back to Truman and America First and all the cold-war rhetoric’.”^^40^^

p As mentioned earlier, back in 1981 Charles Wick startled a private foreign-policy group in Washington by announcing, "We are at war /with the Soviets/, whether de facto or declared." Remarked one member of the audience, Patricia Kutzner, executive director of the World Hunger Education Service, "It is as if he had entered a time capsule in the 1950s and just emerged.”^^41^^

p In order to ensure the implementation of this cold war policy, Wick has effected a shake-up of the USIA and VOA, getting rid of employees who, in his view, were insufficiently aggressive and offensive. Eugene Rosenfeld, a former USIA staffer, once told a US magazine correspondent: "Politicization is nothing new in the US government. But Wick has brought it to a peak at USIA. There are 10 times more political appointees in the agency today than normal.”^^42^^ All the important posts are being filled by new people with extremely conservative views. Wick has already removed 60 individuals from high positions and dismissed his three deputies. In May 1985, President Reagan announced the appointment of Marvin L. Stone, former editor of the U.S. News & World Report, noted for his extremely conservative views, to the post of USIA Deputy Director.

p Another Western radio station which is active in the psychological war against the USSR and Eastern European 33 countries is the British Broadcasting Corporation. BBC DirectorGeneral Sir Hugh Greene, a great authority on subversive propaganda, was at the height of the cold war responsible for broadcasting to East European countries. The BBC worked undisguisedly and persistently interfered in the internal affairs of those countries, apparently relying on its image as a champion of democracy. The aggressive nature of the BBC broadcasts was also due to the mistaken belief held by the apologists of psychological warfare that the populations in East European countries were discontented with their social system and striving to restore the old form of government.

p While RFE and RL openly called for an armed revolt, riots and sabotage, the BBC acted more subtly, but still resorting to “grey” and “black” propaganda. It cautiously prompted the directions of activity and the content of slogans used, and raised the potential rebels’ hopes for Western aid in case they had to take up resolute action. As Brigadier-General C. N. Burcly stressed, there was no difference between the extreme forms of propaganda and the light forms of subversion.^^43^^

p The BBC, or to be more precise, those circles which determine its political line, held a negative attitude towards detente. They were especially active in opposing the drift towards the improvement in Soviet-American relations in the 1970s. Alongside attempts to discredit the Soviet economy, the BBC launched an attack on the ideological foundations of the socialist system, reducing all reasoning to one formula: "Democracy and socialism are incompatible." After the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe the BBC launched an assault on the signed agreements and energetically joined the human rights propaganda campaign conducted by the US propaganda radio stations. The opponents of detente coordinated the efforts of the main Western radio stations along NATO lines. For example, during one week in January 1977 they broadcast to East European countries 120 programmes which grossly distorted the actual state of affairs in those countries.

p With every passing year anti-commuriist broadcasts by the BBC are becoming more and more like those of RFE/RL. The BBC avoids advertising its contacts with the Foreign Office, playing the role of an independent organization concerned with disseminating information abroad. In reality the foreign services of the BBC are under the constant control of the Foreign Office. "The Foreign Office has primary responsibility for foreign publicity," writes L. John Martin, "and its 34 information policy department works with the various regional offices to formulate policy and overseas information.”^^44^^ The BBC is very much one of the basic tools in the implementation of British foreign policy.

p The British government has the right to exercise absolute control over the activities of the BBG through the Home and Foreign Offices.^^45^^

In the 1980s the political situation in the world has been marked by the continuing conversion of propaganda, especially radio propaganda, into an important element in the policy of the United States and other NATO countries and the extreme “ideologization” of the present-day policy of the United States, acting as the conductor of the psychological war against the USSR and other socialist countries. Let us now make a detailed examination of the present state of affairs.