TRANSCRIPT OF BROADCAST BY FULTON LEWIS, JR.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090008-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 28, 2013
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: December 26, 1957
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090008-9
FOR OFFICL
LY x
TRANSCRIPT OF BROADCAST
By
Fulton Lewis, Jr.
Station WGMS at 7-7:15 P.M.
26 December 1957
Portions .of this broadcast have been omitted due to the
fact that they did not pertain to the Radio Free Europe opera-
tion or the CIA in any way.
Well, let's get back to our report on Radio Free Europe, which
was interrupted by the Christmas season. The backers of Radio
Free-Europe have a standard defense for every criticism that is
made of their operations and of the type of broadcasts they're
beaming behind the iron curtain: that the Russians are making
tremendous efforts, spending huge sums of money to jam ,those
broadcasts; and the contention is that this proves that the
propaganda is good, that it is the message of freedom as adver-
tised. You've heard this their slogan--"help truth fight Com-
munism."
The fact is, the so-called political exiles who were taken
into the Free Europe organization to run it--and in many cases,
such is the case of Ferdinand Perutka, which I cited to you Mon-
day evening,are still running,it?were exiled because they wanted
to control the governments in question in the interest of their
own brand of national Communism and got deposed by the Russian
puppets at the hands of the Russian occupying armies and thus fled
their respective countries. For instance, to go back to Perutka,
? one of his most renown statements is the following, and this is,a
direct quote: "Capitalism means anarchy in production and con-
sumption. The legitimate place of the intelligentsia is on the
side of the economic plan. Neither democracy nor intelligentsia
must link their fate with capitalism. For too long a time has
the intelligentsia been serving capitalism, whose characteristic
feature is that it is not quite intelligent." And this,you must
remember, is the man who since May Day of 1951 has been in com?
-
plete charge of the Czechoslovakian operations of Radio Free
Europe
And here's another quote from him: "In 1917 they began a
new epoch of mankind. Every day we recognize that the Russian
revolution passes the borders of a state. It is a world-wide
philosophy for which one can fight in every part-of the earth."
And this: "We have often told ourselves that in our country,"
meaning Czechoslovakia, "there is only one possible evolution
toward socialism. Did we contribute by our deeds to this evolu-
tion or did we oppose it? If we are working for abetter future
rc D inrAiiiv
Declassified and Approved For Release ? 50-Yr 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090008-9
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and are willing to lay the foundation of socialism, which one
day will be accepted by the whole world, then we should act in
a manner enabling us to say one day with pride: "I took part,
I helped in this achievement."
Now these are the man's own statements and by them its possible
to get a very much clearer idea of what he stands for than by any
press agent claims by some self-defending employees of the organ-
ization that hires Mr. Perutka, puts him in charge of the propa-
ganda to the iron curtain countries, and who want to hold their
jobs that they now hold over him. And I think ladies and gentle-
men that you can decide as well as I can whether this man is dedi-
cated to the ideals and doctrines of the free world, the story of
which he is supposed to bespeak, or whether in fact he is a dedi-
cated socialist who was a collaborator with the' Russians as long
as they let him be a collaborator.
The fact is Mr. Perutka is using Radio Free Europe to promote
the same partisan, political ideology that he was promoting when
the Russians threw him out of the country and put their own quis-
lings into power. Mr. Perutka has much to say about his friend-
ship with Eduard Benes, who was in power when the Russians took
over. The fact is that Benes himself was an out-and-out collabo-
rator with the Russians and, in the role of head of the free
Czechoslovakian government in exile, made a treaty of friendship
and cooperation with Moscow in 1943 while the war was still going
on despite the strenuous disapproval of Britain's Prime Minister
Winston Churchill.
It was Benes, who compromised time and again with the Russian
Communists after the war; it was Benes, who nationalized the great
Czechoslovakian industries; it was Benes, who personally issued
an amnesty proclamation which freed political prisoners, and he
did so at the demand of the Russian Communists themselves. And
this is the man whom the backers of Radio Free Europe present as
the character witness for their Mr. Ferdinand Perutka.
There are others in the organization with virtually identical
backgrounds and I'll present them and their statements from time
to time in the future.
For the moment, however, I want to turn momentarily to one
of the affiliated organizations of Radio Free Europe: the balloon
propaganda program for transmission of propaganda leaflets to Com-
munist populations. This is operated by a young man named Samuel
S. Walker, Jr., whose grandfather was prominent in the National
City Bank of New York. He's a Yale man with an Ivy League atmos-
phere and a Brooks Brothers appearance, a very smooth personality,
31 years old. He was editor of the Yale Daily News, and there is
quite a clique of similar young Ivy Leaguers in thetop councils
of the Free Europe operation generally.
-2
&YID nrEurn A I 1!Q' V
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I've had two interviews with Mr. Walker about that balloon
propaganda program, which was officially ordered out of existence
on December 3, 1956, and one would suppose that under such orders
the operation would be closed down by this time. On the contrary,
it has not been. Mr. Walker's side of the outfit has made some
reduction in personnel, but it has busied itself about finding
other fields of operation to justify its continued existence
and, as of the last official reports, it still had approximately
135 people on the present payroll.
Mr. Walker's new idea is the so-called Asian contacts pro-
gram in which he has sent a number of individuals to Asiatic
countries, the Middle East, and Far East, with salaries, with ex-
pense accounts, per diem allowances, to show a moving picture en-
titled "Hungary Aflame," which is a sort of documentary of the
Hungarian revolution of October 1956. Just what this has to do
with sending the message of freedom to the captive people behind
the iron curtain, I fail to understand. This, quite to the con-
trary, is the process of propagandizing the people of our free
outside world--but Mr. Walker has his own ideas on this score.
The important angle is, the people whom he sent on these mis-
sions, ?and one of them is one Imre Kovacs, one-time leader of the
National Peasant party in postwar Russian-occupied Hungary. His
party never commanded much of a following among the people and
his critics charged that it was operating chiefly for the pur-
pose of splitting the small Peasants party, which was anti-Com-
munist and anti-Socialist. Be that as it may, Mr. Kovacs was a
collaborator with the Communists and,as of the last check I
made several weeks ago, was still not a naturalized citizen of
the United States. Whether he is at the present time or not, I
am not attempting to say because since I began investigating this
Free Europe operation a lot of things have happened inside of it
very quickly.
In any event, let me present to you some quotes from this
man who is traveling the world as the official emissary of the
Free Europe committee of the United States of American showing
the picture and delivering a lecture along with it. Perhaps in
as much as he is representing the United States, you, as an Amer-
ican, might be interested in seeing what he thinks of us. Well,
here is a direct quote: "The average American mentality does not
understand the geographical divisions in Europe. The mechanical
style and wording of their newspapers, the general use of plati-
tudes, the Coca Cola and chewing gum--which if you are lucky is
not spat into your face but onto the seats of the buses of the
subways, and when you get home you can hardly scrape it off your
clothes or your shoes--are all inexorable and ruthless signs
-3-
FUR INF ()NLY
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and elements of a modern civilization which has reached its
climax in Americanism. Ideologically, America is unprepared.
It can hardly be taken into consideration as an opponent of
Bolshevism. America stands firmly against Bolshevism, but it
knows not what to offer in its place."
That is Imre Kovacs, whose missionary work over the free
world in behalf of Free Europe and as 3 representative of the
United States, you are being called upon to support with, your
truth dollars..
pnr? npFtri A t HU' MI/ V
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