BEHIND THE SCENES OF RADIO FREE EUROPE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100020109-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 22, 1998
• Sequence Number: 109
• Publication Date: January 20, 1970
• Content Type: NSPR

Behind the Scenes of
CPYRGHT
New Times FOIAb3b P.
20 January 1970 c.
Approved For Release 2000/06/13 : CIA-RDP7j?6WQQ1,R9fQ,j1Qq,
ale Free Europe
EDITOR'S NOTE: Imperialism's subversive ideological operations against the
socialist countries are the subject of a documentary study recently published in
Paris by the French publicist Alain Guerin. Below we publish some interesting ex-
corpts from this book, entitled "The Commandos of the Cold War," including the
chapter on Radio Free Europe, whose 28 stations daily poison the air with malici-
ous and slanderous propaganda against Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Rumania and
Czechoslovakia, They also conduct similarly base propaganda against the U.S.S.R:
Who runs these radio stations and what aims do they serve? Alain Guerin presents
a clear and objective answer.
. .THE intricate propaganda machine
called Free Europe has many
cogs and wheels. Located in the Brien-
ner Strasse in Munich is a branch of the
Free Europe Committee that maintains
contact with emigrants. In New York's
\Vest 57th Street is the Free Europe
Committee Publications. Branches of the
organization are to be found in certain
of the capitals and big cities of Western
Europe. For instance, a commercial firm
going by the name of Russell J. Hall has
its offices in the Dindengasse, in Vienna.
Judging from a CTK news agency?report
i of March 4, 1958, this firm is a cover
fora Free Europe office directed. by an
American citizen named Gedye. And in
Robertsau, a suburb of Strasbourg, there
is a Free Europe College, - a private
establishment at which notables of the
Western Powers have given lectures.
Even this brief:list gives an idea?of the
multiplicity and variety '.of bodies.at
present existing under the general name
of "Free Europe."
W17hat, then, ? is Free Europe? Let us
try to make It -out, To start with; let us
turn-to recent history.
Twenty Years Ago
On-June 1, 1949, there was founded in
New York the National Committee of
a Free Europe, which soon changed Its
name to Free Europe Committee Incor-
porated. Its first president was Joseph
K. Grew, U.S. ex-ambassador to Japan,
mole its members were such American
director of the CIA (lie later became
president of the Committee's executive
bureau); ex-ambassador Arthur Bliss
Lane (earlier held diplomatic posts in
RI;a and in Warsaw); former Assistant
ecretary of State Adolf Berle; Dewitt
C. Poole, formerly a departmental chief
In the OSS (the predecessor of the CIA);
Lawrence Giannini, president of the
Bank of America; Arthur Page, an
officer of the Chase National Bank (the
Rockefeller group); Frank Altschul,
the cold war, 25X1
CPYRiW'and Me
A book called "The Sec
of the American intelligence service and
spent nearly four years with it, working .
i In, liaison with a similar British organi-.
-nation.... After the war I also belonged
to a propaganda organization known as
Radio Free Europe, where I headed a
secret 'Bureau'X' for fighting commun-.
How did the,Free Europe. Committee ism behind the Iron Curtain."
define Its aims? One of its New York Farago writes that Radio Free Europe,.
publications, dated February ]951, stated is a whole network of radio stations'
F
e
f
o
re
a
mmittee o
that the National C
maintained by private funds tinder the
Europe was a rivateed itself organ?- administration of the Free Europe Com?
nation which concerned itself with the
countries'of Eastern Europe and that Its 1 mittee. The stations address clarion calls
o1L' ivitics embraced Radio Free Europe,; to the countries of Eastern and South-
the Mid-European Studies Centro of eastern Europe (Poland, Czechoslovakia,
NuW?York and the Crusade for Freedom, I Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria and Alba-
ditected by General Lucius D: Clay. nia). The aim of the broadcasts is to
combat "Red propaganda" within those
Since its;foundalfon in.1949:its prim- countries and offer a platform to politic-
cry:object?has been to recruit persons al defectors, ?
prominent in East European. emigrant In his sensational book "The Secret
circles. and..of bourgeois-democratic War," the American journalist Sanche
prepared the.?ground.for- close collabor-
ation with. such emigrants.' The object
was not only to unite the political'"l.ead-
ers of the emigrants in the full sense
i of the word but Ihroui;h t)irm to attract
well-known persom Ii Lies of the Intel-
lectual and art worlds. B%rinning with
1950, contacts with emigrants from East-
ern Europe were built up not only with-.
-In the framework of Radio Free Europe
but In other of the Committee's field of
activities. That was the rase 20 years
de Gramont, describing Radio Free
Europe as occupying a group of build-
ings in the Englischer Garten in ,the
centre of Munich, writes that with its
annual budget of $11 million, made up
of voluntary contributions by big corpo-
rations like ESSO, Ford or General Mo-
tors, and with its staff of 1,300 in
Munich alone, Radio Free Europe is as
important as certain government radio
stations,
The same author relates this inci-
dent. In the summer of 1959 the U.S.
Ambassador in Warsaw, Jacob Beam,
At a Free Europe conference in Wil.. requested the State Department to
liamsburg, U.S.A., in 195:1 the so-called have Radio Free Europe' cease..., its
"Williamsburg Declaration" was adopted. ' broadcasts to Poland on the grounds
The participants in this ally vowed to that ,they were interfering with his
work for the overthrow of the commun- work. I-Io explained that since he
Ist system in the countries of Eastern ' could not control the station's propa-
Europe with the flim of establishing in- Banda broadcasts he often found him
c stead political regimes patterned after self at variance with their "line." He
ears gave it to be understood that his re-
les Sixteen
t of the United St
th
y
a
o
-, since then. Though the . lotions with high Polish officials would
have passed
"liberation" - tactic has now been re- be `less strained and more useful if
placed by an "eroding" tactic, the aims Radio Free Europe did not trespass
of Free Europe and its rsl::on d'tUa have on his territory. Secretary of State'
...,.Y,.,,n?t on this
not changes. its organizetionai macnine
continues to follow the track set for it
in 1949.
was that lie had deep respect for and
every confidence in the ambassador
but nevertheless valued the efficacy
In the twenty years of its existence and necessity of the work performed
Free Europe has achieved a high des;rea by Radio Free Europe.
of specialization in many fields of pro- ? In 1960 a Rumanian anti-communist
paganda but to this (lay its radio st?tian emigrant spublished a book in Paris ?
remains Its core and Its symbol, its big- under the pen name Severin, in which
gest achievement. Its numerous broad- he wrote the following about Free
casts beamed to different countries and Europe;
Europe); Generals Lucius D. flay and its system of communications, consider- "This organization maintains a whole
Dwight D. A v'ede!Fd irRdl . ~lsitiyaN13t! 7.5 m 1 UatArol t G~ t;SZifB J`ase #1 r
_ _ Ills ?t t r n oo ' llUer}
Harold` Miller.....